Colombian coffee and Dutch stroopwafels – representing the co-hosts of the Santa Marta conference
In mid-April 2026, JPITs denominational leaders signed a letter asking Ed Miliband to attend First Conference on the Transition Away from Fossil Fuels. Held in Santa Marta, Colombia, the conference is a key opportunity for delegates from the Global North and South to gather and begin the technical preparation for a roadmap to promote a Just Transition away from Fossil Fuels that is Fast, Fair and Funded. Colombia, like many nations especially those in the Global South, relies on revenue from its fossil fuel exports for its development. An orderly and just transition is vital to prevent climate catastrophe without plunging millions into poverty. This is a task Colombian civil society, including faith based partners of JPITs denominations, are working hard to achieve.
Below, we publish a discussion, between Thomas Niblett, JPIT Intern, and Félix Posada Rojas, co-director of ECLAC, the Popular Ecumenical Centre for Latin American Communication, a global partner of the Methodist Church in Great Britian. ECLAC provides training in communications and use of media to promote human rights for impoverished and excluded populations in Colombian society. Understanding the earth as our common home, with water, forests and soils that require protection from exploitation for minerals and land, is core to ECLAC’s work. See the end of the conversation for more information about Felix and ECLAC.
Felix outlines the environmental and economic issues impacting the Colombians they work with, focusing on the resource extraction vital to the economy of Colombia and many countries in the Global South. Coal and emerald mining and charcoal production lead to ill health, dangerous conditions and poor wages. The poverty and inequality that results is exacerbated by the involvement of criminal gangs and paramilitaries, impacting the government’s efforts to diversify the economy away from extractive exports. Felix states that to achieve a true Just Transition for everyday Colombians, especially the most vulnerable, more funding from international sources is needed to enable grassroots organisations such as CEPALC to work effectively. He highlights that many organisations have failed to adequality represent Colombians in local, national and international contexts, and an embrace of grassroots participation work through community education is essential for an inclusive transition away from fossil fuels and the extractive economy they are part of.
For Christians in western countries supporting Climate Justice work, we have to come to terms with that fact that diching fossil fuels and embracing renewables is a task requiring more than technical changes to the energy system. Britain has now arguably decoupled carbon emissions from economic growth, and is likely to have a fossil free electricity system in the near future. But for countries in the Global South, the path to future development must include a Fossil Fuel Treaty that covers the technical path to transition, and also affirms the crucial role of civil society, including faith groups, in educating, engaging and leading the transition on the ground. The climate crisis, and our call to social justice work, is global, and we must learn from our Global South partners how to internationalise the transition.
Thank you very much to Felix for this vital discussion on what a Just Transition away from fossil fuels requires on the ground. You can read Félix’s reflection on Land Justice and how this impacts rural poverty and environmental injustice.
This is a guest blog and does not necessarily reflect the views of JPIT or our partner denominations
Félix’s words have been translated from Spanish. Thank you to Sandra Lopez, Partnership Coordinator for the Americas, Methodist Church of Great Britain, for facilitating. To support partners like CEPLAC, You can support the World Mission Fund of the Methodist Church and to the global work of JPITs other denominations, the URC’s Commitment for Life, Baptist World Mission and the Church of Scotland’s Global Partnerships.
Thomas: What is the extractive economy like for the people ECLAC work with
Félix: For some years now we have been accompanying children’s and youth groups in coal and emerald mining areas in the department of Boyacá in the central-eastern part of the country.
Coal mining occurs through two processes: excavation of mines where the mineral is extracted under precarious and highly dangerous conditions , endangering the health and lives of the workers. Families in these areas depend on mining for their livelihood, and from a very young age, forced by economic circumstances, teenagers are compelled to become miners , earning meager wages. Wages that don’t reflect the demands of the job. In fact, it’s rare to find a family that doesn’t have members who have died, been disabled by rockfalls, or suffered serious respiratory problems from the coal dust that gets into the workers’ lungs.
There are no job security or social security guarantees in these regions. Accidents in the mines, which are very frequent, are treated by employers and authorities as unforeseen events that do not warrant investigation or compensation.
In the grassroots groups we have supported, there has been participation from young people who have worked in the mines and are affected by serious respiratory illnesses.
