Former Irish President Mary Robinson has had a front-row seat to historic change -- and senses another turning point coming at a fossil fuel phaseout meeting in Colombia.
She casts the Santa Marta conference as a rare opportunity to break the "fossil fuel mindset" -- and as the Iran war roils energy markets, it spotlights the risks of coal, oil and gas dependence, particularly for the poor she has long championed.
Speaking to AFP on Monday in Santa Marta ahead of the high-level talks on April 28-29, Robinson also described how listening to a calving glacier brought her to tears -- and crystallized the urgency of the climate fight.
This interview with Robinson, a member of The Elders group of former heads of state founded by Nelson Mandela, has been edited for length and clarity.
Q: You were UN special climate envoy when the Paris Agreement was signed. The Santa Marta conference grew out of frustration with that UN-led process. Do those talks still serve a purpose?
A: "I do believe the COP (UN Conference of the Parties) is still very important and I hope that Santa Marta will be a complement to it and feed into the process.
"There are many other ways in which we need the COP. But we failed in Belem (at COP30) to get reference to phasing out fossil fuel because of the penetration of the fossil fuel lobbies. So that's a reality.
"But when we planned Santa Marta we didn't know we'd be in the worst crisis of oil and gas. The timing is important. Now is the time to change the mindset -- get out of a fossil fuel mindset into a future-oriented clean energy, renewable energy.
"It's the way we have to go, it's the way we are going, but we need to go far much faster."
Q: Can this conference make a difference?
A: "There are real possibilities. We really have never had the time and space before to do it. It's not a negotiated conference -- you don't have to worry about negotiation.
"Countries have come thinking of what they are prepared do: governments, sub-national organizations, business generally, civil society, and the energy of the people summit. The dynamic is real.
"We're on the brink of a new dynamic way forward of doers, coalitions of doers and it has to be the outcome of Santa Marta."
Q: Hundreds of millions of people rely on fossil fuels for energy. How difficult is phasing them out?
"They are the very citizens who are suffering now from this conflict, which has choked off 20 percent of oil and gas. And it's the poorest that suffer most from the rise in prices, the farmers can't get the fertilizer, etc. This is not a reliable future. I think that's a really important moment for Santa Marta."
Q: Some governments are under pressure to produce more fossil fuels to address the energy crisis. How do leaders balance energy security and climate priorities?
A: "We are coming close to real tipping points, and the scientists have been warning us for years. But they are worried that things are accelerating.
"Not enough of the planning of governments is grounded in the science. One of the things we're calling for -- and I'm very keen on this -- is that governments should have chief planetary scientists. During COVID, lots of countries had chief medical officers, and we listened because we were scared. They had a lot of authority.
"We're in the same position. We haven't thought it through yet, but we are."
Q: The science of climate change is flashing red -- yet you seem optimistic about the future?
A: "When you hear the science, it is scary. And we should be more scared.
"Part of it is aligning ourselves with nature. I had an experience of doing that. I was lucky enough to be on a scientific expedition in Greenland where we were told to just be on your own and listen to the glacier.
"I was listening to the sound of thunder -- which was a major calving -- and then sharp, smaller calving like rifle shots, I found myself crying. I was on my own, listening to nature and I was crying because I knew it wasn't right, I knew what we were doing, we shouldn't be doing.
"I was so grateful to that moment of really understanding that nature was talking to us and saying, stop this.
"And so it's the urgency of the science, the opportunity at the moment, and the space that is provided by Santa Marta. We must avail of it, and we must build momentum."
np/jgc
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