SEA OF RESISTANCE: CLIMATE JUSTICE FLOTILLA SETS SAIL ACROSS THE CARIBBEAN

A civil society mission sailing to the First Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels, confronting colonial inequalities and fossil fuel dependency across the Caribbean.

A new mission calling for a global just transition beyond fossil fuels, grounded in reparations and climate justice for the Global South will set sail on April 7th 2026. The Climate Justice Flotilla will undertake a journey from Sint Maarten to Santa Marta (Colombia), where the world’s first Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels will take place starting April 24. The flotilla aims to bring Caribbean frontline realities directly into the global conversation on transitioning away from fossil fuels, exposing the link between fossil fuels, imperialism, colonialism, and war economies in the context of intersecting climate, ecological, and social crises.

The initiative is a wind-powered journey launched by a group of activists and citizens coming from Global Sumud Flotilla, Extinction Rebellion, United For Climate Justice, Flotilla4Change, Tierra Nuestra, Scientist Rebellion, Fossil Fuel Treaty, Research and Degrowth International and Debt for Climate, and has the objective to bring attention and momentum to the Conference while reclaiming sea routes historically shaped by colonial domination and fossil fuel dependency, at a historical juncture when both must urgently be dismantled worldwide. These routes continue to define the region’s economy and shape its unequal exposure to climate and economic shocks. 

The Flotilla will connect environmental activists, local communities and Indigenous defenders, highlighting the lived realities of the climate crisis and energy colonialism while amplifying alternative, just futures.

“By retracing routes historically used for extraction and exploitation, we transform them into pathways for climate justice, reparations, and collective self-determination.” says Mar Faciolince Martina, a Colombian-Curaçaoan activist and anthropologist and Steering Committee Member of the Climate Justice Flotilla. 

The Climate Justice Flotilla calls for:

• A binding Fossil Fuel Treaty, guaranteeing a just transition and Free, Prior, and Informed Consent for affected communities.
• Debt cancellation, climate reparations, and adequate climate finance, recognising past and present colonial harm while creating fiscal space for sovereign transitions across the Global South.
• A downscaling of energy and material consumption in the Global North, essential for remaining within planetary boundaries.

Furthermore, the Climate Justice Flotilla will support a proposal of energy embargo, together with Global Sumud Flotilla, Global Energy Embargo for Palestine and BDS Colombia, in the form of a Prohibited Uses Protocol—a proposed legal framework classifying fossil fuel uses linked to warfare, genocide, ecocide, and climate apartheid as violations of the obligation to protect life.

From intensified hurricanes to rising seas, the Caribbean is one of the world’s most climate-vulnerable regions—yet also one of the least responsible for the crisis. Colonialism, extraction, and imposed fossil-fuel dependency have intensified local vulnerabilities and limited community control over land, food, water, and energy systems. By reconnecting the islands and their coastal communities, the flotilla calls for regenerative, post-extractive pathways rooted in sovereignty, mutual aid, and reparative justice.

The mission will pass through territories that are still part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, starting from Sint Maarten, where Hurricane Irma damaged ninety percent of all infrastructure in 2017 and left a deep fracture whose effects are still visible today. On April 12 the Flotilla will arrive in Bonaire, where eight residents supported by Greenpeace Netherlands won a legal case against the Dutch state in January, recognising that the Dutch state had failed to adequately protect the people of Bonaire from climate impacts and requiring stronger efforts on mitigation and adaptation. The journey will continue through Curaçao and Aruba, which have been central nodes in both the transatlantic slave trade and later fossil fuel shipping routes—histories whose social and ecological consequences remain visible today.

 “We draw attention to the worsening energy poverty and inequality in the Caribbean, and to the instability and violence created by imperialist geopolitics in the region,” says Lucas Gusmão, Global Sumud Flotilla member and Steering Committee representative. “Like Palestine, the Caribbean is at the crossroads of fossil fuels, militarization, and war economies which continue to hold society hostage to the destructive logic of capital accumulation and to the illusion of unlimited growth.”

The flotilla will arrive in Santa Marta around April 22, joining local communities and international allies to resist fossil fuel expansion and advance the push for a sovereign, just, community-controlled renewable energy future.

By sailing together toward Santa Marta, the flotilla declares that the age of colonial extractivism, unrestrained economic growth and imperial domination must end — and that a just, regenerative future can be built through solidarity, courage, and collective action.