Does this week’s historic climate summit signal the end of Cop?

Rarely has there been such frenzied speculation over an adverb. In December 2023, climate nerds were waiting on tenterhooks to see whether countries at the Cop talks in Dubai would agree to phase out fossil fuels, or simply phase them down.

In the end, they went for neither, agreeing to “transition away”.

While none of options may sound especially drastic, that act of verbal gymnastics overcame a deadlock that had kept fossil fuels – the driving force behind the destruction of the planet – out of official UN texts for nearly 30 years. Three years on, against the backdrop of a global energy crisis, those two words have given rise to a breakaway summit aiming to reinject some hope into the green transition.

This week, 60 countries are meeting in the Colombian city of Santa Marta for the inaugural Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels Summit. Heads of state, environment ministers, civil society groups, Indigenous peoples and academics are gathering to address three points: how countries can make their energy systems cleaner; how they can reduce their economic dependence on dirty fuels; and how they can work together to eliminate fossil fuels.

The idea emerged from conversations between 18 member countries of a campaign called the Fossil Fuel Treaty Initiative. Unlike the UN-convened Cop climate talks, this week’s event is attended only by nations committed to the green transition – and takes place outside any formal framework that can produce a binding outcome.

So what might this event achieve? And does its very existence indicate that the Cop talks are failing to deliver the change that our future depends on?