# The Politics of Phasing Out Fossil Fuels **Date de l'événement :** 04/05/2026 * Publié le 04/05/2026 ### Date 04/05/2026 ## Chapô **The war in Iran and the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz have exposed the geopolitical fragility of fossil fuel dependence, accelerating calls for a more coordinated energy transition. As governments juggle short-term security and long-term transformation, the central challenge is no longer setting targets but organizing a managed shift away from fossil fuels. In this context, Emmanuel Guérin, Vice Dean of the Paris Climate School at Sciences Po, offers an analysis of the conditions required for such a transition. How can governments effectively align the decline of fossil fuels with the rapid expansion of low-carbon systems?** ## Corps du texte The war in Iran and the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz have triggered what is arguably the most significant energy shock in modern history. [Around 25% of global oil consumption](https://www.iea.org/about/oil-security-and-emergency-response/strait-of-hormuz) — roughly 20 million barrels of crude oil per day — normally transits through this chokepoint. Its disruption has had immediate consequences for global markets, trade balances, and inflation. Governments have responded [in multiple and often contradictory ways](https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/data-tools/2026-energy-crisis-policy-response-tracker): coordinated releases of strategic petroleum reserves, emergency price support for gasoline, and—at the same time—renewed efforts to accelerate the electrification of energy systems. This response is undeniably messy, reflecting the tension between immediate energy security concerns and longer-term structural transformation. What is increasingly clear, however, is that fossil fuels are now perceived not only as a climate risk, but as [a strategic vulnerability](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/apr/24/global-oil-crisis-changed-fossil-fuel-industry-for-ever-iea-chief-fatih-birol). Their exposure to geopolitical disruption, price volatility, and supply concentration reinforces the case for accelerating the transition. In that sense, the shock is likely to accelerate the long-term decline of fossil fuels, even as it temporarily increases their strategic importance. The central question is therefore not whether the transition will occur, but how it will unfold: how fast, how fairly, and how orderly.  These are precisely the issues at the heart of the [Santa Marta conference](https://transitionawayconference.com/) (24–29 April 2026), which brought together 57 countries representing roughly one-third of global GDP, alongside a broad coalition of public, private, and civil society actors. Rather than negotiating new targets, the conference focused on a more difficult question: how to operationalize the commitment, made at COP28 in Dubai in 2023, to “transition away from fossil fuels.”  ### The Pace of the Transition: Faster in Principle than in Practice The speed at which fossil fuels must be phased out is well established. According to the International Energy Agency Net Zero Emissions scenario, coal use in the power sector must fall by [around 90% by 2050](https://www.iea.org/reports/coal-in-net-zero-transitions/executive-summary), with unabated coal power declining sharply already in the 2020s. For oil and gas, the adjustment is equally profound. In a 1.5°C-consistent pathway,  oil demand declines by [around 75% by 2050](https://iea.blob.core.windows.net/assets/063ae08a-7114-4b58-a34e-39db2112d0a2/NetZeroby2050-ARoadmapfortheGlobalEnergySector.pdf) and gas demand declines [by around 55%](https://iea.blob.core.windows.net/assets/063ae08a-7114-4b58-a34e-39db2112d0a2/NetZeroby2050-ARoadmapfortheGlobalEnergySector.pdf). This implies that no new long lead-time projects are required, and that part of existing production must be retired early. On the demand side, electrification is the main driver of this transformation. Global electricity demand is growing significantly faster than overall energy demand, and in 2025, [almost all (99%) incremental electricity](https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/global-electricity-review-2026/) demand was met by renewables. Yet these trajectories are easier to define than to implement. As the IEA emphasizes, the transition is likely to be “volatile and bumpy”, reflecting mismatches between declining demand, investment cycles, and geopolitical shocks. For fossil fuel – dependent economies, the stakes are particularly high: per capita oil and gas revenues could fall by more than [60% by 2030](https://www.iea.org/reports/the-oil-and-gas-industry-in-net-zero-transitions) in a net-zero pathway. Managing this decline is therefore not only an energy