Another method for producing charcoal is burning wood extracted from neighboring forests. These fires last for several days and are generally carried out by young teenagers under the direction of adults. The search for wood has decimated a large portion of the forests and polluted the water and air in these regions. Many children not only suffer from gastrointestinal illnesses due to the poor water quality but are also affected by malnutrition, a consequence of the poverty and misery endured by their families.
The emerald mining areas located in western Boyacá department have traditionally been dominated by businessmen who have armed groups at their service and who, in practice, impose law and order in these regions. This law and order have nothing to do with the Constitution of the Republic of Colombia and respect for the rights of groups.
Conflicts often arise among the mining companies, leading to murders, massacres, and a climate of intimidation in the mining areas. The vast majority of the population consists of a small minority of salaried miners working in the mines and the bulk of the population who work on a piece-rate basis, at their own risk, in the places where the large mining companies allow them to. They all dream of striking it rich : finding a good haul of emeralds that will allow them, for a few days, to indulge in the illusion of being rich and squander the money acquired on parties, alcohol, and prostitution, without worrying about securing the future of their families or themselves.
From a young age, young people are also eager to work in the mines and get rich. Education is unimportant to most of them, and the school dropout rate is very high. Many women also participate in this deceptive frenzy.
While the region produces millions of dollars’ worth of emeralds that are exported worldwide, the towns lack potable water, sewage systems, hospitals, and places for healthy recreation. Violence, gun ownership, and bloodshed are part of daily life in the area, with the complicity of state authorities who have shown no interest in creating an environment of peace and genuine progress in these areas, which have land ideally suited for intensive agricultural activity but which is currently completely underutilized.
Thomas: What are the challenges and opportunities for places like Santa Marta in the transition to renewable energy?
Félix: The situation in Santa Marta and its surrounding area cannot be analyzed without considering that the city and neighboring areas are under the effective control of criminal groups, mafias, who no longer bother to present themselves as political organizations. Commerce, industry, finance, and public order in Santa Marta’s neighborhoods are dominated or influenced by groups like the “Conquistadores de la Sierra,” who have amassed huge profits from extorting the general public and from their involvement in businesses such as tourism, mining, coca cultivation, and local government budgets. With the complicity of many civil and military authorities, they have expanded into a large part of the Magdalena department, whose capital is Santa Marta, and into neighboring departments like Guajira and Cesar, where they have clashed with rival criminal groups. This has resulted in the forced displacement of farmers and indigenous communities from their lands, confinement, and a pervasive sense of insecurity. In Magdalena and Cesar there are large coal mining operations that have suffered pressure from different armed groups that are disputing control of these territories (blocking of the coal railway, derailment of trains, etc. ) for not paying the extortions that are made to them.
It is a true utopia, given the current state of public order in the country and particularly in these Caribbean regions, to believe that a transition to renewable energy can take place above the interests of criminal groups and their allies in legal politics.
Before discussing a transition to renewable energy in Colombia, the State must regain territorial control and the monopoly on weapons that it has lost in recent years, during which the government of Gustavo Petro attempted a policy of total peace with more good intentions than results. Only by establishing an effective State presence in these regions can a transition to renewable energy even begin.
Another major reality of the Colombian economy remains its continued dependence on the extraction of minerals such as coal, gold, and oil. These products account for almost 50% of the country’s legal exports , and despite the current government’s efforts to diversify exports, the current situation shows that in the short and medium term, Colombia will continue to rely on its extractive economy.
The country has deindustrialized and, in reality, a good part of our income is generated by the so-called illegal economy, which has been created with coca cultivation and cocaine trafficking; illegal gold and coltan mining; smuggling of goods; extortion; rampant corruption in the management of public funds of the Colombian State….
A corrupt and incompetent state bureaucracy like Colombia’s, influenced and co-opted by so many external agents with their own particular and anti-community interests , cannot lead the process of transition to renewable energies unless there is a restructuring of the political, economic and social apparatus, of the institutional framework, and effective participation of grassroots communities in that process.
Thomas; How will the transition impact the marginalised groups ECLAC works with?
Félix: If this transition were to occur without the Colombian state creating alternatives for the populations currently dependent on coal mining, this process could condemn most of these people, who for generations have had no other means of subsistence, to poverty. In these mining areas, state intervention has been meager, very weak. Government officials have, in practice, been complicit with the mining companies, which have imposed quite primitive mineral extraction systems: the mine shafts and, in general, the mining facilities offer little safety to the workers, much less access to a labor protection system that would allow them to receive healthcare and a retirement pension.
