Sheinbaum will run against senator Xóchitl Gálvez, who was named candidate of the opposition coalition last weekend and who is also pro-renewables.

One of them will almost certainly succeed current president Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who is unable to run again. Sheinbaum, who comes from the same left-wing party as López Obrador and will benefit from his popularity, is the favourite.

During his time in office, López Obrador prioritised “energy sovereignty”, which has manifested in support for Pemex, the most indebted state oil company in the world, while building a $15 billion oil refinery in Tabasco and closing off options for private investment in renewable energy.

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Wind and solar are  particularly cheap in Mexico, but private investment has slumped since López Obrador took office in 2018.“Energy is energy,” said María José de Villafranca, an analyst at the New Climate Institute.

“They could invest public money in renewable energy and this wouldn’t take away from the sovereignty. But we haven’t seen this from the government. It’s a missed opportunity.”

Net zero?

Mexico is one of only two G20 countries not to have set net zero emission targets, and the climate plan it announced last year at Cop27 was criticised by Climate Action Tracker for being worse than its previous one.

There is some hope that Sheinbaum, given her contributions to reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change on tackling climate change, could take a different approach as president.

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“She has been very careful not to go against the current president’s vision, but she has suggested that her vision for renewables energies is somewhat distinct,” said Carlos Ramírez, a political analyst. “And this has created some hope that her policies as president would be different.”

As mayor of Mexico City, Sheinbaum promoted rooftop solar and cycle and public transport infrastructure.

As president, she says she would accelerate the development of renewables, with state investment in lithium extraction and solar plants in Sonora, a state in northern Mexico.

But she has also defended López Obrador’s fossil fuel policies and shares his belief that Pemex and CFE, the state electricity company, should be architects of the country’s energy policy.

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“I think she will try to do something in between, giving more weight to renewables while also maintaining the policies around Pemex and CFE,” said Ramírez. “What will become of this Frankenstein, I’m not sure.”

The opposition

On the other side, Gálvez has made the shift to renewable energy a central part of her pitch for the presidency.

She says she will end “the addiction to fossil fuels” while opening the way for the private sector to sell cheap clean energy.

Private investors would likely heed the call if Gálvez came to power, not least because of the near-shoring boom that is rerouting US supply chains from Asia to Mexico.

According to manufacturers, one of the main limiting factors on this phenomenon is the lack of readily available clean energy, which many need to fulfil their environmental commitments.

“Both [Sheinbaum and Gálvez] will use the flag of renewable energies,” said Ramírez. “They already have, in many interviews. Because they know that it’s something that really matters, particularly for young people. It cuts through.”

Whether that talk turns into action once the election is decided is another matter. “And in the case of Sheinbaum, there will be a lot of political pressure to continue on the same path as López Obrador.”

The post Mexico’s ruling party picks climate scientist for presidential run appeared first on Climate Home News.

The Mexican delegation, which is dominated by young women, spoke up strongly against the “difficult experience” they said they experienced at the Cop27 climate talks in Egypt last November.

Their campaign for reforms gathered momentum throughout the two-week talks in Bonn and resulted in UN Climate Change head Simon Stiell closing the talks by saying that “harassment, be it in the form of sexism, bullying or sexual harassment is not acceptable”.

It also resulted in governments agreeing to make host agreements between the UN and the hosts of the annual Cop talks public, to encourage strong measures to protect delegates.

Battle against powerful men

On Tuesday, the head of Mexico’s delegation Camila Zepeda told a side event in Bonn that her delegation “were among the many that had to suffer quite a difficult experience at Cop27”.

Without going into details, she said “we made official complaints on all these situations that were happening and we were not addressed and we were not taken care of”.

She said that lots of countries which are “usually very vocal about [human rights], here they stand quiet” and “we end up being the only ones left in the room, holding this battle against these very powerful men”.

She later accused the heads of the European Union and US delegations of only supporting her when she went to the press.

