The outgoing head of Colombia’s state-owned oil and energy company Ecopetrol has warned in an interview with the Financial Times that the country’s transition to a lower GHG-emissions energy sector must be a gradual one if it is to work.

Felipe Bayón told the FT that there “is no substitution in which you can just flip a switch to turn one thing off and another on,” something that is applicable the world over, but especially pertinent to a country that earns half of its (official) export income from oil, gas, and mining – 30% being from Ecopetrol. Colombia’s current left-leaning government, led by President Gustavo Petro, came to power in August last year and passed legislation in December to collect a windfall tax on energy companies and to cancel the ability for oil and coal companies to deduct royalties from their tax bills. Mining minister Irene Vélez-Torres has promised to halt new oil exploration projects, and for his part, President Petro told the World Economic Forum in Davos in January this year that the “only way to halt the climate crisis is through zero consumption of carbon and petroleum,” something that is perhaps more rhetorical than technical.

The tension between the fossil fuel sector and the government in Colombia seems set to continue throughout the term of the current government.