In gold mining areas, small-scale artisanal miners are subject to the interests of large corporations, both Colombian and foreign, and, above all, to the suffocating control exerted over both by illegal armed groups. The profits these criminal groups obtain have increased in recent times thanks to the high prices gold has fetched on international markets. Some reports indicate revenues of over $8 billion by 2025 from gold sales, a significant portion of which remains in the hands of criminal organizations.
An energy transition that does not meet two basic criteria: job retraining plans and temporary economic subsidies for the mining population and the decriminalisation of the mining industry is doomed to fail in a country like Colombia.
Thomas: How can we prevent environmental damage from worsening for communities during the transition?
Félix: The rampant corruption and incompetence of the Colombian state’s administrative apparatus, which has become a clientelist prize for all governments and has facilitated the emergence of a new social class within the nation’s powerful elite—the state contractors—does not allow us to be very optimistic for now about the effective management that government officials can make of a social plan to avoid the traumas that the abandonment of the current extractive model could create in many communities.
Perhaps the most expeditious way to implement a program that mitigates the effects of an energy transition in communities that subsisted on the extractive model is for this program to have active participation, on the one hand, from governments that want to help finance that transition in Colombia and, on the other hand, from genuine local and regional grassroots organizations whose voice and interests are taken into account in the application of the program.
The latter is quite difficult to achieve: For some years now, all kinds of organizations claiming to represent the poor and their communities have proliferated in Colombia, but in practice, they operate in isolation from these poor people and are more interested in obtaining contracts and perks through their intermediation with the State and international sources than anything else. This new bureaucracy has flourished in recent years under the shadow of the peace agreements, and some religious sectors have not been immune to this practice.
Thomas: How would you like environmental and climate policies to be developed in an inclusive and democratic way?
Félix: If we want to develop inclusive environmental and climate policies, we need, as we warned earlier, the full participation of impoverished sectors that are victims of the extractive model. But for that participation to be truly productive, we believe it is necessary to carry out ecological education campaigns with children, young people, women, and Indigenous people, with the participation of grassroots organizations, Indigenous councils, peasant associations, etc. This educational process must be empathetic , creative, and not repeat the outdated model of traditional teaching where there is a teacher who lectures and students who listen submissively. Schools, colleges, and teachers should commit to developing comprehensive ecological education programs …
Otherwise, we are condemned to continue experiencing what we see today: that meetings and conferences on these topics are dominated by groups of experts who use specialized technical language that does not allow for greater participation from ordinary people.
ECLAC: The Ecumenical Popular Center for Latin American Communication, is a social service organization founded in 1978 in Bogotá, Colombia. Since then, under the impetus of its founder, Amparito Beltrán Acosta, a theologian and communicator, the Center has been committed to promoting the values of Justice, Peace, and Integrity of Creation among grassroots groups of impoverished and excluded populations in Colombian society: women, indigenous people, farmers, Afro-Colombians, youth, and children.
The support provided to the groups is given through training processes in the appropriation and management of media, including radio, television, performing arts, journalism and social networks on the internet.
But our work hasn’t been limited to this aspect, because media management has been complemented by training in human rights, women’s rights, children’s rights, and a culture of peace. The goal is for children, young people, and women to become true builders of rights for their communities.
In particular with women’s groups we have delved into topics such as gender awareness training , economic justice for women, and the need to transform patriarchal culture.
In all our groups we have emphasized that everyone must commit to defending the environment and natural resources, understanding that the earth is our common home, a home that is in danger due to the predatory actions against water, forests, and soils that take place in many parts of the planet in the voracious search for minerals or land for large agricultural, livestock, and forestry operations.
Félix Posada Rojas was born in Pereira, Colombia, in 1954. He earned his degree in sociology from the Pontifical Bolivarian University of Medellín and has since dedicated his life to social service, first as a volunteer in the Catholic Diocese of Buenaventura in the jungles of the Colombian Pacific coast, and later as co-director of ECLAC from 1982 to the present. For many years, he focused on training grassroots groups on topics such as the history of Colombia, Latin America, and the world. As a complement to this work, he published several collections of booklets on the histories of Colombia, Latin America, and the world.
He has been the director of the magazine “ENCUENTRO” since its founding in 1981, first as a printed publication and then as a publication that circulates through the internet.
He has written several novels, two of which were published and circulated in Colombia a few years ago.