May 6, 2026
Oil be damned? Not so fast
Colombia hosts talks on exiting fossil fuels as global energy crisis deepens
World leaders talk quitting oil while commenters ask: is talking all we ever do
TLDR: More than 50 countries met in Colombia to discuss how to move away from fossil fuels as war-driven energy shocks expose how risky oil dependence can be. Commenters mostly reacted with sarcasm, saying the world has been “talking” forever and wondering whether missing giants like the U.S. and China make the whole thing feel symbolic.
In Santa Marta, Colombia, more than 50 countries have gathered to talk about moving away from oil, gas, and coal — with the awkward visual of fuel tankers unloading practically across the road. That image basically wrote the internet’s reaction for it: big climate promises on one side, giant tanks of fossil fuel on the other. The meeting is meant to push past the slow-motion frustration of past global climate summits, especially after countries agreed to shift away from fossil fuels and then… mostly kept arguing about how.
And wow, the comments were not in a patient mood. The dominant vibe was exhausted cynicism. One person summed up the feeling with a brutal eye-roll: we’ve been having these talks for longer than they’ve been alive, and the progress is still "underwhelming." Another roasted the whole event by mocking the idea that just holding a conference counts as success, saying the bar is now so low it’s underground. Ouch.
But there was also a spicy geopolitical twist. One commenter called it "absolutely hilarious" that renewed global interest in cleaner energy may have been supercharged by Donald Trump’s latest Gulf chaos, turning the energy crisis into a dark joke about how world events force people to take renewables seriously. Others argued this should have been treated as a national security issue decades ago, not just an environmental one. The real drama? Not everyone who matters is even there — the U.S., China, India, Saudi Arabia, and Russia are absent — so the crowd online is asking the obvious question: can the world quit fossil fuels if the biggest players ghost the meeting?
Key Points
- •More than 50 countries met in Santa Marta, Colombia, for a conference focused on transitioning away from fossil fuels.
- •The meeting was organized after limited progress following COP28 and the failure to keep a fossil-fuel phaseout roadmap in the final COP30 document.
- •Colombia and the Netherlands convened the gathering as a less formal "coalition of the willing" rather than a binding U.N. negotiating session.
- •Participants are discussing practical implementation steps, including national and international road maps, with Brazil’s COP30 presidency expected to present a global road map at COP31 in Turkey.
- •Major emitters and oil producers including China, the United States, India, Saudi Arabia, Russia, and Venezuela are not participating, limiting the conference’s global reach.