The transition to renewables risks replicating the injustices of the fossil fuel era
In late April, Colombia convened the world's first summit dedicated solely to exiting fossil fuels — a gathering that revealed, with uncomfortable clarity, how far humanity's intentions outpace its institutions. The financing to power a global energy transition does not yet exist at the scale required, geopolitical turbulence is rewarding the very habits the summit sought to end, and Indigenous communities are warning that the green future being promised may be built on the same dispossessions as the extractive past. The summit produced no binding agreements, but it produced something perhaps more durable: an honest accounting of the contradictions the world must resolve before progress becomes possible.
- The first-ever global fossil fuel exit summit convened in Colombia, but within days it exposed a yawning gap between political ambition and the financial architecture needed to make the energy transition real.
- Conflict involving Iran tightened oil supplies and drove prices upward just as delegates gathered, creating a perverse incentive for even climate-conscious nations to eye new drilling rather than accelerate their departure from carbon.
- Developing nations — those bearing the heaviest climate burdens while contributing least to the crisis — arrived without the capital to build renewable infrastructure, and wealthy nations' long-standing pledges of support remained far short of what analysts say is necessary.
- Indigenous leaders sounded an urgent alarm: clean energy projects — solar farms, wind installations, hydroelectric dams, battery mineral mines — were already displacing communities and destroying ancestral ecosystems under the banner of sustainability.
- Delegates departed without binding commitments on financing or Indigenous rights protections, leaving the summit's legacy as a sharper diagnosis of the problem rather than the beginning of its cure.
Colombia convened the first global summit dedicated entirely to moving away from fossil fuels in late April, an unprecedented gathering designed to break the gridlock that has long paralyzed United Nations climate negotiations. But within days, the conference exposed a chasm that diplomatic language could not bridge: the world simply lacks the financing infrastructure to make the energy transition happen at scale.
The timing made matters worse. As delegates discussed phasing out coal, oil, and gas, geopolitical upheaval was pushing energy prices upward. The conflict involving Iran had tightened global oil supplies, making fossil fuels suddenly more profitable — and creating a perverse dynamic in which market forces rewarded the very habits the summit sought to end. Some nations with strong environmental credentials found themselves eyeing new drilling opportunities rather than divesting from them.
The financing question loomed over everything. Transitioning a global economy away from two centuries of carbon-based energy requires capital at a scale that existing mechanisms have never approached. Developing nations, which bear the heaviest burden of climate impacts while contributing least to the problem, lack the resources to build renewable infrastructure while managing debt and basic services. Wealthy nations have pledged support repeatedly; the money actually flowing has fallen far short.
A second tension threatened to derail progress entirely. Indigenous leaders raised an alarm that had been building for years: the rush toward clean energy was being used as cover for resource extraction on tribal lands. Solar farms, wind installations, hydroelectric dams, and mining operations for battery materials were displacing communities and destroying ecosystems those communities had stewarded for generations. The promise of a green future, they warned, was being constructed on the same colonial logic that had always treated Indigenous territories as available for exploitation — a pattern already lived by communities across Latin America, Africa, and Asia.
Delegates left Colombia without binding agreements on financing or Indigenous rights protections. The summit had succeeded in focusing global attention on the fossil fuel exit, but it had also laid bare the contradictions embedded in that project: nations wanting credit for climate commitment without commensurate resources, and the most vulnerable communities being asked to sacrifice their land in the name of saving the planet. What Colombia made clear is that the energy transition demands not just renewable infrastructure, but a fundamentally different political and financial architecture — one that does not simply redress the fossil fuel era's injustices in the language of sustainability.
Colombia convened the first global summit dedicated entirely to moving away from fossil fuels in late April, an unprecedented gathering meant to break the gridlock that has paralyzed climate negotiations at the United Nations level. The conference brought together nations ostensibly committed to the energy transition, but within days the gathering exposed a chasm that no amount of diplomatic language could bridge: the world lacks the financing infrastructure to actually make the shift happen at scale.
