MOGC at the First Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels

MOGC participated in the First Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels, from April 24–29 in Santa Marta, Colombia. This inaugural gathering brought together a coalition of willing countries, organizations, and academics committed to advancing the just transition from fossil fuels. MOGC’s Lisa Sullivan and Olivia Engling were on the ground regularly sharing insights and updates on this page and social media during the Conference.

The conference aimed to serve as an avenue for real change at a critical moment for global climate action. With international negotiations facing deadlock, this convening provided an opportunity to move forward by fostering collaboration among governments and civil society actors willing to act and make tangible commitments.

As a member of the climate justice movement, we speak a lot about negative tipping points, points of no return for irreparable climate damage. But I see the faith community’s potential to serve as a positive tipping point, harnessing the depths of our faith to make transformative change in the world. Every faith tradition shares a commitment to care for creation. Since the faith community has such a broad and profound reach, by finding and engaging our common voice, we can change the course of climate history.

Lisa Sullivan

Voices from Santa Marta

Conference Outcomes

The conference outcomes reflect a hopeful new kind of multilateralism. Rather than waiting for a universal consensus, this “coalition of the willing” focused on practical steps.

Key results include:

• Sustained Commitment: Tuvalu and Ireland will co-host the 2027 conference to keep the momentum alive.
• Coordination Group: A team will align these efforts with the UN’s goal for a “just and equitable” transition
• Multilateral Complementarity: Findings will be shared with the UN Secretary-General to influence the next Global Stocktake.
• Three Technical Workstreams: Focused on creating clear transition roadmaps, reforming global finance to help debt-heavy nations, and shifting trade away from fossil fuel reliance.
• Science Panel (SPGET): A new panel dedicated to breaking down the legal and political barriers to staying within the 1.5°C warming limit.

Discussions emphasized that a “just transition” must overcome the financial traps and subsidies that keep fossil fuels artificially cheap. By prioritizing social inclusion and worker rights, the Santa Marta summit offers a collaborative spirit that marks a significant shift in how the world tackles the climate crisis.

I leave Santa Marta with a renewed optimism in multilateral possibilities and greater clarity on how to respond to the call to care for our Common Home. Representatives of 57 nations, alongside scientists, faith leaders, indigenous communities, and labor leaders wasted no energy in debating what is the key culprit of climate change – that massive stumbling block that diluted 30 years of global climate diplomacy. That energy was instead directed to the complex task of how the transition from fossil fuels- already massively globally underway – should advance to make it fair and fast enough. Faith groups rolled up their sleeves to prepare for and participate in the conference and are already hard at work to follow up in our communities, countries and global tables. As Archbishop Jose Domingo Ulloa, VP of CELAM, shared in his Sunday homily in the Santa Marta Cathedral: Working toward a transition beyond fossil fuels is not, therefore, an ideological choice, but a demand of our faith.

Lisa Sullivan

Updates

Monday, April 27

People’s Assembly
On Monday April 27, 2026, four faith representatives (Madeleine Wörner, Rev. Emily Smith, Rev. Neddy Astudillo, and Sulman Hincapié) joined the official Assembly of the Peoples in a landmark effort to transition from climate pledges to binding international law. Co-hosted by the governments of Colombia and the Netherlands, the Assembly served as a vital bridge between the People’s Summit for a Fossil Free Future and official government negotiations. By uniting a diverse coalition of nation-states, Indigenous peoples, and civil society—with a strong focus on the Global South—the group issued a formal declaration calling for a Fossil Fuel Treaty. This roadmap aims to complement the Paris Agreement by establishing a concrete, actionable mechanism for a global fossil fuel phase-out.

March
After three days of dialogue on a just transition away from fossil fuels, civil society took their message to the streets of Santa Marta in a vibrant march. Under the humid Caribbean heat, to the rhythm of drums and flutes, hundreds of participants carried colorful banners calling for an end to fossil fuels and the economic system that sustains them.

