Author: Valeria Peláez Cardona, Programme Manager for Gender & Climate at WECF 

The first “Transition Away from Fossil Fuels” Conference in Santa Marta, Colombia, was a milestone for climate action, uniting governments and civil society to openly address fossil fuel dependence and focus on practical solutions. The event was co-hosted by the Colombian and Dutch governments from 27 to 29 April. 

Discussions centred on three themes: overcoming economic dependence, transforming supply and demand, and advancing international cooperation. Civil society groups, including Indigenous Peoples, Afro-descendants, peasants, fishers, women and gender groups, youth, and NGOs, were actively involved.  

The Women and Gender Constituency (WGC), given its experience mobilising feminist, women, and gender-diverse climate advocates, was invited to coordinate the Women and Diversities chapter. WECF was invited to join the coordination together with WEDO. Our role spanned mobilisation, logistics, and advocacy. We served as the link between the Colombian government and women and diversity organisations, channelling relevant information about participation in the online dialogues. More importantly, we worked intensively on concrete outcomes, as follows.  

Key Outcomes  

A collective voice in a single document  

One of the most significant outcomes was producing a Women and Diversities positioning document. This is no small thing; condensing decades of collective feminist struggle and hundreds of inputs into a concise, accessible text that could serve as a mobilisation tool during and after the conference requires deep listening, careful negotiation, and political clarity. The demands gathered in this document are longstanding feminist demands that we have fought for across many spaces and many years. What is new is having them articulated together in a document designed for this specific transition space. This positioning is intended to live beyond Santa Marta; it will continue to be strengthened and refined ahead of the second conference in Tuvalu, and we hope it will serve as inspiration for advocacy materials in UNFCCC spaces as well.  

A strong and organised feminist presence in the High-Level Segment  

Feminist advocates showed up to this conference organised, unified, and with clarity on our demands. Our presence in the High-Level Segment was not incidental; instead, it was the result of months of collective preparation. Being in that room mattered because it allowed us to install a clear message, that the only acceptable outcome of this conference, and the ones that follow, is the discussion of just measures to transition away from fossil fuels. And that necessarily implies the recognition and redistribution of care work, reparative justice, and the democratisation of energy. These are non-negotiable dimensions of a just transition, and having a feminist voice in a room with governments such as Germany, Mexico, Spain, the UK, Sweden, Ireland, and Canada ensured they were heard at the highest level.  

A politically significant but imperfect space  

Colombia and the Netherlands invited 57 countries to join a “coalition of the willing,” excluding major emitters like the US, China, Russia, and India. This limited the impact but introduced an innovative format: equal delegates for each country, no required outcome, and civil society participating as equals with governments.  

However, major gaps remain. Feminist positioning identifies capitalism, colonialism, patriarchy, and militarism as root causes of the climate crisis and barriers to a just transition. It calls for reparative justice, accountability mechanisms for the private sector, redistribution of care work, and demilitarisation, while also naming petromasculinity as a threat to gender equality and democracy.   

While these structural critiques are mainly absent from the co-hosts’ takeaways, which frame the transition mainly through economic efficiency, energy security, and finance, the concrete impacts of feminist advocacy can be seen in the document with the inclusion of care work. Work remains on the inclusion of reparative justice and demilitarisation in future outputs. A vast amount of political work still lies ahead.  

Looking Ahead Towards Tuvalu 2027  

The transition away from fossil fuels is inevitable. The question feminists have always insisted on is who shapes it, who benefits from it, and who is left behind. Santa Marta did not resolve that question. But it opened a space where that question could be asked out loud, with feminist voices present to demand an answer.   The key takeaways of the event co-hosted by Colombia and the Netherlands from 27–29 April are available here.