Source: French to English Tester Published on: 2026-05-07
Source: The Conversation – France (in French)– By Jean-Baptiste Meyer, Research Director (Center for Population and Development), Institute of Research for Development (IRD)
What if climate diplomacy were reinvented outside the traditional COP format? In Colombia, on the occasion of a conference held in Santa Marta from April 24 to 29, 2026, an alternative dynamic has emerged: more open, it seeks to overcome multilateral deadlocks by placing the diversity of knowledge at the heart of decisions.
If there is one observation on which both the “climate change deniers” and the radical climate activists agree, it is the uselessness of the COPs, organized under the aegis of the United Nations (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, UNFCCC in English acronym). In both cases, they are criticized for an increasing ineffectiveness, where decisions are necessarily made by consensus. As a result, the consensus becomes so weakthat it no longer expresses anything significant or operational.
This is how the trailer summarizes a documentary film to be released during the summer of 2026, in partnership with the Institute of Research for Development (IRD) and the National University of Colombia.
From April 24 to 29, 2026 in Santa Marta, Colombia, an unprecedented conference aimed to finally put the phase-out of fossil fuels back at the heart of the international agenda. Co-organized by Colombia and the Netherlands, it brought together57 voluntary States(and the European Union as such, ed.).
What was decided on that occasion? Contrary to the climate COPs, where it is above all thefinal texts that matter, weighed word for word, because they are voted on by representatives of States, it is here above all the working method that differs, much less rigid. It was not accompanied by any particular production obligation, except to initiate the process of drafting a roadmap for the phasing out of fossil fuels. The meeting thus inaugurated new modalities of global cooperation on socio-environmental issues.
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The debate on the paralysis of multilateral negotiations in general – and that ofClimate COP in particular – is hardly new. Their annual repetition exacerbates the frustrations of those who genuinely want to make progress on climate issues.
At theCOP30 of Belém, in November 2025, about forty countries had expressed their dissatisfaction with the absence of any mention of phasing out fossil fuels in the final declaration. More than 80 joined the initiative encouraging the continuation of work to develop a roadmap in this regard.
Colombia and the Netherlands then invited the countries that wished to work on this point to meet at a conference on the sidelines of the COPs. In other words, the Santa Marta conference certainly was not held within the UN framework, but nevertheless was part of the continuation of the previous climate COP.
Prepared in an exceptionally short period of time (less than half a year, compared to one year for climate COPs), this unprecedented conference had a less structured organizational setup. According to observers and participants, there was a somewhat messy aspect: more improvisation, and sometimes even a lack of clarity about the expected deliverables and the next steps.
However, these weaknesses – inherent in the format of the ad hoc conference, a milestone between COP30 in Brazil and COP31 in Turkey – have, according to participants, been able to be overcome, notably thanks to its voluntary nature. Juan Carlos Monterrey Gómez, Panama’s climate envoy, quoted in theClimate Diplomacy Brief, has for example declared:
“Santa Marta is a historic moment, because it is the first time we can open our hearts, open our minds, and have a genuine conversation without those stupid requests for a vote, without those stupid procedures that derail the entire session and leave us only ten minutes to address the substance.”
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The Santa Marta method? A breeding ground rather than blue and green zones
Concretely, the conference successively brought together three components: an academic panel (namedAcademic Dialogue) where scientists from around the world were able to make recommendations, a“People’s summit”, including notably representatives from associations, communities, and unions, and finally, ahigh-level segment (Transition Away from Fossil Fuels, or TAFF, mainly consisting of specialized government representatives.
This concentration of themes, skills, and wills in restricted spaces fostered a genuine breeding ground allowing fertile exchanges. It contrasts with the physical organization of the COP, where several thousand participants gather in a multitude of pavilions, often across several buildings. The space is then divided into a blue zone, reserved for national delegations, UN bodies, and observer NGOs, where the official COP28 negotiations take place, and a green zone, open to all other stakeholders.
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Unlike the COPs, where it is the national delegations that debate (the discussions related to the state of the science, for example,take place at another time, under the auspices of a subsidiary body, the Santa Marta conference proposed a transversal methodology, involving upstream15 working groupstransnationals. A great heterogeneity characterized all of these groups, ranging from representatives of the sciences to those of civil society, including public entities at different levels, as well as funding agencies or multinational companies.
During the two months preceding the meeting, they worked on three fundamental issues: structural dependence on fossil fuels, action on supply and demand, and the modalities of international cooperation and climate diplomacy.
Provided by the author
Despite the diversity of statuses and interests of the participants in these working groups, a number of points of convergence have emerged:
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the progress made by alternatives to fossil fuels is irreversible,
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it is essential to end tax support andlegalDuring the extraction of fuels,
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To achieve this, consultation and dialogue are essential.
