The 2025 Policy Dialogue on Just Energy Transitions: Pathways to Prosperity Post Fossil Fuels (PPFF) will focus on national strategies for managing the decline of oil and gas consumption and the likely transboundary implications of global phase downs for producing countries that rely significantly on oil and gas exports for their national economies. We will specifically consider importer country phase down plans and how the timing of such plans tracks with exporter country preparedness for economic diversification.
The program addressed three critical issues to enable just energy transitions, which were raised at the 2024 PPFF dialogue:
- The lack of awareness among many producer-exporter countries about the existing and/or anticipated plans from consumer countries to reduce oil and gas imports. Most producing nations seemingly lack confidence in the fact that oil and gas demand reduction plans will be enacted. Continuous business-as-usual operations can increase the risk of stranded assets and other negative economic and social impacts.
- Decision-making on demand reduction plans tends to happen in a vacuum, often using a top-down approach with little input from potentially affected parties, such as exporting countries. Unilateral decisions can further erode trust between countries and negatively affect collective progress toward ambitious global just energy transitions.
- The lack of understanding and data – particularly quantitative – of the unintended socio-economic impacts of demand reduction plans on producer-exporter countries, hinders their capacity to proactively envision economic diversification pathways, as well as timely measures to protect vulnerable populations. This gap also hampers the capacity of consumer nations to manage demand reductions in ways that effectively balance equity considerations to minimise negative impacts where possible.
In response to these issues, the PPFF program convened national representatives from key fossil fuel producer-exporter and consumer-importer countries (with emphasis on oil and gas), including policymakers and researchers, finance and private sector representatives, civil society, and key experts and modellers to discuss how to enable effective demand reduction management strategies that take just energy transitions into consideration, and seek viable pathways to diversify their economies. Participants will explore specific case studies, and analyse how different countries can best anticipate and respond to the potential economic, social, environmental and equity implications of demand reduction plans.
In response to the need for quantitative data, the dialogue explored how current modelling tools can approach these.
Key Questions
- What management strategies are oil and gas consumer countries considering or implementing to reduce reliance on imports as they transition away from fossil fuels?
- What are the potential implications of demand reduction strategies on oil and gas producer-exporter countries from the perspective of a just transition?
- How can we model future trends and impacts to inform policy and decision making?
- What strategies can help minimise the unintended transboundary impacts of demand management strategies to meet Paris-aligned pathways, especially for vulnerable populations?
- How can oil and gas producer-exporter countries manage the decline of fossil fuel consumption while maintaining a focus on sustainable development, including strategies for economic diversification?
- What strategies, partnerships or platforms can support collaborative and equitable governance at the intersection of domestic and international policies for demand reduction?
2025 Programme Goals
- Productive exchange: Facilitate and advance productive exchange between policy- and decision-makers, researchers, and relevant cross-sector experts, catalysing new collaborative efforts for mutual benefit.
- Enhanced Collaboration: Foster productive exchanges between major oil and gas producers and consumers, creating opportunities for cooperation on just transition strategies.
- Policy Innovation: Identify actionable policies that balance economic diversification with equity and climate goals.
- Capacity Building: Empower decision-makers with information, insights, tools and evidence to implement just transition strategies that align with national and global climate targets.
Programme Format
Approximately 50 experts will convene for a highly interactive residential program at Schloss Leopoldskron, home of Salzburg Global, under Chatham House Rule to allow for open dialogue. The agenda will be co-developed to ensure inclusiveness and relevance, and will be structured around clear evidence-based recommendations for policymakers.
Outcomes
In the 2025 edition of the Policy Dialogue for Just Energy Transitions: Pathways to Prosperity Post Fossil Fuels, participants created five Working Groups (WGs) creating innovative solutions for different aspects of just energy transitions.
Over the coming months, the WGs will convene and develop their work through a range of outputs. On this page, you can find regular updates on their progress and latest achievements.
The ‘Salzburg’ Collaborative Framework for Energy Transitions
Understanding that there is shared responsibility between importers and exporters to ensure a just and managed energy transition, this WG set the guiding principles for the development of a ‘Salzburg’ framework for collaborative governance, aiming to:
- Provide clarity on the timescale of O&G demand and supply, to improve exporter-importer coordination and align transition efforts.
