The world’s first dedicated conference on phasing out fossil fuels ended last week with broad praise for its diplomatic ambition, but health advocates and independent observers say it fell short on one fundamental issue: the human body.
The First Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels, co-hosted by Colombia and the Netherlands in Santa Marta from April 24 to 29, drew representatives from 57 countries to discuss how governments can move away from coal, oil and gas in a structured, equitable way. The summit concluded with agreement to hold a follow-up conference in Tuvalu in 2027, co-hosted with Ireland, and the establishment of three workstreams covering national roadmaps, fossil fuel subsidy reform, and clean trade.
Yet health remained a conspicuous absence. Climate Home News noted after the closing plenary that health harms caused by fossil fuels through air pollution, extreme heat and other impacts were an area the conference was criticised for overlooking.
The Global Climate and Health Alliance (GCHA), a consortium of over 250 health organisations, had pushed ahead of the high-level segment for governments to place human health at the centre of their transition plans. Its Executive Director, Dr Jeni Miller, said the leaders gathered in Santa Marta were not debating abstract policy, but deciding the health of millions of people. She pointed to temperatures of 45 to 46 degrees Celsius currently recorded across South and Southeast Asia, describing the conditions as pushing the limits of human survivability.
Dr Courtney Howard, an emergency physician and board chair of the GCHA, argued that fossil fuel subsidies effectively channel public money into outcomes that damage both people and health systems, while concealing the true economic cost of inaction. She said including health costs in energy and budget decisions would alter how governments weigh the cost of transition, and that a managed exit from fossil fuels would ultimately reduce healthcare spending and strengthen economies.
The GCHA’s case was reinforced by what took place outside the conference halls. A People’s Summit running alongside the formal proceedings brought together workers, communities and advocates from across civil society, with participants from a children’s stakeholder group calling on governments to protect the right of every child to breathe safely.
The Santa Marta conference was born out of frustration with the slow pace of United Nations climate negotiations, and was designed to complement rather than replace the annual Conference of the Parties (COP) process. Brazil’s COP30 presidency promised to carry forward an informal fossil fuel roadmap drawing on the Santa Marta discussions ahead of COP31, scheduled for Turkey in November 2026.
Whether health will feature more prominently in that roadmap remains an open question.