Putting science back at the center, without forgetting Indigenous knowledge
In Santa Marta, science retained a fundamental role, formalized at the end of the conference by the establishment of aspecific advice. Its function is to feed decision-making processes, based on knowledge developed in a rigorous manner. During the conference, participants expressed their faith in evidence-based policy (evidence based policy). It confers a major responsibility on the scientific community.
But, at the same time, this community is also increasingly being called upon to open up toother modes of knowledge (traditional/ancestral, local… ). Some would see in this cooperation insurmountable contradictions, due to an irreducible incompatibility of knowledge. But in fact, this processis already beginning to bear fruit.
The heterogeneity of the participation of social bodies in the conference thus made it possible to introduce genuine spokespersons for natural entities. Beyond researchers, regularly called upon to explain behaviors and degradation, it also honored indigenous, peasant, and Afro-descendant communities.
The cognitive marriage between these heterogeneous knowledges nevertheless requires a trans-epistemic effort. Epistemologies vary considerably between those based on organized skepticism (scientific disciplines) and those resorting to traditional explanations, sometimes of a religious nature, which involve spiritual entities, for example. However, somenotable convergences exist, particularly regarding ecological awareness, likely to influence the resulting political positions.
Despite everything, a certain hierarchy was able to persist during the conference between these actors of cultural diversity and those of governance, reflected in the successive division of the sequences (academic, civil society, then governmental representation) and their degree of exclusivity. But the trend towards openness and inclusion shows more than an ideological change: it is also a (partial but real) modification of the objective references.
Indeed, in the new climate diplomacy carried out in Santa Marta, one finds a“sketch of the Parliament of Things”, as described by Bruno Latour in 2018. It involves revising the roles attributed to politicians, expertise, and technocracy, and where it would no longer be only humans who would have theright to be represented.
This concept raises new questions for law and international political economy. An upcoming publication, derived from aEuropean and Latin American project on ecological transitionto which I collaborated, initiates the questioning of the conception of geopolitics centered on the human.
Towards a new climate geopolitics?
The efforts made in Santa Marta have transcended national divisions, but also north-south divisions, in a certain way. With a bicameral Euro-Latino (Colombian-Dutch) presidency, and Euro-oceanic for the next conference which will be co-organized by Ireland and Tuvalu, the great Manichean divide of the historical responsibilities of the ecological footprint (which, historically, is astumbling block of the climate COPs) has certainly not been completely erased. However, it has been softened by the framing of the conference around finding solutions.
All regions of the world were represented, with a relative majority from Europe (more than one third of the officially present countries), followed by Latin America, then Asia, Africa, and Oceania. None of the major countries with hegemonic ambitions were invited – neither the United States, nor China, nor Russia – and the only major emerging country to participate was Brazil.
In January 2026, the Canadian Prime MinisterMark Carney was precisely discussing such a model on the occasion of the Davos Economic ForumA: the one where the will of intermediate countries would make it possible to build and sustain alternative coalitions, against the unilateral imposition of the hyperpower.
But the vision of the Santa Marta conference asserts itself and stands out on at least two points:
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the first concerns the importance given to the Global South,
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and the second, the eruption of non-humans in the field of geopolitics.
Even if the dominance of the North remained in the coordinations, the composition of the attendees at the meetings naturally favored the participation of individuals from the South. The topics discussed reflected issues that primarily concern them, since the current ecological impacts affect them as a priority. By placing the South at the heart of the debates, such a meeting contributes to rebalancing these discussions and renews the way of approaching them.
With this renewal of the contradiction against it, climate denialism (which, as we have seen with thewithdrawal of the United States from the Paris Agreement, finding intermediaries at the scale of States) is highly likely to gradually face increased isolation. Its attempts at leadership have run out of steam in Belém, where no country has withdrawn from the Paris Agreement. They could be surpassed by initiatives such as those explored in Santa Marta, which also sought to anticipate its perverse effects. Mechanisms have therefore been considered to counter the increase in hydrocarbon demand that could be generated by a price drop due to the growth of renewable energies.
The global economic crisis caused by thetensions sur l’approvisionnement en pétrole passant par le détroit d’Ormuzreminds us, in any case, of the urgency to accelerate the energy transition.
Jean-Baptiste Meyer received funding from his institute, IRD.
–ref. Santa Marta Conference: the new avenues of climate diplomacy emerging outside the climate COPs –https://theconversation.com/conference-of-santa-marta-the-new-pathways-of-climate-diplomacy-emerging-outside-climate-cops-282288