On the northern coast of Colombia, where the Caribbean presses softly against the sand and fishing boats return in the fading light, a different kind of tide is gathering.

In Santa Marta, beneath warm skies and the patient silhouettes of palm trees, diplomats and ministers are arriving not to search for more oil, but to speak—carefully, urgently—of what comes after it. Their conversations unfold at a strange hour in history. Across oceans, tankers reroute and prices rise. Traders watch the Strait of Hormuz as if watching weather. Governments scramble to secure barrels. Markets speak the old language of scarcity.

And here, on a bright coast edged with salt and sun, another language is being tested.

Nearly 60 countries have gathered this week in Colombia for a first-of-its-kind summit aimed at accelerating the global move away from fossil fuels. Co-hosted by Colombia and the Netherlands, the conference reflects a growing impatience with the slow machinery of the United Nations climate process, where decades of negotiations have often produced words faster than change.

The timing is almost paradoxical.

The world is, in many places, searching for oil more intensely than ever. War involving Iran has unsettled global energy markets and revived old fears about supply disruptions. Nations dependent on imported fuel—from the Philippines to Pakistan—have felt the tremors in prices and shipping. In Washington, President Donald Trump has renewed calls to expand domestic drilling, reviving the blunt rhythm of “drill, baby, drill.” Elsewhere, energy security has again become the phrase of the season.

And yet in Santa Marta, the conversation turns toward endings.

The summit comes after the faltering momentum of last year’s COP30 talks in Brazil, where countries failed to reaffirm or strengthen the pledge first made at COP28 in Dubai to “transition away” from fossil fuels. That phrase, historic when first agreed, now hangs in the air like a half-finished sentence.

The countries gathered in Colombia appear eager to finish it.

European Union climate commissioner Wopke Hoekstra described the current COP process as vulnerable to obstruction by nations resistant to stronger action. Organizers say this meeting is not meant to replace the U.N. process, but to create a parallel track—one less crowded by denial, hesitation, and procedural delay.

There is an irony in the setting.

Colombia itself is no stranger to oil and coal. Fossil fuels make up a significant share of its economy and exports. President Gustavo Petro has pushed the country toward a clean-energy future, ending new contracts for oil, gas, and coal exploration in 2023, while also embracing international calls for a fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty. At the same time, Colombia has increased imports of natural gas as domestic production declines.

Transition, it seems, is never a straight road.

Installed solar and wind capacity in Colombia has grown sharply in recent years, but hydropower variability, infrastructure challenges, and market realities have complicated the path forward. The country itself has become a portrait of the larger global contradiction: committed to change, but still tethered to the old system.

That contradiction extends beyond Latin America.

Some nations attending the summit, including Germany and Mexico, continue to consider expanding oil and gas production in pursuit of energy security. Canada, a major fossil fuel producer, is participating while reaffirming its commitments under the Paris Agreement. Brazil, champion of renewable energy and host of last year’s COP, has also become a major oil and gas producer.

The world, it seems, is trying to walk in two directions at once.

In Santa Marta, officials, scientists, Indigenous groups, and private-sector leaders are expected to discuss practical pathways—grid infrastructure, battery storage, subsidies, financing, and transition road maps. The emphasis is less on negotiation than implementation. Less on whether the transition should happen, and more on how.

That difference matters.

For years, climate summits have often revolved around language—phase out, phase down, transition away. Words negotiated deep into the night beneath fluorescent lights. But words alone do not build wind farms or modernize electric grids. They do not retrain workers or stabilize prices. They do not answer the fear of a country staring at a fuel shortage.

So here, amid the sea air and the conference tables, the work is becoming more practical.

Outside the summit, the world continues to burn fuel and bargain for more.

Inside, countries are trying to imagine a slower flame.

Whether Santa Marta becomes the start of a “new multilateralism,” as Colombian officials hope, or merely another gathering washed away by events, remains uncertain. The biggest emitters—the United States, China, India, and many Middle Eastern oil economies—are absent. Their absence is a silence as loud as any speech.

Still, under Caribbean skies, nations have gathered to speak against the current.

The waves keep arriving. Tankers keep moving. Markets keep searching.

And somewhere between the sea and the conference hall, the future is being argued in softer words.

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Sources POLITICO E&E News Reuters International Energy Agency Euronews The Guardian