On the 27th of April, a Monday, the Interdisciplinary Observatory on Climate Change and the Climate Social Sciences Network (CSSN) organised the event From Obstruction to Action: Strategies for a Just Energy Transition, a side event to the official programme of the First Conference on the Transition Away from Fossil Fuels, held in Santa Marta (Colombia). Offered in person at the Roque Morelli Auditorium of the Universidad del Magdalena, the panel discussion brought together Janaína Pinto (OIMC/IESP-UERJ), Camilo Andrés Garzón (La Silla Vacía), Elisabeth Mohle (IIP-UNSAM), Guy Edwards (Universidade de Sussex), Juliana Peña Niño (NRGI), María Mónica Monsalve (El País), Stephan Sampaio (Coletivo Pororoka) and Wilmar Suárez (Ember) to analyse evidence – in Argentina, Brazil and Colombia – of actors obstructing the debate on energy transition, with a view to identifying them, examining their discourses and narratives, and understanding how they operate in practice.

Organised as an initiative of the governments of Colombia and the Netherlands, the Conference on the Transition Away from Fossil Fuels was conceived as a complementary forum to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), aimed at countries, subnational governments and other groups interested in developing and promoting viable pathways to implement a progressive energy transition and develop sustainable societies and economies. The second edition of the event is scheduled to take place on the island of Tuvalu in 2027.