The principle of environmental justice is one of the pillars of our national development plan. President Gustavo Petro decided to hand over the energy sector, which had long been run by corporate interests, to an environmentalist.

Petro wanted someone for the position who was fully committed to a paradigm shift in energy policy and who would turn away from an orientation toward profit and traditional extractivism — that is, the extraction of raw materials for the purpose of exporting them to the world market. So he appointed me to the post.

We have progressive leadership in the government. However, we experienced a lot of resistance, sometimes violent, from the traditional elites who defend the old carbon-intensive and corporate model.

The correlations are evident when you look at the areas where mining and oil and gas extraction have been planned and developed. They mostly occur in areas inhabited by ethnic and rural communities. These are the most ecologically valuable and strategically important areas in the country. At the same time, poverty is a serious problem there.

So many of our problems lie at the intersection of extractivism and the impoverishment of local communities, where the deterioration of conditions has become almost institutionalized. The resources in these areas are very important for national economic development. But the ecosystems there and the people who inhabit the areas are not.

President Petro wanted us to work with local communities to develop new policies for the energy transition. So we entered into dialogue with various trade unions, mestizo peasants, poor urban settlers, and indigenous peoples. We worked with them to find out what kind of change they envisioned in their respective regions.

It is important to take into account the differences between regions, because a green and at the same time just transformation has to be designed differently in each place, according to the local society, ecosystems, local histories, and economies. The whole thing was a big challenge. But I think that, as a government, we have succeeded in getting in touch with people, getting our policies somehow grounded with the feelings and experiences of local communities. It was more difficult to build a bridge to the private sector, the traditional elites, and their interests.

A lot of work needs to be done to raise awareness that the corporate sector also has a social responsibility in guaranteeing a sustainable future. On the one hand, the traditional extractive sector needs to urgently commit to phasing out coal, gas, and oil. On the other hand, the new green companies should adjust their model and realize that civil society also has a right to participate. One example comes from the region of La Guajira in northern Colombia — the place where most green energy projects are being carried out, inhabited by indigenous communities. Renewable energy companies have a great interest in this area.

Before the current government, there was a tripartite committee, where all decisions for the area were made. This committee included three different actors — namely, the national government, the local government, and the companies. Local indigenous communities were not involved in these decision-making processes. And this despite the fact that the affected areas are inhabited and constitutionally owned by them.

We completely redesigned the committee and added a fourth actor to it by including the indigenous communities. It took a year to convince the parties that were already on the committee to work with the local communities. With the new committee, a fairer dialogue can now take place in which local communities have a say in their future. We will have to wait and see whether this changes the direction of a particular wind or solar project.

But for us, this is a symbol of social participation. It actually took us one full year to make it happen, and that is also due to the inertia of the institutions and the resistance of some companies.

I think that inequality is one of the biggest problems in Colombia, and it lies deep in the roots of our internal armed conflicts. So saying that Colombia has one of the strongest economies does not mean that it is a just society. I believe that the neoliberal model has made our problems worse since the 1990s.

But that is also due to the colonial legacy. We have always been very dependent on the Global North, which has exploited and imported our primary goods — [through] gold mining for many centuries, and later oil and coal [extraction]. These dependencies are crucial to understanding the challenges we face in tackling inequality and the kinds of institutions that perpetuate that inequality.

The government is trying to replace the income from the export of raw materials with ecological tourism or green tourism — everything that has to do with the enhancement of biodiversity. This should be in the hands of small companies that give added value back to the local economy.

Another factor is the strengthening and development of agrarian culture — that is, traditional peasant agriculture as opposed to industrial agriculture, which relies on large-scale monocultures. We are not currently restricting monocultures but rather strengthening small-scale production. The idea is that the majority of agricultural production should come from these small farmers.

The third pillar is industrialization. However, this is very difficult because it requires a lot of investment and a new market structure.

The fourth point is green or renewable energies, which involves promoting solar and wind energy sources. But we have also considered geothermal energy and green hydrogen, which is very popular throughout Latin America but has not yet become a commercial commodity.

Prodeco is an example of the worst possible decision made by the previous government. The reason for this is not that the coal mine should have remained but that there was no transition at all. The mine was closed from one day to the next, without properly thinking what was going to happen with the redundant laborers or the machinery or the immense holes left in the mountains, or the contaminated rivers, scarce water, and sick neighboring communities. Nobody wanted to close the mine — neither the workers nor the local communities. There was no replacement for the local economy; it just shut down a source of local income. This was irresponsible.

We came to the conclusion that a plan was needed. The workers must be trained to do something else and relocated elsewhere. In the local areas, for example, all the environmental damage caused by the mines must be repaired and restored in an appropriately ecological way.

We have tried to tackle the problem by creating new economic projects in agriculture, livestock, and green energy. However, it is very difficult to finance these projects.

That is why I think we need to make companies more accountable. For example, if you know that mining will stop in four years, you need to start retraining the workers there from day one.

An environmental rehabilitation plan is needed. Rehabilitation is something that is not in the sights of most political decision-makers and companies. The problem is that it is very expensive and requires specific knowledge of the region. In addition, those affected must be involved in the planning. To solve the Prodeco problem, for example, we held workshops with local communities and unions for a year and tried to work with them to create a new regional development plan.

One of the biggest problems is how to finance it. The only or most direct financing channels we have [require increasing] our external debt — and we have already reached our limits.

So how are we going to pay for the transition? I would like to take Germany as an example. We have been exporting coal to Germany for over thirty years, so there is a historic responsibility. Because rich countries like Germany have used our energy sources to grow, to industrialize, and to accumulate economic and social capital, we believe that historical compensation or equalization payments from partner countries are appropriate to finance the ecological transformation in Colombia.

Yes, these compensation payments can be set in different ways. President Petro has proposed a debt swap in return for climate protection measures. The idea is that our foreign debts will be forgiven, and we will earmark the funds for climate protection measures or social investments in our national budget. But that is up to the banks and the governments that own these banks to decide.

Debt swaps are not just about monetary compensation but above all about the question of how local communities can be supported in making a socially just transition from resource extraction. President Petro also discussed such a possible debt swap with Chancellor Olaf Scholz when he visited Germany.

I don’t think there is a paradox; I don’t see it that way. What I see is that Germany and the German population needed an energy source that came from Colombia, where the coal was mined under unequal conditions for the local communities. I think we need to show solidarity with the needs of the German population.

But since we provide an important energy source for Germany, we also need to think about how we are compensated for that. It doesn’t have to be monetary compensation; I’m more concerned with how we can support the people in the local communities to manage the phaseout of raw material extraction.

If Germany needs to secure its energy and is considering green hydrogen, for example, why not democratize the production of green hydrogen and involve local communities? More responsibility and more solidarity is what geopolitics needs.

That is a model that does not yet exist. But we imagine it like this: the local communities in La Guajira, for example, where the coal comes from, are the owners of the territory. This is a constitutional right that they have had since 1991.

The area where the solar panels or wind turbines are installed therefore belongs to them. By giving their permission to use their lands in this way, they are making a material contribution.

On the other hand, someone else has to bring in capital, for example, to build the industrial plants. In the end, the profits should be divided between those who brought in the capital and those who allowed the capitalist investors to use their land.

In this way, the communities could share in the profits and be co-owners. It is a model that is far from reality. But I think it is possible.