Brazil’s former president was laughing at me. I was sitting opposite 76-year-old Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, in an overly air-conditioned studio in São Paulo this March, interviewing him for a story on Brazil’s October elections, for which he is leading the polls. I had just asked Lula if he would be interested in signing up to a bold climate pledge made by Gustavo Petro—then the leftist front runner in Colombia’s 2022 presidential race and, as of this week, Colombia’s president-elect. As part of his campaign, Petro vowed to immediately stop issuing new permits for oil exploration—a big deal in a country where oil makes up 40% of exports, and 12% of government income. Petro also called on Lula, who could become his most important regional ally, to join him. So, would he?
“Look, Petro has the right to propose whatever he wants,” Lula said, smiling and shaking his head as if we were discussing an eccentric old friend. “But, in the case of Brazil, this is not for real. In the case of the world, it’s not for real.”
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For Colombia, it just got a lot realer. Petro, a one-time leftist guerrilla, won 50.47% of the vote in Sunday’s second round vote, narrowly defeating a populist businessman who took 47.27%. After he assumes office on Aug. 7, the president-elect will stop issuing new oil permits on day one. He will then try to establish a 12 year deadline for already-approved exploration to wind down, which would likely require legislative approval. Petro’s advisors say oil produced under those existing contracts is enough to satisfy domestic consumption—if exports are cut—for "at minimum" 23 years if needed. Long before the oil runs out, the government will scale up renewable energy infrastructure enough to replace fossil fuels.
For critics, Petro’s oil policy amounts to “economic suicide.” Many warn his plan to boost agriculture and tourism won’t be enough to make up for lost oil export earnings, potentially leaving a big hole in public finances. And oil industry groups claim production could fall too quickly to sustain Colombian demand until alternative fuels are available, forcing the country to rely on imports.
Such concerns are voiced by fossil fuel advocates and politicians all over the world, and they have created a global stalemate on oil: almost all of the world’s top 33 oil producers have pledged under the Paris Agreement to try to limit global warming to an average of 1.5°C over the preindustrial era. But scientists say none have set timelines to end oil production that align with that goal. To have even a 50:50 shot of achieving the 1.5°C target, according to a recent report by the International Institute of Sustainable development, rich countries need to stop producing oil and gas in 2034, and countries in Colombia’s middle income-bracket must do so by 2043. In climate terms, Petro’s two-decade production phase-out is not ambitious—it’s just about acceptable.
In political terms, though, Petro’s goal is radical. No one wants to be the first to give up their oil earnings or to be accused of risking their energy security—a fear heightened by Russia-E.U. tensions over natural gas since the outbreak of the Ukraine war. (Of the tiny handful of countries that have put a moratorium on oil exploration in recent years, Belize is the only one where oil contributed more than 1% of GDP.)
How did Petro manage to get a majority of Colombians to back his anti-oil platform? Claudia Navas, a Bogotá-based analyst for consultancy Control Risks, says Petro didn’t present his oil plan as a stand-alone climate policy, and, on its own, it probably wasn’t a decisive factor for most voters. Rather, the oil phase-out is part of a comprehensive “vision for change” in Colombia, which appealed to working class people who have been excluded from Colombia’s fossil-fueled economic development, Navas says. After his victory, Petro urged fellow progressives in Latin America “to stop thinking that a future of social justice and wealth redistribution could be built on a foundation of high oil, coal, and gas prices.”
It also helps that Petro could point to renewables as a major opportunity for Colombia. The country already produces almost 70% of its electricity from hydropower, and its varied climates give it above-average potential for both wind and solar, in addition to green hydrogen production. Together, those sources could allow Colombia to export clean energy in the future.
None of this is to say that concerns for Colombia’s economy are unfounded. In the coming months and years, Petro will need to match his lofty rhetoric with a concrete plan for expanding low-carbon industries to replace fossil energy and revenues. His performance will weigh heavily on leaders in other oil producing nations, like Brazil. “The implementation will determine if Petro’s policy generates greater fear in the region about the energy transition,” Navas says, “or pushes people towards it.”
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