“When oil costs go up, we make some huge cash,” U.S. President Donald Trump wrote not too long ago. The surge in oil costs, pushed by escalating warfare between america, Israel, and Iran, may appear engaging not solely to Washington but in addition to smaller oil-exporting nations looking for to capitalize on the second. With Brent crude oil costs reaching $100 per barrel, the financial incentives to develop manufacturing are strengthening throughout the worldwide market.
Colombia’s fossil gas phaseout program and broader vitality transition agenda was already a worldwide outlier. Can the nation resist the short-term lure of windfall earnings from oil exports, particularly now, and keep the political house required to plan and construct a post-fossil gas financial system?
Throughout the 2022 presidential marketing campaign, President Gustavo Petro made the vitality transition a central pillar of his platform, pledging to finish the granting of recent licenses for oil and gasoline exploration, to halt two deliberate pilot fracking tasks, 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 because the mid-Nineteen Eighties, when it considerably elevated manufacturing and have become an oil exporter.
But there exists a structural stress 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 remains to be deeply intertwined with more and more risky world fossil gas markets. Moreover, shifting 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 Might shall be a important 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 street map for a simply vitality transition. The plan prioritizes accelerating the deployment of renewable vitality, lowering 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 vitality panorama. Because the adoption of the plan a little bit greater than three years in the past, the share of renewable vitality in Colombia’s electrical energy combine has elevated from 2 p.c to 16 p.c.
However Colombia finds itself in a strikingly paradoxical place. In 2024, greater than 75 p.c of Colombia’s whole vitality demand was met by means of fossil fuels. Of that vitality, oil comprised greater than 40 p.c, adopted by pure gasoline and coal. Colombia stays a significant exporter of oil and coal, which proceed to underpin export revenues and monetary earnings, constituting about 10 p.c of GDP and 45 p.c of whole exports in 2024.
A contentious pillar of Petro’s vitality agenda has been the pledge to cease issuing new licenses for oil and gasoline exploration. That 2022 dedication has turn into probably the most politically fragile components of the transition. Whereas present fields would proceed to function, the pledge challenges long-standing fundamentals of financial progress, fiscal revenues, and vitality safety.
Unsurprisingly, the coverage has triggered important home pushback, together with infighting inside Petro’s personal cupboard. Critics inside the federal government have repeatedly warned that oil exports play a important function in Colombia’s macroeconomic stability, supporting international trade 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 extensively 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 extensively 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.
Throughout 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 turn into significantly tougher. It might additionally complicate progress on the vitality transition, which would require constructing broad legislative coalitions to cross new regulatory modifications. 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 vitality and financial transition plans. These investments are supposed each to scale up renewable vitality and different inexperienced sectors and to progressively exchange revenues which are at the moment generated from oil and gasoline.
Worldwide investments for clear vitality are starting to return 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 tasks in Colombia’s Atlántico area to produce renewable electrical energy to 1.5 million folks.
These investments assist new authorities initiatives such because the “Colombia Photo voltaic” program, a nationwide technique introduced in September and designed to speed up a simply vitality transition by turning present vitality subsidies into sustainable investments in photo voltaic expertise. As a substitute 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 function in supplying inexpensive photo voltaic panels, batteries, and related clear vitality applied sciences. In Might 2025, Colombia formally signed as much as China’s Belt and Highway 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 looking for 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 approach to appeal to funding and expertise to assist its simply vitality transition agenda, accelerating renewable vitality deployment and clear transport infrastructure whereas lowering reliance on fossil fuels.
On a global stage, 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 Power Company as thirty third member nation. This diplomatic stance has elevated Colombia’s profile as a norm-shaper in local weather and vitality 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 should 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 outdoors the UNFCCC, the place specific dialogue of fossil gas phaseout has repeatedly been sidelined. At COP30, references to phasing out fossil fuels have been once more stripped from negotiated textual content, regardless of greater than 80 nations supporting the event of a street map for phaseout. The end result bolstered a way that the U.N. local weather course of is structurally more and more constrained on this problem. The Colombia-Netherlands initiative represents each a political workaround and a check 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 Gasoline 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 america will search to undermine the convention, drawing on ways already seen in 2025 akin to diplomatic strain and threats of commerce repercussions in opposition to extra formidable nations.
The upcoming fossil gas phaseout convention carries robust 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 just isn’t retreating from local weather ambition below strain.
Symbolism alone will not be adequate. For the phaseout agenda to endure, the convention should additionally reveal how local weather management can translate into tangible financial advantages, akin to decrease vitality prices and new job creation. This implies showcasing concrete enterprise and funding partnerships on clear expertise deployment, concessional finance, industrial coverage, and simply transition mechanisms.
Domestically, too, ethical statements usually are not sufficient. The sturdiness of Colombia’s stance on fossil fuels will rely each on inner political coalitions in addition to the energetic assist of the worldwide neighborhood. This implies shifting past rhetorical reward to concrete measures: ramping up inexperienced funding by means of 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 the way to defend climate-aligned nations from punitive commerce tariffs or different monetary penalties. If Colombia is left remoted, its experiment might show to be politically unsustainable. This could ship a chilling sign to different producer nations which are considering comparable paths.
But when backed by coordinated worldwide assist, Colombia might turn 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 in addition by the resurgence of fossil gas politics amid conflicts such because the escalating warfare within the Center East.
