The central question facing global climate policy today is no longer whether to transition away from fossil fuels, but how to move from vague international consensus to granular, legally binding mandates. As nations prepare to gather in Santa Marta, Colombia, from April 24–29, a new, provocative approach to this challenge is emerging: a scientific report that abandons the neutral, advisory tone of traditional climate assessments in favor of explicit, prescriptive instructions for governments.
The document in question, titled “Action insights for the Santa Marta process,” was developed by an ad-hoc group of approximately 24 scientists. Unlike the reports produced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which are famously cautious about straying into policy advocacy, this synthesis offers 12 “action insights” and a series of concrete recommendations. Among these are calls for “halting all new fossil-fuel extraction and infrastructure projects” and “reject[ing] gas as a bridging fuel.”
It is vital to distinguish what this report is from what some might perceive it to be. Headlines may characterize this as a new international treaty or a binding global agreement; in reality, it is a “rapid” assessment intended to serve as a menu of policy options for the so-called “coalition of the willing.” This group, co-hosted by Colombia and the Netherlands, includes about 50 nations representing roughly one-third of global fossil-fuel demand and one-fifth of global production. The report is not a consensus document of the global scientific community, but rather a direct response to a request from the Colombian government for actionable, precise guidance.
The genesis of this report, as explained by lead author Dr. Friedrich Bohn of the Earth Resilience Institute, highlights the tension between academic rigor and political necessity. Following the failure at the COP30 summit in Brazil to secure a formal, universal roadmap for fossil-fuel phaseout, Bohn and his colleagues—including coordinating author Prof. Frank Jotzo of the Australian National University—sought to bridge the gap. They spent approximately two months compiling these insights, moving away from the "policymaker-filtered" language that often characterizes IPCC summaries.
However, there are significant limitations to consider regarding this methodology. The authors themselves acknowledge that the process was not “completist,” lacked the extensive external peer-review cycles typical of major climate assessments, and did not utilize the stringent, gender-balanced, or geographically diverse selection processes required by the IPCC. The contributors currently skew toward the global north and are predominantly male, a factor that could influence the perceived legitimacy of the recommendations among the broader international community.
The significance of these talks lies in their potential to shape the official agenda for COP31 in Turkey. The "menu of solutions" expected to emerge from the Santa Marta high-level segment on April 28–29 will be used to inform the voluntary roadmap currently being developed by the Brazilian COP30 presidency.
Moving forward, the primary metric for success will be the extent to which these specific “action insights”—such as the call to ban fossil-fuel advertisements or mandate deep methane cuts—are incorporated into the national agendas of the participating countries. The next indication of the process's influence will occur toward the end of April, when the finalized version of the synthesis report is made public, marking the shift from academic suggestion to official policy discourse. Whether these recommendations remain theoretical or begin to appear in national determined contributions (NDCs) will reveal if this new, prescriptive model of science-policy interaction can gain the political traction that more traditional methods have struggled to achieve.
