“When oil costs go up, we make some huge cash,” U.S. President Donald Trump wrote lately. The surge in oil costs, pushed by escalating conflict between the US, Israel, and Iran, might sound enticing not solely to Washington but additionally to smaller oil-exporting nations in search of to capitalize on the second. With Brent crude oil costs reaching $100 per barrel, the financial incentives to increase manufacturing are strengthening throughout the worldwide market.
Colombia’s fossil gas phaseout program and broader power transition agenda was already a worldwide outlier. Can the nation resist the short-term lure of windfall earnings from oil exports, particularly now, and preserve the political house required to plan and construct a post-fossil gas financial system?
Through the 2022 presidential marketing campaign, President Gustavo Petro made the power transition a central pillar of his platform, pledging to finish the granting of latest licenses for oil and fuel exploration, to halt two deliberate pilot fracking initiatives, and to stop the exploitation of unconventional hydrocarbon deposits. These commitments marked a transparent break with Colombia’s conventional extractivist growth mannequin, which the nation had pursued for the reason that mid-Nineteen Eighties, when it considerably elevated manufacturing and have become an oil exporter.
But there exists a structural rigidity on the coronary heart of Colombia’s transition technique: Whereas the nation can credibly declare management for driving ambition within the low-carbon transition, its financial system continues to be deeply intertwined with more and more unstable world fossil gas markets. Moreover, transferring away from an extractivist mannequin is an inherently long-term mission. With Petro constitutionally barred from standing for workplace once more, the presidential elections scheduled in Could might be a essential juncture for this daring experiment.
Following Petro’s election, his administration launched a Nationwide Growth Plan for 2022-2026 (titled: “Colombia, Potencia Mundial de la Vida,” or “Colombia, World Energy of Life”), which units out a highway map for a simply power transition. The plan prioritizes accelerating the deployment of renewable power, decreasing dependence on fossil fuels, combating environmental crimes, and selling the uptake of zero- and low-emission autos. It positioned Colombia as a number one, though contested, experiment in climate-aligned growth coverage in a quickly shifting geopolitical power panorama. Because the adoption of the plan a bit greater than three years in the past, the share of renewable power in Colombia’s electrical energy combine has elevated from 2 % to 16 %.
However Colombia finds itself in a strikingly paradoxical place. In 2024, greater than 75 % of Colombia’s complete power demand was met by fossil fuels. Of that power, oil comprised greater than 40 %, adopted by pure fuel and coal. Colombia stays a significant exporter of oil and coal, which proceed to underpin export revenues and financial revenue, constituting about 10 % of GDP and 45 % of complete exports in 2024.
A contentious pillar of Petro’s power agenda has been the pledge to cease issuing new licenses for oil and fuel exploration. That 2022 dedication has develop into probably the most politically fragile parts of the transition. Whereas present fields would proceed to function, the pledge challenges long-standing fundamentals of financial progress, fiscal revenues, and power safety.
Unsurprisingly, the coverage has triggered vital home pushback, together with infighting inside Petro’s personal cupboard. Critics inside the federal government have repeatedly warned that oil exports play a essential position in Colombia’s macroeconomic stability, supporting overseas change earnings, public funds, and social spending.
Which brings us to the politics. Among the many main contenders to succeed Petro is Iván Cepeda, who’s broadly seen as aligned with the left-wing Historic Pact, the coalition that introduced Petro to energy. Analysts broadly describe Cepeda because the candidate most probably to hold ahead Petro’s mission, emphasizing continuity on progressive priorities. In contrast, the main contender, Abelardo de la Espriella, the founding father of the pro-democracy motion Defensores de la Patria and broadly generally known as “El Tigre,” is narrowly main within the newest polls. Operating as a right-wing conservative outsider with a platform centered on safety and free-market economics, he’s believed to be much less prone to proceed Colombia’s fossil gas phaseout agenda.
Through the March 8 congressional elections, Historic Pact emerged as the biggest bloc however didn’t safe an outright majority in Congress. This fragmented final result signifies that advancing main political reforms will develop into significantly more difficult. It could additionally complicate progress on the power transition, which would require constructing broad legislative coalitions to go new regulatory adjustments. Along with home political management Colombia would require substantial worldwide funding to ship its transition agenda. An estimated $40 billion is required over the approaching decade, as outlined in its power and financial transition plans. These investments are meant each to scale up renewable power and different inexperienced sectors and to progressively exchange revenues which might be at present generated from oil and fuel.
Worldwide investments for clear power are starting to come back in, though not but on the scale required. For instance, after an preliminary tranche of $100 million was disbursed in July 2025, the worldwide partnerships and growth arm of the European Funding Financial institution, along with Enel Colombia S.A., a part of the Enel Group, introduced a brand new mortgage of $200 million in November to finance two new solar energy initiatives in Colombia’s Atlántico area to produce renewable electrical energy to 1.5 million folks.