- Coordinate action towards a 75% reduction of methane emissions in the O&G value chain by 2030, by providing technical assistance, knowledge sharing, and technology transfer.
- Collaboratively identify opportunities for low-emission value-chain creation in export-dependent countries, providing revenue certainty and hedging against macroeconomic risks.
The team will continue to work together as the founding secretariat of the Salzburg Framework, seeking to address remaining questions for the development of this framework. A key question pertains to its potential operationalization. A range of existing fora can be considered to house the framework (OECD, IEA, BRICS); additionally, existing collaborative approaches (e.g., the Methane Abatement Partnership) can contribute to an ecosystem of alliances working towards collaboration.
A Guide to Economic Diversification
Economic diversification is a necessary strategy to strengthen national economies and ensure their resilience against declining export markets in the global energy transition. Through the analysis of four case studies – Trinidad and Tobago, Dubai, Nigeria, and Saudi Arabia – this WP has developed four guiding principles to inform economic diversification strategies in the energy transition:
- Develop a long-term vision, delivered through an industrial strategy and supportive policies, and broken into SMART steps
- Identify target sectors playing to the country’s strengths and strategic advantages.
- Government support to sustain an enabling environment for investment and growth.
- Ensure the continuity of diversification efforts despite political changes by securing public buy-in and legislating when feasible.
Financing Bioeconomy: ‘Project Bio-Eco City’
The transition from O&G will require transformational opportunities for growth, including at the community level. This WG has developed a business concept for ‘bio-eco cities’: a bio-circular economy model enabling the diversification from fossil fuels through the promotion of biofuels through crop adaptation.
Establishing a strong case for financing is crucial, as projects may be located in emerging markets with higher risk. The proposed model addresses these challenges through a tiered system of blended capital feeding into a global fund. The next steps of the WG would continue to develop this model in order to mobilise potential investors and groups.
Setting The Record Straight: Narratives & Counter-Narratives
Narratives are an impactful tool for policymaking and collective action. This WG identified misleading narratives for O&G transitions and created 6 counter-narratives to enable a clearer understanding of a globally just transition. The narratives will feed into various communication outputs.
- Employment: ‘While certain jobs will be lost without substitution by the transition, most will be transformed. The transition will generate 10.3 million net-new jobs globally by 2030.’
- Technology: ‘Some technological solutions for the transition are readier for drop-in and should be favoured; others have been insufficiently addressed, so the precautionary principle should be applied to avoid long-term environmental effects. Food and biofuel production do not conflict in regions with land availability.’
- Critical Minerals: ‘Mineral extraction has a legacy issue that must be addressed as the sector expands; in many cases, the extraction of minerals for green technologies will imply shifting transition burdens. Resource-rich countries should be allowed to join critical mineral value chains beyond extraction.’
- Development: ‘Current levels of oil supply are not justified, and the energy transition is already underway. Oil will not promote development once there is no more demand, and there are more sustainable alternatives available.’
- Financial Risk: ‘Transitions carry an inherent risk of insecurity, which must be mitigated through planning. Losses in fiscal revenues can be counterbalanced through diversification into stable revenue streams and other measures.’
- Society and Culture: ‘The transition is not only about its outcome, but the process itself: it will entail conflicting views, produce differentiated outcomes, and will ultimately transform our ways of being and belonging in society and culture.’
Security and Geopolitical Implications of the Energy Transition
The forecasted decline in Oil & Gas demand will unfurl in a rapidly evolving geopolitical landscape. This WG created an issues matrix to layer the transition from O&G with current energy security concerns and geopolitical shifts. The matrix considers security and geopolitical concerns for producing and consuming countries.
For producer countries, security concerns included revenue loss and adaptability challenges; geopolitical concerns included the loss of trade links and international cooperation. For consumer countries, security concerns included supply insecurity and new resource dependencies; geopolitical concerns included shifting alliances and supply chain concentration.
This analysis will contribute to the development of ‘Five Insights on Just Transition from Salzburg Global’ and inform engagements with key actors, including during COP30. Countries and multilateral institutions must enable fair, just, and responsible collaboration to manage the geopolitical impacts of the transition. Development banks can also align funding priorities with long-term security and geopolitical considerations.
Studies by experts will be commissioned to ensure that policy recommendations are grounded in recent and nationally relevant research. The research will be informed by the participants’ discussions and dissemination following the convening.
