The world's first international conference dedicated to phasing out fossil fuels just wrapped in Santa Marta, Colombia, and We Don't Have Time was there as the official global media partner. In this episode, we bring you inside the event where a coalition of 57 nations stopped debating whether to end fossil fuels and started working on how.
We hear from climate scientist and Potsdam Institute director Johan Rockström on the launch of a landmark new Science Panel for the global energy transition; from Tzeporah Berman, Chair of the Fossil Fuel Treaty Initiative, on why this conference had to happen outside the UN system; and from former UN Paris Agreement spokesperson Nick Nuttall, who was on the ground in Santa Marta all week.
Also featured: Colombia's Environment Minister Irene Vélez Torres, whose country hosted the conference; Netherlands Climate Minister Stientje van Veldhoven, from the co-host country; France's climate envoy Benoît Faraco on France's new fossil fuel phase-out roadmap; Amiera Sawas of the Fossil Fuel Treaty Initiative on debt as the hidden barrier to transition; Mariana Paoli of Oxfam on taxing fossil fuel profits; Shanta Barley, Chief Climate Scientist at Fortesque, on what 90 major businesses agreed on; geographer Philippe Le Billon on the risks of extractivism in the green transition; Paola Yanguas Parra of the IISD on new models of international climate cooperation; and Maina Talia, Tuvalu's Minister for Climate Change, whose country will host the next conference in 2027.
Topics covered: fossil fuel phaseout, energy transition roadmaps, climate diplomacy, just transition, fossil fuel subsidies, renewable energy, climate finance, global debt crisis, and the future of international climate cooperation beyond COP.
The We Don't Have Time Podcast is part of the world's largest media platform for climate action. Find all interviews and panel discussions from Santa Marta at wedonthavetime.org.