Source: French to English Tester Published on: 2026-04-23
Source: The Conversation – in French– By Christel Cournil, Professor of Public Law, Sciences Po Toulouse
From April 24 to 29, 2026, in Santa Marta, Colombia, a groundbreaking conference intends to place the exit from fossil fuels at the heart of the international agenda. In a context of fossil dependency and geopolitical tensions, the issue goes beyond energy transition: it is about testing the capacity of states to turn into actions an essential climate goal that is not currently engaged at the required level. The cause is a real legal, economic, and financial lock that protects fossil capitalism, and which must be disarmed.
The governments of Colombia and the Netherlands are organizing, from April 24 to 29, 2026, in Santa Marta (Colombia) thefirst international conference dedicated to a just transition away from fossil fuels. The stake is clear: to put the phase-out of fossil fuels at the heart of a political, legal, and financial roadmap, based on reducing dependencies, transforming supply and demand, and strengthened international cooperation.
This is not just another summit: it is a test of credibility. In 2024, the global energy demand hasfurther progressedand fossil fuels still hold a central place in the global energy mix. Despite the shifts introduced on thecoal phase-out at COP26In Glasgow in 2021, then on thephasing out fossil fuels at COP28In Dubai in 2023, support for fossil fuels continues and the energy transition remains slow. States continue toto project, by the 2030 horizon, fossil production levels far beyond what would be compatible with a 1.5 °C trajectory.
So we know two things: the fossil exit is essential; however, it is currently not being undertaken at the required level.
Production Gap Report, 2025
This meeting also takes place in an international context of“backlashclimatic”and a brutal reaffirmation of the fossil order.
In the United States, the currency“Drill, baby, drill »has relaunched production, while geopolitical crises (Ukraine,Venezuelaand, now,Iran) make more urgent than ever the need to free oneself from dependence on hydrocarbons.
The “elephant in the room” of climate negotiations largely stems from the fact that the international legal framework protects fossil capitalism. The result: a true legal “lock-in” that contributes to its maintenancestatus quoon fossil fuels. Consequently, financial flows are still overwhelmingly directed towards fossil fuels, despite the efforts of States, international institutions, and some private actors. It is necessary to move from a logic of partial decarbonization of demand to a true overhaul of the legal framework, coherent between national law, European Union law, and international law, to make it compatible with the phase-out of fossil fuels.
How to set priorities? We develop, in apolicy briefdedicated to fossil exit, a status report as well as 14 concrete action proposals. Here, we present some of these proposals, which the Santa Marta conference could be the opportunity to realize.
The reduction of the supply, in the blind spot of the international climate regime
For thirty years, the international climate regime has primarily been built around the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. For a long time, the issue of reducing fossil fuel supply remained secondary. Efforts have focused on reducing emissions without seriously organizing the closure of the infrastructures responsible for them.
From then on, the Santa Marta conference will have to put on the table the questions that traditional climate diplomacy hastoo long avoided. How to break free from fossil dependencies, both energetic and industrial? How to manage the decrease in supply? How to remove the international legal obstacles that still protect itfossil capital, starting with arbitration between investors and States, especially within the framework ofTreaty on the Energy Charter ?
On this last point, 220 economists and jurists recently urged Colombia, in aletter addressed to President Gustavo Petro, to withdraw from the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) system and to unite a coalition of states determined to disengage from it. This stance highlights a decisive point: the phase-out of fossil fuels is not only a matter of climate policy but also of disarming the legal mechanisms that still secure the profitability of fossil investments.
Also to read:
International law protects investments in fossil fuels, and that is a problem
The fossil order, protected by a legal, economic, and financial “lockdown”
Fossil capitalism is thus supported by a structuring legal framework. Fossil investors are protected by treaties, can consolidate their rights through long-term contracts, may be favored by tax regimes, secured by insurances, and supported by public and private financing.
Privileged, fossil investors can still sue, before special courts, states where they carry out their activities if the latter, in seeking to correct their carbon trajectory, infringe on their rights. Fossil investors are, indeed, legally protected by numerous legal instruments. There are thus thousands of bilateral investment treaties, multilateral treaties, investment contracts, investment and mining codes, as well as insurance policies and guarantees against risks incurred by investors.
Let us cite, for example, among the multilateral treaties: theTreaty on the Energy Charter. Even denounced by many European states, it continues to apply under itstwilight clause, which imposes a twenty-year delay before an effective exit from the treaty.
The fossil exit can therefore no longer be considered simply a technological transition. It is necessary to tackle the legal, economic, and financial structures that extend the fossil order. This fossil “lock-in” results in a tangled web of infrastructures, rents, value chains, subsidies, contractual protections, and legal guarantees that make the exit both necessary and politically costly.
The exploitation of fossil fuels cannot ignore planetary boundaries, and the law must evolve to take them into account. This implies undoing profit expectations, neutralizing survival or sunset clauses that perpetuate the guarantees offered by denounced investment treaties, and redirecting financial flows. It also involves accepting the conflictuality of divestment, addressing the issue of stranded assets, and preventing thepetrochemicals do not become the strategic refuge ofCarbon Majors.
Also to read:
COP30: How to prevent plastic from becoming the lifeboat of the oil industry?
Climate litigation, necessary but insufficient
Moreover, the opinion rendered by theInternational Court of Justice in 2025reminded that a State that does not take appropriate measures to protect the climate system can incur its international responsibility. And this includes when it promotes the production or consumption of fossil fuels, grants exploration licenses, or maintains subsidies. Decarbonization is therefore no longer just a desirable horizon: it becomes a legal and concrete horizon, in the form ofpreventive obligations of diligence, effectiveness, coherence, and climate cooperation.
Theclimate litigationengaged worldwide are already part of this movement. They no longer limit themselves to denouncing inaction, but challenge the normative inconsistencies, public supports, and legal mechanisms that prolong the fossil legal order. However, the judge alone will neither close the wells nor the gas terminals. They can crack the legal lock-in framework that protects fossil energies, in the name of protecting human rights or the right to a healthy environment. But they will not be able to make political decisions, for example to order the closure of these infrastructures.
This is where Santa Marta can become more than just another conference. It could be a moment of truth about the ability of States to govern the closure of fossil fuel activities, instead of postponing it in the name of supposed economic realism, even though this realism produces climatic, financial, health, and even disorderdemocraticalways bigger.
The question is therefore no longer whether we should phase out fossil fuels (the answer is yes!), but whether states will finally accept to assume the normative consequences and organize it in a fair and effective manner. Because phasing out fossil fuels requires much more than a simple “greening” of the existing system. It is necessary to stop allowing the expansion of sectors incompatible with the 1.5 °C target, redirect financial flows, integrate petrochemicals into phase-out policies, deactivate the legal locks of fossil capital and organize ajust transition. As many avenues that we are developing in ourpolicy brief.
It is no longer possible to celebrate the transition while continuing to reinforce the fossil economy. In Santa Marta, the challenge will be to know which States will finally accept to break away from this lock-in and to organize, both legally and politically, the effective and fair phase-out of fossil fuels.
Also to read:
How to escape the curse of fossil rent?
Christel Cournil is an administrator of the association Notre affaire à tous and vice-president of the SFDE Midi-Pyrénées.
Laurence Dubin is a member of the association Intérêt à agir (IAA)
Sabrina Robert does not work for, advise, own shares in, receive funds from any organization that could benefit from this article, and has declared no other affiliation than her research institution.
–ref. Today, the law protects fossil fuels: a first international conference aims to break this lock-in –https://theconversation.com/today-law-protects-fossil-fuels-a-first-international-conference-wants-to-break-this-lockdown-280200