CLIFF's Reponse on Outcomes and Analysis of the First Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels
- April 30th, 2026
With the First Conference on Transitioning Away From Fossil Fuels coming to a close, CLIFF is thrilled about the results being presented, providing hope for quick and decisive action on Leaving Fossil Fuels Underground.
Cliff has been delighted that Colombia and The Netherlands were going to lead the process of convening a group of like-minded countries and other actors. including scholars and civil society. To engage with a wide variety of actors, the conference was divided into two parts – a preparatory set of meetings with science and civil society, and a political section to discuss science-based policy. The Conference came out with a conference statement at the end.
Conference Results
The conference produced five key results:
- Sustaining Commitment: The second conference for Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels was announced and will take place in early 2027. It will be co-hosted by Ireland and Vanuatu.
- Strengthening Connections, Avoiding Duplication: A coordination group will be created to ensure continuity toward the second and future conferences, strengthen links between initiatives, and avoid duplication. It will bring together countries leading key transition efforts—such as the UK, Denmark, Brazil, France, and the Marshall Islands, along with co-hosts Colombia, the Netherlands, Tuvalu, and Ireland—and will be advised by the COP30 Activation Group.
- Ensuring Complementarity with UNFCCC, Existing Frameworks and Sustaining Momentum: The delivery will be shared with the COP30 Presidency to inform its roadmap. Outcomes will also be aligned with the COP31 roadmap and Action Agenda, and feed into the second Global Stocktake.
- Channeling Collective Power: Three workstreams have been set-up to identify concrete ways to reduce fossil fuel dependence and strengthen cooperation. They will include 1) Work on roadmaps for a fossil fuel phaseout, 2) Work on macroeconomic dependencies and financial architecture, and 3) Work on producer–consumer alignment for fossil fuel transition. Their structure will be defined between the first and second conferences. They will remain open and flexible, allowing countries to join or lead, with support from existing initiatives and experts from the Santa Marta process.
- Science as Our Anchor for Shaping the Future: The Science Panel for the Global Energy Transition (SPGET) was launched to support countries in moving away from fossil fuels and ensure science-based policy. It will help develop 1.5°C-aligned roadmaps and address legal, financial, and political barriers
In addition, the Conference prepared a summary of what was discussed in terms of their three thematic pillars
- Reducing economic dependence on fossil fuels: This theme discusses reducing fiscal dependence and debt constraints, a just transition for labour and economic diversification, and a an international enabling environment
- Transforming Supply and Demand: Countries will focus on coordination across energy systems, fuel switching, better multilateral cooperation to enhance, inter alia, concessional and blended finance and technology transfer, enhanced energy access through decentralized and affordable people-centred systems, including an international enabling environment for such community level implementation, closure of extractive processes, managed demand of fossil fuel supply and demand, stranded asset management, coordinated international conditions to enable the phase down which also builds on legitimacy and trust, reforming subsidies, and an enabling environment for meaningful financial incentives reform.
- Advancing International Cooperation and Climate Diplomacy: the focus was on science based policy, supporting the development of the UNFCCC and addressing governance gaps including in relation to financial and investment systems, aligning finance to needs, and managing financial and legal dimensions.
Lock-Ins at the Conference
In CLIFF, we argue that merely promoting renewables and alternative energy is not enough, we need to focus on closing down the fossil fuel sector. This is very difficult given its huge financial value. We have identified 10 fossil fuel lock ins (see Policy Brief to the UN, 2026; and we presented the lock-ins in one of the pre-conference sessions and they are included also in the other documents we were part of). In the table below we compare our analysis of lock-ins with the kinds of decisions taken at the conference.