The timing could not have been more fraught. As delegates gathered to discuss phasing out coal, oil, and gas, geopolitical upheaval was pushing energy prices upward. The conflict involving Iran had tightened global oil supplies, making fossil fuels suddenly more valuable and more profitable. This created a perverse dynamic: precisely when the world needed to accelerate its move away from carbon-based energy, market forces were rewarding the opposite. Some of the world's nations with the strongest environmental credentials found themselves eyeing new drilling opportunities, seeing the price spike as a chance to capitalize rather than a moment to divest.
The financing question loomed largest. Transitioning an entire global economy away from the energy sources that have powered it for two centuries requires capital at a scale that existing mechanisms have never approached. Developing nations, which bear the heaviest burden of climate impacts despite contributing least to the problem, lack the resources to build renewable infrastructure while simultaneously managing debt and basic services. Wealthy nations have pledged support repeatedly, but the actual money flowing has fallen far short of what analysts say is necessary. Colombia's summit made this gap impossible to ignore.
But the conference surfaced another tension that threatened to derail progress entirely. Indigenous leaders and their allies raised an alarm that had been building for years: the rush to develop clean energy was being used as cover for resource extraction on tribal lands. Solar farms, wind installations, hydroelectric dams, and mining operations for battery materials were all being justified as necessary for the energy transition. Yet these projects were displacing Indigenous communities and destroying ecosystems that those communities had stewarded for generations. The promise of a green future, in other words, was being built on the same colonial logic that had always treated Indigenous territories as available for exploitation.
The warning was not abstract. Communities across Latin America, Africa, and Asia had already experienced this dynamic. Land designated for clean energy projects, or for the mineral extraction that clean energy requires, meant Indigenous peoples losing access to ancestral territory. The transition to renewables, if pursued without fundamental changes to how decisions are made and who benefits, threatened to replicate the injustices of the fossil fuel era rather than transcend them.
Delegates left Colombia without a binding agreement on financing mechanisms or on protecting Indigenous rights within the transition framework. The summit had succeeded in its primary goal of focusing global attention on the fossil fuel exit, but it had also laid bare the contradictions embedded in that project. Nations wanted to appear committed to climate action while maintaining energy security and economic growth. Wealthy countries wanted credit for supporting the transition without committing resources at the level required. And the communities most vulnerable to both climate change and the botched response to it were being asked to sacrifice their land in the name of saving the planet.
What emerges from Colombia is a clearer picture of the work ahead: not just the technical challenge of building renewable infrastructure, but the political and financial architecture required to make that transition equitable. Without solving those problems, the energy transition risks becoming another chapter in a long history of development imposed on the Global South by the Global North, dressed up in the language of sustainability.
Citas Notables
Clean energy switch must not be excuse to plunder Indigenous lands— Indigenous leaders at the summit
La Conversación del Hearth Otra perspectiva de la historia
Why did Colombia specifically call this summit now, rather than waiting for the next U.N. climate conference?
Because the U.N. process has stalled. Countries have been negotiating climate action for decades without producing binding agreements on phasing out fossil fuels. Colombia decided to create a space where that specific conversation—the exit from oil, coal, and gas—could be the only conversation.
And it worked?
It exposed the problem rather than solved it. By bringing everyone together to talk about the transition, they made visible what was always true: we don't have the money, and we don't have agreement on who pays.
The Iran situation seems like terrible timing.
It's worse than bad timing. It's a direct contradiction. Oil prices spike, and suddenly countries that should be divesting are looking at new drilling as a windfall. The market is working against the stated goal.
What about the Indigenous land issue? That seems separate from the financing problem.
It's not separate at all. It's what happens when you try to solve a global problem without changing the power structure. Clean energy projects need land and minerals. If you don't fundamentally shift who decides how that land is used, you end up displacing the same communities that have always been displaced.
So the summit failed?
It failed to produce agreements, yes. But it succeeded in making the real obstacles visible. That's sometimes more valuable than a false consensus.