The president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, acknowledged after three weeks that he was “left alone” during the final discussion at climate conference COP30 in Belem, Brazil. The statement, made after the close of the summit, reflected the president’s frustration with a document that, in his view, omitted the central point of the climate crisis: The phaseout of fossil fuels. Colombia decided not to sign the final declaration, becoming one of the few countries to distance itself from a consensus that, for Petro, is not only insufficient but misleading.
The president went further in expressing his dissatisfaction, asserting that what happened reveals a global mockery of life. The exclusion of an explicit commitment to leave behind oil, coal, and gas left the Colombian government in a position of climate dissent at a time when economic powers seem to continue prioritizing geopolitical stability and energy interests over scientific warnings.
For Petro, that solitude is not a diplomatic misstep but a symptom of the inertia threatening efforts to confront the climate emergency. On top of all this, the Colombian president said, the denialist positions championed by President Trump from the United States achieved a victory after a summit that left a bitter aftertaste in Colombia.
Colombia’s Petro says he ‘stood alone’ in rejecting the COP30 final declaration
In a new public assessment after several weeks of reaffirming his refusal to sign the COP30 final declaration, Petro explained that he had expected support from blocs such as the European Union and the African Union to demand that the final agreement include an explicit call for the phaseout of fossil fuels.
However, as negotiations progressed, those nations that in other settings had advocated for ambitious climate goals ended up accepting a text that avoided directly mentioning the root cause of global warming. For Petro, that retreat revealed many governments’ fear of confronting the industries and powers that depend on the extraction and sale of hydrocarbons.
The Colombian president said that his rejection was not an isolated act of stubbornness but the result of a stance consistent with climate science. From his perspective, he could not endorse a document that whitewashes the historical and current responsibility of fossil-fuel economies.
“The coal-based world is the first that will disappear, not the last; the last will be gas. The timelines that had to be met are already delayed, because there is a level, right? In Paris, a maximum rise of 1.5 degrees Celsius in temperature was established while the transition was carried out and the CO₂ flow was stopped. Trump ended that. That’s why Trump didn’t go to COP30,” the president said.
He added: “Colombia did not endorse the COP30 declaration. The COP30 declaration came without mentioning what the main cause of the climate crisis is, which, according to science, is coal, oil, and gas — and ultimately hydrocarbons — at 75%.”
As COP30 drew to a close, the decisions before me were difficult, and I believe I made the right one, grounded in humanity and in the defence of life, which is the guiding purpose of my political project for a renewed progressivism in the world.
The climate crisis exposes the…
— Gustavo Petro (@petrogustavo) November 25, 2025
Geopolitics over environmental responsibility: ‘Trump won’
The president also framed his rejection within a broader reflection on the global economic model. He denounced the contradiction of a system that continues to depend on oil, coal, and gas despite clear evidence of the damage they cause.
According to Petro, this dependency not only contributes to environmental deterioration but also perpetuates conflicts, inequalities, and tensions between producer and consumer countries. In his assessment, the international inability to commit to phasing out fossil fuels responds both to industrial pressures and to geopolitical fears.
He also warned that the wars and crises that have historically accompanied the struggle over energy resources will continue to intensify if bold measures are not taken. For Petro, the energy transition must be approached as a civilizational project, not as a gradual technical adjustment.
“By not having Trump enter as a government, the oil lobby prevailed and countries clearly allied with us in this fight lost; we had 40. Colombia led 40 of the European Union,” the president revealed.
In addition, Petro stated that “we were left alone at COP30, and Trump won. Nevertheless, we objected, and due to rules that have to do with these assemblies of nations, the sole objection of one country does not allow legitimacy of the clarification … so Colombia’s position stripped COP30 of legitimacy.”
After rejecting the final declaration, Petro announced that Colombia would promote an international conference dedicated exclusively to discussing the elimination of fossil fuels, scheduled for next year in Santa Marta.
“We rose up in rebellion. That is going to cost us enormously. But not only Colombia — rather, all of humanity. Because the need to cut CO2 flows is prolonged over time, and then it will be too late. It is the stopwatch of human extinction. And I say it this way because that’s how science speaks, not me,” he concluded.