How the ‘Frida Kahlo of environmental geopolitics’ is lighting a fire under big oil

Colombian environment minister Susana Muhamad once worked for Shell. Now, as the country gears up to host the biodiversity Cop16, she is calling for a just transition away from fossil fuels

She is one of the biggest opponents of fossil fuel on the world stage - but Susana Muhamad's political career was sparked in the halls of an oil company. It began when she resigned as a sustainability consultant with Shell in 2009 and returned home to Colombia. She was 32 and disillusioned, a far cry from the heights she would later reach as the country's environment minister, and one of the most high-profile progressive leaders in global environmental politics.

Muhamad joined Shell an idealistic 26-year-old. I really thought that you could make a huge impact within an energy company on the climate issue, especially because all their publicity was saying that they were going to become an energy company, meaning they will not be only a fossil fuel company," she says, when we meet in the Colombian embassy in London.