San Francisco Frontiers - Nations to kick off world-first fossil fuel exit talks

Ministers and climate envoys aim to revive the transition from fossil fuels at the inaugural conference in Santa Marta, one of the country's busiest coal hubs in a nation heavily reliant on energy exports.

The two-day conference bypasses the United Nations climate talks and reflects a growing impatience with its failure to tackle fossil fuels, the main driver of global warming.

"People seem refreshed to be able to talk about these issues without having to sort of argue the existential question of -- do we need to do this at all?" the UK's special climate envoy Rachel Kyte told AFP in Santa Marta on Monday.

As government delegates arrived Monday, climate activists and Indigenous groups protested against fossil fuels on the streets and beaches of the Caribbean port town where coal tankers dot the ocean horizon.

The conference is not expected to produce binding commitments but a scientific panel has asked governments taking part to consider a halt on new fossil fuel expansion, among other proposals.

On the list of attendees are major fossil fuel producers Canada, Norway and Australia and developing oil giants Nigeria, Angola and Brazil.

They join major energy consuming nations in the European Union, coal-reliant emerging markets Turkey and Vietnam, and small island nation states extremely vulnerable to climate shocks.

The world's biggest emitters of greenhouse gases -- including the United States, China and India -- are not attending, nor are oil-rich Gulf states.

- 'Good faith' -

The conference was announced late last year but organizers say the US-Israel attacks on Iran had bolstered the case for a fossil fuel phaseout as nations confronted a sudden shortage of oil and gas.

"Fossil fuels are now clearly to be seen as a source of instability," Kyte told AFP in an interview.

Many nations "are here in good faith to really work through what is a very complex challenge made more urgent by the crisis," she added.

This includes developing nations highly dependent on fossil fuel revenue like Colombia, which is co-hosting the conference with the Netherlands.

Among other agenda items, nations will consider how to equitably reduce fossil fuel production and consumption, and reforming subsidies that throw up barriers to renewable energy investment.

Analysis by the International Institute for Sustainable Development on Monday showed that governments still spent five times more public money on fossil fuels than renewable alternatives.

- 'Fossil fuel ban' -

On Sunday, a scientific panel released a 12-point "menu" of policy options that included "halting all new and expanding fossil fuel extraction and infrastructure projects."

"Without a doubt, there is no justification whatsoever for any new exploration of fossil fuels," the Brazilian scientist Carlos Nobre, a former member of the UN's climate advisory panel, told AFP in Santa Marta.

Even as record amounts of investment flows into renewable energy, scientists warn the pace is still too slow to keep global temperature rises to safer levels.

"Even if we carried out no new exploration, the amount of fossil fuels -- oil, coal, and natural gas -- that already exists will push temperatures up to two and a half degrees by 2050," Nobre said.

The world has already warmed about 1.4C above pre-industrial times and is tracking to blow past 1.5C in a matter of years.

Above that threshold, scientists warn that coral reefs and Greenland ice sheets could disappear, among other catastrophic and irreversible impacts.

L.Lopez--SFF