| Lock-Ins | Conference decisions and discussions focused on | Some quick points |
| 1. Profitability | Thematic pillar 2 on transforming supply and demand; discussion of ‘stronger carbon pricing’ | But do not discuss demand for AI, defence industry or growing developing country demand; or how to change profitability of fossil fuel. With high global prices, it remains very profitable. |
| 2. Discursive | No discussion | Given that misinformation is a key threat to global security and climate change, if we do not address this bottleneck we will not be able to mobilize society. |
| 3. Legal | The conference mentions the need to review and improve international investment agreements and for coordinated discussions on legal risks | The scholarship on this is much further and it is good that this mentioned but we need to accelerate work on this |
| 4. Investment | The need to lower the cost of capital and the dual role of capital as a constraint and enabler were discussed as well as the need to ensure that public and private finance align with needs. | This is a good start; but specifically what needs to happen is not elaborated upon, leaving the text vague. |
5. Fiscal/economic | Need to shift to transformative fiscal policies; address debt constraints; managed decline in demand and supply; subsidy reform | How exactly fiscal lock-in will be addressed is not explained. Principles of subsidy reform are mentioned but without a clear time line. Discussion on the economic system as the driving factor of climate change was missing |
6. Infrastructural | Closure of fossil fuel extraction especially of state owned enterprises; develop transboundary grid | The costs of dealing with infrastructure are inadequately addressed |
| 7. Labour | Just transition & predictable finance | How to raise the finance was not discussed |
| 8. Behavioural | No discussion | The need to change behavioural patterns was not discussed |
| 9. Political | No discussion | The need to ensure that politicians are independent of fossil fuel influence was not discussed. |
| 10. Professional | No discussion | The need to ensure a whole of society approach by mobilizing all professionals to take a science based approach to fossil fuels in their work was not covered. |
CLIFF's Response to the Conference
Having spent the last five years on advocating to leave fossil fuels underground, CLIFF is excited that, finally, 1/4th of the world’s countries came together to discuss transitioning away from fossil fuels, a topic that the climate treaty negotiations have been reluctant to focus on over the last 33 years. While big players in the fossil fuel industry were not present, it still included some major polluters (on a per capita basis) like Canada and Australia.
On top of this, we are happy to see that the scientific community on fossil fuel research came together to send several coalition inputs, highlighting the urgency of the situation (see CLIFFs contributions in this previous post). The conference solidified a degree of understanding on the urgency of climate change and need to transition away from fossil fuel, as well as some agreement on what exactly needs to happen.
As CLIFF sees it, countries promised to continue with this coalition in annual meetings in the future, as well as contribute to the ongoing negotiations. They agreed, though in a non-binding statement, to:
- reduce economic and fiscal dependence on fossil fuel
- demand changes to the international financial system
- promote the welfare or employees in affected sector
- work on demand and supply of fossil fuel, including a planned phase down and closure of fossil fuel.
All this is good news as for the first time the countries showed some willingness to address the fossil fuel lock-ins that constrain action. This willingness now goes beyond just promoting renewables.
Having said that, we worry about the long-term commitment of the two leading countries – Colombia has elections coming up which might lead to a change in government undermining its leadership and The Netherlands has promised mostly to end subsidies for fossil fuel, but is this enough and will the soft agreements made in Colombia enable the minister to demand more radical changes within the Netherlands? Moreover many other countries present show good will but the question is: Can that be transformed into strong political will?
We cross 1.5ºC in 2-3 years. A conference like this should have been held at least 10 years ago to be effective. Even if we can return to 1.5ºC by the end of the century, it will be a different climatic world than the one in 2030. There is, thus, a real urgency for the process launched by this conference to be successful.
The absence of the US and China, among others, as well as the news that the UAE is leaving OPEC implies that supplies of fossil fuels in the global market will increase, not restrained by OPEC Rules. If this brings down prices, it may counter any efforts taken by this conference.
However, unlocking the lock-ins is very complex and needs a change in mind set, dedication, finance and mobilization across different systems – the economic, legal, financial and information. A first step is recognizing these lock-ins and trying to deal with them and CLIFF is delighted that at last the first step has been taken.
About
The CLIFF project was financed by the European Research Council (ERC) Advanced Grant under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme.
Grant agreement: No. 101020082
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