By David Wojick
It started out as the vague idea of building roadmaps for countries to use to phase out fossil fuel use. It was a spin-off from last year’s COP 30, run by people who decided the UN climate process was ineffective (which is true).
See my “Hatching a fossil fuel phase-out treaty” here.
But after their first international conference they now have a full scale global program with a second annual meeting planned. The roadmaps are still there but they are just part of the bigger show, which may rival the annual UN COPs.
The first meeting was co-hosted by Colombia and The Netherlands, while the second will be by Tuvalu and Ireland. That is one developing and one developed country, a common UN feature.
The program now has a friendly acronym — TAFF. Easy to say and remember while 3 Fs would have been difficult so they dropped “from.”
The first conference has a suitably long 176-page report with the uninspired title “Report — 1st Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels — June 2026″ here.
As a kickoff meeting with 57 countries attending plus numerous other “stakeholders,” there were lots of speeches and the Report has many quotes from them. Beyond the speeches, the Report is very action oriented. It mostly consists of five “pathways,” each containing from one to four “actions.” It is still vague, but at least they look like actions.
By far the longest pathway in terms of text is the 42-page pathway three on roadmaps. Here is the text along with the actions:
“Pathway 3: Develop or strengthen national and regional roadmaps to transition away from fossil fuels.
Action 3.1 Design, planning, and implementation of science- and rights-based roadmaps for a socio-economic and energy transition and just workforce development, anchored in sustained economic diversification and new value chains
Action 3.2: Switching fossil fuels for clean energy, energy security, and sovereignty
Action 3.3. Access to clean energy for rural, remote, and marginalized communities
Action 3.4. Plan the phase down and definitive closure of fossil fuel extraction”
The usual green fantasy given that something like 80% of global energy production is from fossil fuels.
Action 3.4 may be a serious confusion since fossil fuel extraction includes huge feedstocks for petrochemicals not just for energy. Vast quantities of consumer and industrial products require these fossil fuel chemicals, from clothing to fertilizers. The section text makes no mention of petrochemicals or their products, just energy.
There is also the obvious need for huge amounts of money. This is touched on briefly in the fourth Pathway:
“Pathway 4: Overcoming fossil fuel-related macroeconomic dependencies, scaling up transition investment, and addressing barriers in the international and domestic financial architecture”
The conference was really about roadmaps, which attendees would no doubt say must come before financing the transition.
It will certainly be worth watching as countries struggle to map their way to an impossible future. Mind you these are professional diplomats who know how to talk about doing impossible things as though they were real. Plus doing the maps may well be a path to some funding just to do them with. Funding the maps seems not to have been discussed.
What is really worth watching in the short run is how the UN handles this and several other splinter groups at November’s COP31.
For example, there is a separate Fossil Fuel Phaseout Treaty organization here.
I am sure the UN would like to absorb these radical groups that threaten to compete with them for attention and funding. Inviting then to speak at COP31 might be a start, but will they come and what would they say?
Stay tuned to CFACT as this near-term drama unfolds.
