The story. Scientists advising a first-of-its-kind fossil-fuel transition summit in Colombia are urging attending countries to halt new oil, gas, and coal expansion, according to Carbon Brief. The recommendations land as Colombia — a mid-sized Latin American oil exporter — positions itself as a convening voice for producer nations willing to wind down extraction.

The bigger picture. Colombia's own power sector gives it unusual standing to host this conversation. Its electricity carbon intensity — how much CO2 is emitted per unit of power generated — sits at 187 gCO2/kWh in 2025 (Ember), well under half the world average of 458 gCO2/kWh. That's because hydro supplies 62.5 TWh of generation, dwarfing the 12.4 TWh from gas and 5.5 TWh from coal. For contrast, Saudi Arabia's grid runs at 692 gCO2/kWh (2024), while Norway — another producer pursuing transition — sits at 28 gCO2/kWh (Ember). The deforestation picture is messier. Colombia lost 247,301 hectares of tree cover in 2024 (Global Forest Watch), and 80.6% of cumulative loss comes from shifting agriculture — small-scale rotational farming — rather than the commodity-driven clearing (13.1%) tied to fossil and industrial supply chains elsewhere.

The tension. A clean grid makes phase-out rhetoric cheaper for Colombia than for petrostates whose domestic power depends on the same fuels they export. Whether that credibility translates into binding commitments from heavier emitters is the summit's open question.