Civil Society Launches People’s Declaration Ahead of Landmark ‘Transitioning Away’ Conference

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Civil Society Launches People’s Declaration Ahead of Landmark ‘Transitioning Away’ Conference

Rituraj Phukan

As over 50 nations prepare to convene for the ‘First International Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels’, jointly organized by the governments of Colombia and the Netherlands, a powerful global coalition comprising civil society organizations, frontline communities, Indigenous Peoples, Afro-descendants, women, youth, and workers has formally launched the People’s Declaration for a Rapid, Equitable, and Just Transition toward a Fossil-Free Future.

The Declaration, launched from Santa Marta, Colombia, outlines a clear plan for a fair transition focused on human rights, energy democracy, and climate justice. After months of collaborative discussion, the People’s Declaration brings together widespread global demands into a unified vision, declaring that it is time to move from negotiation to implementation.

The People’s Declaration characterises the climate crisis as resulting from global systems influenced by capitalism, colonialism, and militarism, and explicitly connects reliance on fossil fuels with geopolitical conflict. It issues an urgent appeal for governments to acknowledge the significant ecological debt held by the Global North in relation to the Global South.

The coalition is calling for the new “coalition of the willing” to agree to clear and enforceable steps for a rapid, fair, and properly financed phaseout of fossil fuels. They stress that this transition must avoid ineffective solutions, provide public funding without creating debt, and include full reparations that are necessary for the wellbeing of communities and the planet.

The declaration outlines 15 principles for a just transition, centered on:

1. Rapid, Transformative, and Science-Based: The transition must be a systemic overhaul guided by rigorous climate science (limiting warming to 1.5°C and reaching real zero by 2050) while drawing from Indigenous, ancestral, and popular knowledge.
2. Fair and Equitable (Based on Historical Responsibility): Acknowledges the Global North’s historical and ongoing responsibility, requiring it to lead in phase-out speed and provide adequate, grant-based climate finance as reparations to the Global South.
3. Addressing Energy Poverty and Universal Access: Guarantees the universal right to sufficient, sustainable, gender-just, and non-racist energy access, treating energy as a public good and prioritizing decentralized, community-owned systems.
4. Efficiency, Sufficiency, Sovereignty, and Responsible Use: Prioritizes curbing excessive consumption (especially by elites and corporations) and material sufficiency over capital accumulation, rejecting extractivist models even for “green” transitions.
5. Energy Democracy and Sovereignty: Promotes democratic, community, and public ownership of energy systems, ensuring decisions are made by peoples and territories rather than corporations, with deep participation in planning.
6. People-Centered Human Rights and Inclusion: Centers the rights of workers, women, migrants, Indigenous Peoples, Afro-descendants, youth, and marginalized sectors, actively dismantling discrimination based on gender, race, class, and caste.
7. Democratic Governance of Land, Water, and Natural Resources: Ensures equitable governance of natural heritage, protecting biodiversity, water security, and food systems while respecting communal and Indigenous territorial rights and promoting agroecology.
8. Sustainable and Equitable Management of Transition Minerals: Mandates strict human rights and environmental standards for mining transition minerals, rejects extractivism, promotes a circular economy, and prohibits mineral use for militarism.

• Ecological Justice, Integrity, and Regeneration: Moves beyond mere phase-out to regenerative development, protecting biodiversity and restoring ecosystems while respecting the Rights of Nature.
• Mobilizing Adequate and Just Finance: Demands the removal of financial barriers, cancellation of illegitimate debts, and the provision of adequate, public, non-debt-creating climate finance from the Global North as reparations, without policy conditionalities.
• No False Solutions: Explicitly rejects distractions like carbon capture (CCS/BECCS), nuclear energy, hydrogen/ammonia co-firing, carbon markets, large-scale bioenergy, and waste incineration that delay the phase-out or harm communities.
• Sovereignty, Peace, and Global Justice: Links decarbonization to demilitarization, asserting that wars and militarism are major drivers of emissions and barriers to justice; demands an end to aggression, occupation, and the redirection of military spending to life-sustaining systems.
• Reparative and Transformative Justice: Requires the dismantling of historical structures of inequality (colonialism, slavery, patriarchy) and the provision of reparations for harms caused by fossil fuel extraction and use, including recognition of the Transatlantic Slave Trade as a crime against humanity.
• International Solidarity and Cooperation: Calls for global cooperation based on differentiated responsibilities, technology sharing, and support for a binding Fossil Fuel Treaty, rejecting green colonialism and corporate capture of multilateral processes.
• System Change: Asserts that the climate crisis requires a comprehensive restructuring of the economic, political, and social system away from capitalism, patriarchy, racism, and extractivism toward a regenerative, democratic, and equitable order.

The Declaration calls for immediate, concrete actions:

1. A complete equitable and just phase-out of fossil fuels aligned with meeting the goal of keeping warming below 1.5°c and reach global real zero emissions by 2050
2. A rapid, direct, equitable, and just transition to 100% renewable energy; ensure equitable and universal access to renewable energy
3. An end to barriers to the transition and pursue solutions
4. A comprehensive just transition

The People’s Declaration will be reinforced with global days of action under the banner Fossil Free Rising, where communities worldwide are mobilizing to demand political will for a just transition. The movement also emphasizes that the recent ICJ Advisory Opinion confirms states have a binding legal obligation to act, making further delay a violation of international law.

The People’s Summit for a Fossil Free Future is the civil society counterpart to the historic First International Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels taking place in Santa Marta. Held from the 24 to 26 of April, it served as a critical space for self-organized civil society to unify demands and build collective power from the ground up. It is based on a global process for deepening and widening broad movement consensus on a more comprehensive agenda for a rapid, equitable, and just energy transition, culminating in the adoption of three key papers-the ‘Principles’, the ‘Demands’ and the ‘People’s Roadmap’.

These unified positions will then be delivered directly into the official process through the Assembly of the People on 27 April 27, a formal space convened by the Colombian government to facilitate direct dialogue between civil society representatives and state delegates. While the People’s Summit helped forge the shared vision, the Assembly is where it will help shape the official outcomes.

The full text of the People’s Declaration for a Rapid, Equitable, and Just Transition for a Fossil-Free Future and details on global actions are available at www.fossilfreerising.org.

RITURAJ PHUKAN : Founder, Indigenous People’s Climate Justice Forum; Co-Founder, Smily Academy ;National Coordinator for Biodiversity, The Climate Reality Project India; Member, IUCN Wilderness Specialist Group; Commission Member – IUCN WCPA Climate Change, IUCN WCPA Connectivity Conservation, IUCN WCPA Indigenous People and Protected Areas Specialist Groups, IUCN WCPA South Asia Region and IUCN WCPA-SSC Invasive Alien Species Task Force; Member, International Antarctic Expedition 2013; Climate Force Arctic 2019 ; Ambassador, Marine Arctic Peace Sanctuary. Rituraj Phukan is the Climate Editor, Mahabahu and the  Convenor, Mahabahu Climate Forum.

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