These investments help new authorities initiatives such because the “Colombia Photo voltaic” program, a nationwide technique introduced in September and designed to speed up a simply power transition by turning present power subsidies into sustainable investments in photo voltaic know-how. As an alternative of subsidizing conventional electrical energy prices, the coverage goals to ship photo voltaic panels and related tools on to households, significantly in lower-income strata.
Increasing solar energy on the scale and pace that Colombia requires will inevitably rely on deeper commerce and funding ties with China, given its dominant position in supplying reasonably priced photo voltaic panels, batteries, and related clear power applied sciences. In Could 2025, Colombia formally signed up to China’s Belt and Street Initiative, following a bilateral assembly between Chinese language President Xi Jinping and Petro throughout Petro’s go to to Beijing.
For China, nearer ties with Colombia provide entry to new export markets at a time when it’s actively in search of to scale abroad deployment of photo voltaic photovoltaic and wind energy applied sciences, batteries, and electrical autos amid tightening commerce circumstances in Europe and North America. For Colombia, engagement below the initiative is framed as a option to entice funding and know-how to help its simply power transition agenda, accelerating renewable power deployment and clear transport infrastructure whereas decreasing reliance on fossil fuels.
On a world degree, Colombia has emerged as a number one voice in worldwide local weather diplomacy and has positioned itself as a bridge between climate-vulnerable nations and reform-minded producers. In February, Colombia joined the Worldwide Vitality Company as thirty third member nation. This diplomatic stance has elevated Colombia’s profile as a norm-shaper in local weather and power governance.
As such, Colombia will host a high-profile worldwide convention on fossil gas phaseout this spring, co-hosted with the Netherlands in April. It would carry into even sharper focus the worldwide political divisions which have impacted the U.N. Framework Conference on Local weather Change (UNFCCC) course of as nations grapple with the necessity to section out fossil fuels whereas navigating intense geopolitical competitors.
This convention marks a deliberate shift to take probably the most contentious local weather debates exterior the UNFCCC, the place express dialogue of fossil gas phaseout has repeatedly been sidelined. At COP30, references to phasing out fossil fuels had been once more stripped from negotiated textual content, regardless of greater than 80 nations supporting the event of a highway map for phaseout. The result bolstered a way that the U.N. local weather course of is structurally more and more constrained on this concern. The Colombia-Netherlands initiative represents each a political workaround and a take a look at of diplomatic resolve. The initiative was additionally endorsed by the Brazilian presidency on the closing plenary of COP30 (maybe recognizing that Brazil didn’t obtain as a lot as was hoped for).
As of early 2026, a rising group of round 18 nation-states have formally endorsed and are actively pushing for the adoption of the Fossil Gas Non-Proliferation Treaty, together with a number of Pacific island nations, Colombia, Antigua and Barbuda, Pakistan, and Cambodia, to create an financial regime and community of nations that work collectively, facilitating investments and applied sciences.
A key uncertainty is whether or not the US will search to undermine the convention, drawing on ways already seen in 2025 corresponding to diplomatic strain and threats of commerce repercussions towards extra bold nations.
The upcoming fossil gas phaseout convention carries sturdy symbolic weight on this geopolitical second. In opposition to a backdrop of resurgent and confrontational oil politics marked by renewed useful resource nationalism, the convention must sign {that a} rising group of nations shouldn’t be retreating from local weather ambition below strain.
Symbolism alone will not be adequate. For the phaseout agenda to endure, the convention should additionally exhibit how local weather management can translate into tangible financial advantages, corresponding to decrease power prices and new job creation. This implies showcasing concrete enterprise and funding partnerships on clear know-how deployment, concessional finance, industrial coverage, and simply transition mechanisms.
Domestically, too, ethical statements should not sufficient. The sturdiness of Colombia’s stance on fossil fuels will rely each on inner political coalitions in addition to the energetic help of the worldwide neighborhood. This implies transferring past rhetorical reward to concrete measures: ramping up inexperienced funding by concessional finance, guaranteeing ideally tariff-free market entry for low-carbon exports, and supporting fiscal transition methods to interchange hydrocarbon revenues.
A key query is methods to defend climate-aligned nations from punitive commerce tariffs or different monetary penalties. If Colombia is left remoted, its experiment could show to be politically unsustainable. This may ship a chilling sign to different producer nations which might be considering comparable paths.
But when backed by coordinated worldwide help, Colombia may develop into a proof level that local weather management is appropriate with financial stability, good governance, and sovereignty in an more and more fractured geopolitical panorama. This panorama is formed not solely by nice energy competitors but additionally by the resurgence of fossil gas politics amid conflicts such because the escalating conflict within the Center East.
