Today, at the United Nations, the governments of Colombia and Vanuatu are publicly announcing a plan to host the First International Conference for the Phase-Out of Fossil Fuels in April, 2026.

Australia Institute research has, for many years, proved that the best way to limit the devastating impact of climate change is to phase out the burning of fossil fuels.

The Australia Institute welcomes this long-overdue news.

“Many UN treaties began from countries working outside the formal process, building momentum until the formal processes finally, sometime begrudgingly, adopted them,” said Leanne Minshull, co-Executive Director at The Australia Institute.

“My hope is that this announcement, this week is the beginning of the end for Australia’s – and the world’s – fossil fuel industries.

“Australia has an opportunity to show genuine climate leadership, and support Vanuatu and Colombia’s process for a global phase out of fossil fuels. Missing this opportunity would expose our bid to host COP31 in late 2026 as an exercise in greenwashing rather than real action.

“The Australia Institute has been working to phase out fossil fuels for decades. We launched our No New Coal Mines work at the 2015 Paris COP meeting, supported by then-President of Kiribati, Anote Tong.”

That year, Australia Institute co-Executive Director Richard Denniss wrote a foundational academic article on the benefits of reducing fossil fuel supply which remains among the top 1% of cited articles on climate policy from that time

“The Australian government can’t pretend it is tackling climate change while it keeps approving massive new coal and gas fossil fuel export projects,” Richard Denniss now says.

“Australia is the world’s second largest fossil fuel exporter and fifth largest producer.

“Emissions from our exports vastly overshadow emissions saved with domestic renewable energy and industry policies like the Safeguard Mechanism.

“The world is waking up to Australia’s role in wrecking the world’s climate with fossil fuel exports while pretending to take climate change seriously.

“While a lot of coal and gas is exported from Australia, those exported are overwhelmingly by foreign owned companies. Our governments let handful of multi-national energy giants export our resources, wrecking our climate and giving Australians little in return.”