challenge, but a macroeconomic and political one. ### The Geopolitics of a Dual Energy Transformation The transition is not a linear substitution of one system for another. It is better understood as a “[messy mix](https://www.jstor.org/content/pdf/oa_book_monograph/jj.25968895?refreqid=fastly-default%3A9482ee940de7e8fa8bd6d24d6be4f7a6&ab_segments=&initiator=&acceptTC=1)”, where declining fossil fuel systems and expanding low-carbon systems coexist and interact over an extended period. This coexistence generates a dual geopolitical transformation. On the supply side, fossil fuel geopolitics remains highly salient. Russia continues to use hydrocarbons as an instrument of geopolitical leverage. Gulf producers retain the ability to influence global markets. The United States, despite its leadership in clean technologies, is increasingly behaving like a petrostate, expanding oil and gas production while contesting key elements of the clean energy transition. For many producing countries, including Nigeria, the challenge is one of managed adaptation, with active efforts to reduce fiscal dependence on oil revenues. On the demand and technology side, a new geopolitical landscape is emerging. China dominates key segments of clean technology value chains, from solar manufacturing to battery production and critical mineral processing. The European Union is attempting to respond through regulatory frameworks and [industrial policy](https://single-market-economy.ec.europa.eu/publications/industrial-accelerator-act_en), while the United States is pursuing a more protectionist approach. India remains caught between the need to scale clean energy and the need for maintaining affordable access to fossil fuels. These systems overlap. Control over oil and gas is increasingly complemented by control over value chains, infrastructure, and standards. Interdependence is not disappearing; it is becoming more complex—and more contested. ### Governing the Transition: Aligning Decline and Scale-Up The central governance challenge is therefore to align the decline of fossil fuel systems with the scale-up of low-carbon energy systems. On the demand side, a Global Alliance for Clean Electrification could provide a structured response to the main bottlenecks slowing down the transition. Such an alliance would aim to coordinate investment and de-risk capital at scale, building on existing multilateral and national efforts while reducing fragmentation across initiatives. It would also contribute to securing and diversifying supply chains for critical technologies and materials, while promoting common standards and interoperability across grids, electric mobility, storage systems, and carbon accounting frameworks.  In addition, it would support the integration of increasingly complex electricity systems, particularly in countries facing structural constraints in deploying grids and storage. It would further improve data availability, transparency, and accountability on system transformation. Most importantly, it would provide a platform for geopolitical coordination, helping to move from the current pattern of weaponized interdependence toward a more managed and mutually beneficial organization of global value chains. On the supply side, a complementary framework is needed to govern what is currently an unmanaged process of decline. A Global Alliance for the Managed Decline of Fossil Fuels could help coordinate the phase-down of production through greater transparency on investment and production plans, as well as structured dialogue between producers and consumers. Its objective would be to reduce the risks associated with disorderly market adjustments, including both price spikes and price collapses, which can destabilize economies and energy systems alike.  Such an alliance would also support economic diversification and fiscal transition in fossil fuel–dependent economies, helping governments anticipate declining revenues and develop alternative sources of growth. Ensuring a just transition for workers and regions would be a central component, alongside efforts to monitor stranded asset risks and financial exposure across the global economy. More broadly, it would provide the missing institutional link needed to align supply-side dynamics with the pace of demand reduction, transforming an uncoordinated contraction into a more predictable and governable process. ### Santa Marta: From Commitment to Implementation The Santa Marta conference (24–29 April 2026), convened by Colombia and the Netherlands, marked an important step in this evolution. Bringing together 57 countries and a broad range of stakeholders, it did not seek to renegotiate targets, but to address a more operational question: how to implement the commitment to transition away from fossil fuels.  [What emerged from Santa Marta](https://static1.squarespace.com/static/68dc91a7e566d74a91e8e22d/t/69f2979327f294060a2cb53d/1777506195819/TAFF+Conference_Co-host+Takeaways_DEF.pdf) is a clearer understanding of the nature of the challenge. First, the transition is not primarily a technological substitution problem. It is a problem of structural economic transformation. Participants emphasized that fossil fuel dependence is embedded in fiscal systems, debt structures, and development models. Overcoming it requires moving from fiscal lock-in to what could be described as sovereign transition capacity.  Second, the alignment between demand reduction and supply decline remains a central gap. While electrification and efficiency can reduce demand, the phase-down of production requires explicit planning, credible policy signals, and coordination between producers and consumers. Santa Marta highlighted the need for integrated frameworks linking extraction decisions with demand trajectories and infrastructure deployment.  Third, the transition is fundamentally territorial and social. Discussions focused on concrete instruments—regional transition plans, labour participation mechanisms, and community-based energy systems—underscoring that implementation will ultimately occur at the level of workers, regions, and local economies. Fourth, and most critically, the conference identified the international financial architecture as a central bottleneck. Debt constraints, high cost of capital, and misaligned incentives limit the ability of many countries to act—particularly in the Global South, where fiscal space is constrained and access to affordable finance remains limited.  But the problem is not confined to emerging and developing economies. In advanced economies, capital is abundant but often poorly allocated: investment frameworks remain shaped by short-term risk assessments, regulatory fragmentation, and persistent policy uncertainty, while fossil fuel assets continue to benefit from entrenched financial and fiscal advantages.  According to the I[nternational Monetary Fund](https://www.imf.org/en/publications/wp/issues/2025/12/20/underpriced-and-overused-fossil-fuel-subsidies-data-2025-update-572729), globally, explicit or fiscal fossil fuel subsidies were $725 billion (0.6 percent of GDP) in 2024. Implicit subsidies, primarily underpricing of environmental costs, were $6.7 trillion (5.8 percent of GDP). Financial systems struggle to price transition risks adequately and to channel capital at the scale and speed required. Proposed solutions discussed in Santa Marta—including debt-for-climate swaps, sovereign transition funds, reforms to multilateral development banks, and stronger alignment of financial regulation with transition objectives—point toward a broader need to reorient financial systems, not only to mobilize more capital, but to direct it more effectively. Finally, Santa Marta initiated a process rather than delivering a negotiated outcome. Three workstreams—on transition roadmaps, macroeconomic and financial transformation, and producer–consumer alignment—will structure cooperation in the coming years, with a second conference planned for 2027 in Tuvalu. This approach reflects a shift toward more operational, coalition-based forms of governance, complementing the formal UNFCCC process. ### Orchestrating the transition The transition away from fossil fuels is often framed as a story of technological acceleration. In reality, it is a dual process: the rapid scale-up of new energy systems and the managed decline of existing ones. What the current moment reveals — through both geopolitical shocks and initiatives such as Santa Marta — is that the main challenge is no longer defining the direction of the transition, but organizing it. This requires aligning three dynamics that are too often treated separately: the reduction of demand, the decline of supply, and the transformation of economic systems that depend on fossil fuels. It also requires a shift in governance. Universal negotiation remains essential for legitimacy, but it is insufficient for implementation. What is emerging instead is a more fragmented but potentially more effective landscape of coalitions, workstreams, and operational platforms. In this context, the success of the transition will depend less on the pace of technological change than on the capacity of governments to manage interdependence, coordinate action, and redesign the economic foundations of their energy systems. **Licence :** `#CC-BY-ND (Attribution, Pas de modification)` ### Thématique `#Environnement` **Langue :** `#Anglais` --- ### Navigation pour IA - [Index de tous les contenus](https://conference.sciencespo.fr/llms.txt) - [Plan du site (Sitemap)](https://conference.sciencespo.fr/sitemap.xml) - [Retour à l'accueil](https://conference.sciencespo.fr/)