Photos from April 27:

Sunday, April 26

A mass in honor of the conference was held at the Santa Marta cathedral, and concelebrated by several Latin American bishops. In his homily, Archbishop Jose Domingo Ulloa of Panama, Vice President of the Latin American Ecclesial Conference, shared: the ecological crisis is not merely a technical or economic problem. It is, above all, a moral and spiritual call. We are driven by the certainty that everything is connected: the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor are one and the same cry that reaches the heart of God. Persisting with a model based on fossil fuels—which exacerbates climate change and hits the most vulnerable hardest—contradicts the Gospel’s command to love our neighbor and care for life. Working toward a transition beyond fossil fuels is not, therefore, an ideological choice, but a demand of our faith.

In the afternoon Catholic leaders and organizations met to develop local, national and global strategies for working from a faith perspective towards a transition beyond fossil fuels.  If was agreed that the guiding narrative for this work is the Manifesto of the Churches of the Global South for our Common Home.

Saturday, April 25

On Saturday we traveled to the indigenous community of Kutunsama, a place considered sacred as its land connects the waters of the Caribbean Ocean to the waters of the Sierra Nevada glacier. We sat under the shade of a spreading ceiba tree for several hours, sometimes in silence, sometimes in dialogue.  Mamo Camilo Izquierdo shared “petroleum is the blood of mother earth. Our task is to neither alter nor remove it. We know this because our memory spans far more than 500 years. But now there is damage caused by this and we feel it in our own territories. It is the moment to stop and think. How do we have a transition? The solution does not come in one day. But, we must start.”

Friday, April 24

Over 200 people from multiple faith traditions came together today in Santa Marta for an Encounter of Spiritualities for the Transition Away from Fossil Fuels. Many months of outreach, networking and dialogue led to a rich gathering of local and global faith leaders, indigenous communities, youth and climate experts. The gathering ended in a joint faith declaration signed by over 18 faith networks that included a strong commitment to the Fossil Fuel Non Proliferation Treaty. The treaty’s founder Tzeporah Berman received the treaty signature, affirming that the faith community both was essential to the launch of this movement and continues to be its “moral compass … grounding us in justice and human rights and dignity, the soul of this movement.”

Following are some highlights from the day’s panel speakers:

We are here in memory of land and water defenders who have resisted the extraction of petroleum and minerals: Dorothy, Chica, Berta … The time of petroleum Civilization has ended. We are leaving safe space, we have passed the limited of the planet.

Tatiana Roa, former Deputy Minister of the Environment, Colombia

The climate emergency is not environmental crisis, but a civilizational one. Thus, the response cannot be purely technical – it requires new ways of seeing alternative narratives, spiritualities and economic models. Our times call for a spirituality of sufficiency against consumerism, a re-orientation to ENOUGH. A new world is possible and necessary.  The earth is not for profit but is a sacred commons.

Athena Peralta, Director of the Office of Climate Change and Sustainability, World Council of Churches

From Africa, Asia, and Latin America, we lift up the cries of the people. We are of different faith groups here, but united by a common cause: to protect our Common Home.  From our faiths we do not see creation as a resource to exploit, but rather as a gift. In the midst of our diversity we understand: everything is connected. Today the South does not ask permission to speak. Today the South has summoned. This is a Kairos moment.

Monseñor Jose Domingo Ulloa, Vice President of CELAM, Bishop of Panama

I am the voice of the victims of coal. We are a territory that was converted into a zone of sacrifice. They damaged our community and continue. It is not easy to live in my community. They have contaminated our water. We cannot plant. We cannot live in peace. Our dreamers have left, chased by the destruction and the constant noise. We have neither reparation nor justice. We do not want this to continue. No more Extractivism.

Mildred Guette, a young Indigenous leader from La Guajira, Colombia, whose community is being devastated by the Cerrejón coal mine.

Looking around, I see powerful faith, indigenous wisdom, frontline resistance gathered in climate justice and in the shared understanding that the earth is our common home, and is suffering. The climate crisis is a profound moral crisis to overcome we can only do so by love over destruction. For over 100 year the fossil fuel industry has enriched a few. We cannot simply wash our hands of the fossil fuel economy. We must build that other world possible. The transition from fossil fuels no longer a distant dream, but an inevitability.

Yeb Saño, Board Director of the Laudato Si Movement

See our action alert: Join the Global Movement to Phase Out Fossil Fuels

Read our press statement: MOGC Participates in the Inaugural Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels