Project
AI, Fossil Fuels, Environment, And The Governance Gap That Will Cost Us Everything
Client
Services
Article
AI Governance
Fossil Fuel
Year
2026
The Challenges
What happened
In April 2026, two significant things happened in global governance. They were treated as completely unrelated. They were not. In Santa Marta, Colombia, 57 countries gathered for the first-ever dedicated conference on transitioning away from fossil fuels. For the first time in the history of climate diplomacy, the word "fossil fuels" was named without qualifiers. In the same week, the United Nations closed the stakeholder consultation for the Global Dialogue on AI Governance. This is a process established by the UN General Assembly in August 2025, through the Global Digital Compact, to serve as the universal home for AI governance cooperation. 193 member states.
our approach
What is missing
Fossil fuel phase-out is not in there. Just transition is not in there. Land rights are not in there. The conditions under which frontline communities can produce, protect, and transmit their own knowledge — the explicit foundation on which Santa Marta was built — are not in there. And Santa Marta's proceedings contain no mention of AI governance. No mention of data sovereignty. No mention of what happens to the just transition when the organizing infrastructure it depends on is being surveilled, scraped, and controlled by the same extractive logic the transition is supposed to move away from. Two governance processes. Same month. Same communities at stake. Different rooms. No door.
the result
What is actually happening on the ground
An Indigenous delegate at Santa Marta said the words that should travel far beyond that room: "We will not stand by as our kin, our lands, our waters and our non-human relatives suffer to maintain the status quo. This structure will not be where we find our salvation and liberation." She was talking about the fossil fuel governance structure. She was also, without knowing it, describing the AI governance structure that wasn't in the room.
50%
Fossil fuels powering AI
31%
Defenders killed. Indigenous.
$1.2B
One firm. Two targets.
