At the First Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels, we – Global Afro-Descendants (GAD) – are confronting interconnected systems of oppression and fighting for REAL solutions to the climate and ecological crises
SANTA MARTA, COLOMBIA — For the first time in history, Afro-descendant peoples have been formally recognized and included as an official delegation within a global climate process.
Participating alongside other sectors of civil society as an invited constituency group by the host governments, the GAD engaged in a series of collaborative dialogues to identify key barriers, articulate solutions, and advance pathways toward a just transition away from fossil fuels. Co-stewarded by The Chisholm Legacy Project, Black Alliance for Peace, and Terra40, the GAD delegation included 11 organizations representing seven countries (but not limited to): Colombia, Brazil, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Canada, and the United States. 57 Afro-descendant organizations registered to participate in this historic conference, and through a collective process, we arrived at 11 delegate representatives. For Afro-descendants, this process builds from ongoing efforts such as the International Afro-descendant Coalition for Land, Territories, Climate Change and Biodiversity in Latin America and the Caribbean (CITAFRO) and the Global Afro-descendants and Climate Justice Policy Platform (GADCJC). Together, in this conference process and space, we developed key recommendations grounded in lived experience, ancestral knowledge, and political analyses rooted in our global liberation.
While this moment marks a critical milestone in global climate justice efforts, it was also marred by serious contradictions.
Despite coordination with the Government of Colombia, the co-host government of the Netherlands obstructed the participation of several African comrades through visa denials and delays. These actions reflect ongoing patterns of violent anti-Blackness and structural exclusion that undermine the integrity of international climate processes. Further, Afro-descendants were excluded as a sector in the closing plenary remarks for this First Conference and steps toward the Second Conference.
This contradiction is further underscored by the Netherlands’ position among the 27 nation-states of the EU that have refused to formally recognize the Transatlantic Slave Trade as one of the gravest crimes against humanity while simultaneously positioning itself as a partner in climate leadership. Hosting a conference in Colombia, home to the third-largest population of Afro-descendants globally, while perpetuating such harm, exposes a profound inconsistency that cannot go unchallenged.
A just transition that meaningfully transitions away from fossil fuels requires confronting and dismantling interconnected systems of oppression and centering the experiences of those who are at the helm of impact, which is consistently our communities. Without this, proposed solutions will continue to perpetuate the very harms they claim to address.
As GAD spokesperson and Founder of The Descendants Project, Jo Banner stated:
We reject false solutions that continue to harm our communities via the cause and the proposed ‘solution.’” This includes the continued subjection of Afro-descendant communities to the extraction of critical materials and the systems that turn that extraction into profit. These solutions are often proposed as ‘necessary’ for the transition away from Fossil Fuels.
We are explicit in naming the root cause of a sustained fossil fuel industry and how its dependence is coupled with global imperialism: The fossil fuel industry is built on the legacy of plantations and on stolen Indigenous lands. Enslaved Africans and the plantation systems founded the so-called United States and other colonial powers. African/Black peoples, communities, nations – from the Gulf South of the United States to the Niger Delta, to the Colombian Pacific to the nation of Haiti – endure extraction, displacement, and violence because of the richness of their lands, waterways, and cultures – and the insatiable desires and demands of those in power. Our ancestors became the “capital” in “capitalism.”
As our People(s) were forcibly relocated and forced to work on lands brutally stolen from Indigenous peoples of Abya Yala, we affirm the unique relationship between our peoples. Both Afro-descendant and Indigenous peoples, nations, and communities face increasing militarism, racism, and oppression globally and domestically. We maintain that it remains imperative to be in constant development of global Afro/Indigenous solidarity efforts.
The GAD delegation stands united in dismantling both historical and ongoing injustices that continue to shape global systems and harm our communities. Through systemic change and self-determination, we envision a radical restructuring of global trade, finance, and migration systems away from exploitative practices rooted in colonialism, white supremacy, and racial capitalism.
We are working toward:
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An end to the plantation and capitalist system that the fossil fuel economy and militarist domination are built on and maintained through various forms of violence.
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An economy of care that is the antidote to this extractive economy and establishes protection and support from the perspective of ancestral and traditional ecological and knowledge systems.
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Just Transition from a Peoples-Centered Human Rights
perspective, which does not pretend to be neutral or objective but takes a perspective of the masses of people who are oppressed, toward bringing about a revolutionary change in this world in order to realize human rights as the basis of our legitimacy. -
Transformation of global climate governance, including establishing an independent governing body for Afro-descendant peoples in the UNFCCC; this would be based on fundamental recognition of Afro-descendants at a legal level.
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Legal recognition and protection of collective spaces for Afro-descendant/African/Black peoples and communities as essential to a just transition, including the development of authentic self-determining local economies and collective land titling, building off Colombia’s Law 70 as a framework for nation-states where Afro-descendants reside and call home.
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Alignment of financing, cooperation, and accountability with a just transition based on territories, traditional knowledge, and historical justice, with the guarantee and fulfillment of substantive and expansive reparations for Afro-descendant peoples.
The only path forward from fossil fuel dependency and an extractive economy is the defeat of those interlocking systems of oppression through a unified, protracted struggle and social revolution. Anything less is ultimately a false solution to the climate and ecological crises, and an abdication of our radical movement’s vision for self-determination and human dignity. As the First Conference for the Transition Away from Fossil Fuels “High-Level Conference” sessions end today, we as GAD will continue to engage the institutions of power and decision-making ability, including this summer’s convening in Bonn, Germany, and the Second Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels in Tuvalu in 2027.
Relevant Documents:
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Afro-Descendant Concept Paper: First Conference on
Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels by the Global Afro-Descendant Sector -
Summary of the proposal Afro-
descendant Communities [DRAFT] elaborated during Assembly of the Peoples -
People’s Declaration for a
Rapid, Equitable, and Just Transition for a Fossil-Free Future by the People’s Summit for a Fossil Free Future -
“Global movements unite in
Santa Marta to launch “People’ s Declaration for a Rapid, Equitable, and Just Transition for a Fossil-Free Future” ahead of historic climate conference” Press Release, 26 April 2026