Everybody knows fossil fuels cause climate breakdown, but until recently, mention of them was all but erased from the annual UN climate summits. Last year, two weeks of discussions ended without fossil fuels being mentioned in the final outcome. Frustration with those talks led a small developing country with a large fossil fuel sector – Colombia, the largest coal and fourth biggest oil exporter in the Americas – to rewrite the rules. With co-convener the Netherlands, and support from more than 50 countries, Colombia will host a groundbreaking new global conference this month to begin the long-awaited “transition away from fossil fuels”. Now, with nations embroiled in another oil-inflected war and fuel prices soaring worldwide as a consequence, the conference in Santa Marta on 28 and 29 April looks more prescient than ever. Countries are paying the price for oil addiction, not just in their energy bills but in food prices, consumer inflation, shortages, and businesses threatened with collapse. “We, of course, didn’t know that war was going to break out, but we knew the challenges of a dependency on fossil fuels,” said Irene Vélez Torres, Colombia’s environment minister, who will preside over the talks. “This conference comes in the...