People’s Summit for a Fossil Free Future opens in Santa Marta, Colombia, and the just energy transition is underway

As the climate and energy crises deepen and the need to transition away from fossil fuels becomes inevitable, members of peasant, Indigenous, social and environmental movements are gathering in Santa Marta, Colombia, this week (24-29 April 2026) to demand a just energy transition. The People’s Summit for a Fossil Free Future is now underway ahead of the First Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels. Civil society is positioning itself to ensure that the call for an energy transition that centres life rather than profit cannot be ignored.

“The fossil energy system is fueling occupation, siege, war and genocide from Palestine to Cuba and Iran. Imperialist and corporate powers are devastating our communities and the environment across the world.  Only a feminist and just energy transition can dismantle imperialism and the systems that turn life, land and climate into sites of profit and destruction, in favour of transformative change for peoples.”

Lise Masson
Friends of the Earth International

Friends of the Earth groups highlight that if the energy transition is borne out of and operates within the same systems that created the climate crisis, it risks not only deepening the crisis but also historic inequalities and oppressions devastating communities and the environment today.

“The transition cannot be a ‘green business’ built on the same historic inequalities. It must be a just and people-centred transition, built from the ground up, with communities at its core, acknowledging the historical responsibility of the Global North. It must involve real solutions to dismantle the fossil-fuel model that continues to destroy life.”

Catalina Caro
CENSAT / Friends of the Earth Colombia

Nonetheless, false solutions pushed by transnational corporations and their state backers have increasingly crept into climate policy and multilateral spaces. Communities affected by these false solutions have brought their struggles to Santa Marta and their demands for a truly just transition.

“The just transition does not include false solutions like carbon markets, hydrogen, nuclear or geoengineering. These are just escape routes for big polluters, rooted in carbon colonialism that displaces Indigenous Peoples and harms communities, especially in the Global South. Real solutions already exist in agroecology, Indigenous stewardship and community-controlled energy. Climate justice is not a market fix, but a transformation of systems and power.”

Wahyu Eka
WALHI / Friends of the Earth Indonesia

In an event on day one of the summit held by Friends of the Earth Latin America and the Caribbean and Friends of the Earth Europe, speakers highlighted other threats by corporate power as well:

“Investor–State Dispute Settlement risks locking in fossil fuel dependence by enabling corporations to sue states for their climate policies. It penalises climate action, is a barrier to fossil fuel phase-out and can cost millions in public money that is much needed for the transition. If governments can be sued for choosing real climate solutions, whose future are we really protecting?”

Frances Verkamp
Friends of the Earth Europe

The real solutions to the climate crisis must therefore be rooted in people power, led and implemented by affected communities, respectful of ecosystems and guided by sufficiency rather than endless profit.

“An energy transition that simply swaps fossil fuels for mega-renewables built on land grabs, human rights violations and new sacrifice zones, especially in the Global South, is not a just transition. We refuse to repeat the same extractivist model under green framing. The transition must shift power, not just energy sources, so that communities shape their own futures and protect the territories they depend on.”

Siphesihle Mvundla
groundWork / Friends of the Earth South Africa

Over the course of the People’s Summit, Friends of the Earth International will be helping to chart a path toward a fossil-free future, free of the systems of oppression at the root of the climate crisis. As we call for a feminist and just energy transition, we will continue to centre life and the rights of peoples while demanding energy sovereignty.

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Media contacts
Ghislaine Fandel // ghislaine@foei.org // @FoEint // In Santa Marta 24-30 April