WORLD 26/04/29 Faith leaders, ecologists confront fossil fuel use at global summi

[성기화 요셉]

The UN COP30 in Brazil in 2025 failed to directly confront fossil fuels as the primary driver of climate change, speakers say

Participants are seen during the April 24-29 'Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels' conference in Santa Marta, Colombia. (Photo: Raul Arboleda/AFP)

By Umar Manzoor Shah

Published: April 30, 2026 12:17 PM GMT

Updated: April 30, 2026 12:24 PM GMT

Religious leaders, policy experts, and grassroots activists have joined to stress that ending fossil fuel use is possible and can advance climate justice, as they met on the sidelines of a landmark global conference in Colombia.

Faith leaders from across continents joined an April 29 webinar held on the sidelines of the April 24-29 international climate conference in Santa Marta, Colombia, which was co-hosted by Colombia and the Netherlands.

The conference, "Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels," brought together representatives from 57 fossil-fuel-producing and consuming countries and representatives of Indigenous Peoples, children and youth movements, and peasant communities, according to Amnesty International.

The webinar, titled “Live from Santa Marta: Advancing Climate Justice and a Just Transition Beyond Fossil Fuels,” was organized by a coalition of Church groups.

The coalition included Laudato Si’ Movement, CIDSE, an international network of Catholic social justice organizations from Europe and North America, the Latin American and Caribbean Episcopal Council (CELAM), the Institute for Scientific and Engineering Research (ISER), and Caritas Internationalis, the global confederation of Catholic charities.

Jeep Año de Filipinas, president of the Laudato Si’ Movement, said the conference brought voices directly from the ground, from communities already living with the impacts of climate change, which are “deeply unequal.”

“We must recognize the disproportionate impacts of the climate crisis on communities,” Saño noted, urging a response grounded in both science and moral responsibility.

The discussion comes amid lingering frustration from COP30, the UN Climate Conference held in Brazil in 2025, where participants said governments failed to directly confront fossil fuels as the primary driver of climate change.

Lisa Sullivan, a Catholic global ecological justice advocate, described the COP30 negotiations as a missed opportunity.

“Many of us were present at COP30, where we reached a wall. We could not name the main culprit of climate change, fossil fuels, even though most countries understood that it is the cause,” she said.

“However, Colombia opened a door by saying we should come together around what we already know is the path. This conference has opened the door to unite countries, civil society, and faith groups to say clearly that we must transition away from fossil fuels, but also to see how we can place our energy in something positive and constructive,” she said during the webinar.

Speakers also noted a shift in global climate action, from relying solely on formal United Nations processes to the formation of new coalitions across civil society, faith networks, and local communities.

María del Pilar Restrepo, an environmental economist and policy expert, explained why this shift matters.

“This conference allows us to take discussions out of the United Nations negotiations, where reaching consensus is very complex, and create a much broader and more transparent conversation where many actors can participate. What should happen now is that we move towards an implementation roadmap, because the next COP is about moving from talking to doing,” she said.

The goal now is to move from dialogue to implementation, including the possibility of a binding international treaty on fossil fuels, she added.

Colombian sociologist Sulman del Pilar Incapié lamented the world was “forgetting human beings and dignity.”

She referred to Pope Francis’ environmental encyclical Laudato Si' and said the conference presents “a critical reality” and invites “us to move from hope to action, to recognize the dignity not only of human beings but also of nature,” she added.

Fletcher Harper, a pastor and executive director of GreenFaith, acknowledged the scale of the challenge but rejected despair.

“There are very loud voices saying we need more fossil fuels and more of the problem, and even more violence in service of that agenda. We are here with different voices to express another vision for the future. What is most important now is that we communicate this vision with joy and passion, because many people around the world do not believe that a different and better future is possible,” he said.