For the past week, diplomats from nearly 60 countries gathered in Colombia to discuss one of the most urgent and confounding questions of our day: how to move beyond fossil fuels.
The issue is urgent because emissions from the burning of coal, oil and gas are rapidly warming the planet, leading to increasingly dire consequences.
And it’s confounding because fossil fuels are the backbone of the modern economy, and alternatives don’t yet exist at nearly the scale needed. (Another factor: The U.S. was not invited, given the Trump administration’s refusal to engage with international climate talks, and several other big countries are not attending.)
The stark reality of the problem is reflected in the data and the headlines. Coal, oil and gas still make up an overwhelming majority of energy supply in the world, according to the International Energy Agency.
And with the Strait of Hormuz closed, shutting off some of the world’s oil and gas supplies, the global economy is reeling. Oil prices have hit a four-year high in the U.S. (Coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel, has had a resurgence in parts of Asia since the war in Iran began.)
Against that backdrop, ministers, activists and scientists gathered this week in Santa Marta, Colombia, for what was billed as the first global conference on phasing out fossil fuels.
“A global energy system built on fossil fuels is inherently unstable, volatile and unreliable,” Selwin Hart, special adviser to the U.N. secretary general on climate action, said on Tuesday at the event.
Not a COP
The gathering took place outside the formal U.N. process that organizes the annual Conference of the Parties climate summits, known as COPs.
That was intentional, and exposed what critics say are failings with the annual U.N. climate events. After decades of talks, critics say the U.N. process has not delivered a clear plan to halt climate change and is instead perpetuating the status quo.
“Existing multilateral processes are not delivering,” said Candy Ofime, Amnesty International’s researcher and legal adviser on climate justice. “For 30 years, COPs have failed to confront the root causes of the climate crisis head on.”
The Santa Marta meetings gave participants a forum to focus on the need to transition away from heavily polluting energy sources. This doesn’t always happen at COP, where myriad other issues are also discussed. After years of rancor, it was only in 2023 that a final COP agreement addressed the issue directly.
“Finally, finally, finally, we have a focus on 86 percent of what drives the climate crisis, which is fossil fuels,” said Kumi Naidoo, a South African human rights activist and former executive director of Greenpeace International, who was at the conference.
The self-selecting group in Santa Marta also meant that some of the countries that have worked to downplay the need to move away from fossil fuels, including Saudi Arabia and the U.S., could not meddle with process.
“We think it will be harder at the COP at the end of the year to pretend that fossil fuels don’t exist and not even mention it in the outcome document,” Naidoo said.
What next?
So can a conference like this have an impact?
Some skepticism is certainly understandable. As Lisa Friedman reported: “China, India and Russia are not attending. Nor are Saudi Arabia or other Gulf nations whose economies depend on oil and gas.”
Taylor Rogers, a White House spokeswoman, said in a statement that “the reality is that moving away from reliable, affordable and secure energy to rely on intermittent and costly energy sources is destructive, and the president has been clear that the United States will not participate in the bogus climate agenda.”
Moreover, the U.N. has been holding COPs for more than 30 years, and fossil fuel emissions have only continued to rise.
And while the event in Santa Marta resulted in some strongly worded statements, there were no enforceable outcomes. Instead, the group said it would work on regional plans to phase out fossil fuels, and it plans to meet in the Pacific Island nation of Tuvalu next year.
But Naidoo said there was precedent for a quasi-official event like this to have a real impact. He pointed to the 1997 Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Treaty, which was negotiated by 44 countries outside the traditional U.N. process. With similar momentum, Naidoo said, this week’s event could be the beginning of a movement that leads to a broader global agreement.
“Bottom line is we should not be where we are now,” he said. “The science has been telling us for a long time that we need to act.”
Emissions
The E.P.A. is blaming Asia for smog in some U.S. cities
For decades, Phoenix has struggled with smog that gets trapped in its bowl-shaped topography and is detrimental to human health. In 2024, when the city failed to meet a federal air-pollution standard, it risked being hit with stricter rules designed to force more aggressive pollution limits.
Then, President Trump returned to the White House. And now the Phoenix-Mesa region has gotten off the hook for an unusual reason: The Trump administration is blaming foreign countries for the pollution.
Without contaminants blowing in from Mexico and Asia, the administration’s reasoning goes, Phoenix would have been in compliance with federal pollution limits. Other regions are now taking up that strategy. But some environmental groups and experts say the argument is preposterous. — Hiroko Tabuchi
In one chart
Global tree loss fell 14 percent in 2025 from the year before, according to a report published on Wednesday by the World Resources Institute, with the decline largely driven by progress in protecting tropical forests.
Less tree cover was razed intentionally last year than in any other year in the past decade, and losses in primary tropical forests were 36 percent lower than last year’s record highs.
Last year’s gains were offset, however, by destruction from wildfires, which consumed about 26 million acres, an area almost as large as Cuba. — Sachi Kitajima Mulkey and Harry Stevens
Climate science
Forest Service shutters labs that study wildfire risks
Eric Niiler reports that 57 research stations in 31 states that study forest fires are set to close in the next few months, part of a shake-up of the U.S. Forest Service by the Trump administration. At the same time that the administration is reorganizing the Forest Service, Trump is proposing to eliminate its entire $309 million research and development budget and to cut all of the agency’s 1,215 scientific positions.
Number of the day
At least 95 percent of Europe had above-average annual temperatures in 2025
A new report by European researchers and the World Meteorological Organization finds that Europe has warmed about twice as fast as the global average, Lynsey Chutel reports. Man-made climate change is driving the increases, scientists found. And Europe’s proximity to the Arctic, the fastest-warming region on Earth, has made it even more vulnerable.
More climate news from around the web:
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Bloomberg examines how a jet fuel supply crunch could threaten your summer flight.
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Dozens of North Carolina homes have been lost to the sea, The Guardian reports. Now, some are being moved on wheels.
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“Many of humanity’s most important crops — including wheat, potatoes, beans — contain fewer vitamins and minerals than they did a generation ago,” The Washington Post reports. Carbon dioxide pollution is one factor behind this change.
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David Gelles reports on climate change and leads The Times’s Climate Forward newsletter and events series.
The post The World Met to Talk Climate Change. The U.S. Wasn’t Invited. appeared first on New York Times.
