Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels is a Feminist Issue

FRI visiting researcher Maya Weeks attended “From Durham to Santa Marta and Beyond: Equitable Pathways to Fossil Fuel Phase Out conference in March 2026. Read about how she applies her training as a feminist scholar and political ecologist to the just transition away from fossil fuels. 

My name is Maya Weeks. I am a feminist political ecologist and affiliated researcher at FRI who has been researching plastics for over a decade: I find them a crucial point of departure for limiting the power of the transnational petrochemical industry and the climate change it is causing. 

Limiting the power of transnational petrochemical companies is a feminist issue. Petrochemical production poses a hazard to all life on Earth. Plastics, along with the fertilizers that make industrial agriculture possible, constitute the majority of the global petrochemical sector. Limiting petrochemical power across disciplines and industries is one of my key undertakings as a feminist researcher committed to thriving across communities and species. 

Because the global Conference of Parties climate negotiations process has reached limits in its ability to regulate fossil fuel production and consumption, a “coalition of the willing” gathered in Santa Marta, Colombia in the first-ever global conference focused specifically on the transition away fossil fuels. In order to keep the meeting, co-hosted by Colombia and Ireland, on task, the event was for invited states only. 

In the lead up to the First Conference on the Transition Away from Fossil Fuels, various climate justice organizers, researchers, and advocates convened at different locations to reach consensus on priorities for the gathering in Santa Marta. 

There were approximately one hundred of us from around the world in attendance at one of these gatherings in Durham, England working to articulate shared demands for the transition away from fossil fuels. Thinking together transnationally with room for difference and discussion was politically generative. We spent the bulk of our time discussing in plenary and in breakout groups across sectors and areas of expertise. I particularly drew on my affinity with FRI and experience carrying out anticolonial research and organizing. These skills were crucial to the conference’s focus on relationship-building, hearing opinions, meeting divergent needs, and establishing common ground. My feminist training prepared me to ask a different question during the session on artificial intelligence and data centers focused on the “why” behind the rapid rollout of AI and development of associated data centers. I asked who is driving the speed of development, and why. This opened up a discussion about the logistics, values, and power levers at play in the global rollout of generative AI. 

This event created a space to discuss the many aspects of climate justice, including but by no means limited to law, finance, environmental science, governance, energy, and pollution. Just as importantly, conference’s conveners dedicated time to coalition-building, creating hours when we worked in first smaller, and then larger groups to identify the shared points of our demands. These demands establish clear priorities moving into the Santa Maria gathering, such as the necessity of prioritizing intergenerational equity. 

The next step in the transnational process of transitioning away from fossil fuels will be the meeting, co-hosted by Tuvalu and Ireland in Tuvalu in 2027. In the meantime, learn more about the Just Transitions Model and look for ways to support local coalition-building that moves us toward climate justice.