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When she complained about sexual harassment, Zepeda said that one party had told her there is sexual harassment all over the world.

“Am I going to take for granted that – because I get sexually harassed all over the world – that I get sexually harassed here,” she asked, “it’s just absolutely ridiculous”.

Climate talks have been plagued by sexual harassment since their beginning with Pakistani negotiator Meera Ghani and climate lawyer Farhana Yamin among those speaking out about their harassment.

Intimidation of journalists

The next day, 35-year-old Argentine journalist Tais Gadea Lara complained to the Cop27 presidency about intimidation at the summit in Sharm el-Sheikh.

Sitting around a meeting table in Bonn with other journalists, she told Cop27 ambassador Wael Aboulmagd that the Cop in Egypt was “one of the most difficult Cops to work in”.

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She told him that whenever she set up her tripod to film reports, four or five men with technical support badges had surrounded her in an attempt to intimidate her. In one case – Gadea Lara said – they turned off the lights when she was recording late at night without many people around.

Aboulmagd said he was “sorry to hear that”, he didn’t know who the men were and the Cop27 presidency had received several complaints and “had reacted”. He told Gadea Lara the best thing was to report in detail what happened to the authorities.

Later, Gadea Lara told Climate Home that a woman from the Egyptian delegation had approached her after she had asked the Cop presidency a question about phasing out fossil fuels. The woman looked at her name badge, wrote on a piece of paper and said thank you, Lara said.

She said she felt “intimidated because she neither introduced herself nor explained why she wanted to write my name down”.

Reforms proposed

Zepeda told the press conference that she had spoken to UN climate change head Simon Stiell about the need to “protect the dignity, privacy and security of all participants”.

A group of at least 20 governments, led by a group of female heads of delegation, joined Zepeda in signing a letter to Stiell, one signatory told Climate Home.

A draft version, seen by Climate Home, urges him to “apply [the UN climate change] code of conduct to any occurrence of unacceptable and/or aggressive behaviour towards women negotiators”.

“We urge you to pay particular attention to the way women negotiators are being treated in UNFCCC’s premises, inside and outside of negotiation rooms, ensuring that all participants feel part of a respectful and safe work environment,” the letter said.

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On Tuesday afternoon, Swiss negotiator Franz Perez told a meeting “the reports on harassment, bullying and inappropriate behaviour towards delegates at these sessions are concerning”. His comments were echoed by the EU and Australia.

One practical step Zepeda called for was for the agreement between the UN and Cop host to be made public, in order to encourage measures to protect delegates.

She is likely to be successful as a draft document published yesterday proposed that all countries agree that “for transparency”, host country agreements should be made publicly available.

Closing the talks, Stiell said he was aware “that inappropriate behaviour has taken place during this session [in Bonn]”. To applause, he told delegates “the planet is a better place for your presence here and you should not have experienced this in your workplace”.

The post After “difficult experience” at Cop27, Mexico leads anti-harassment push in Bonn appeared first on Climate Home News.

The Mexican government said it will develop a strategy to ban future experimentation with solar geoengineering, which will also include an information campaign and scientific reports. However, the government did not announce more specific actions.

“Mexico reiterates its unavoidable commitment to the protection and well-being of the population from practices that generate risks to human and environmental security,” said the government in a statement.

Geoengineering refers to the act of deliberately changing the Earth’s systems to control its climate.

One theoretical proposal has been to spray sulphur particles to cool the planet —which has been documented to briefly happen after volcanic eruptions.

A recent United Nations report found that this practice, known as stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI), “has the potential to reduce global mean temperatures”.

But, it found, it “cannot fully offset the widespread effects of global warming and produces unintended consequences, including effects on ozone”.

The UN convention on Biological Diversity established a moratorium on geoengineering in 2010, in the absence of enough scientific data and regulations.

Rogue experiment

In 2022, the US startup Making Sunsets launched an unauthorised experiment from two sites in the northern Mexican state of Baja California. The company claims it launched balloons injected with sulphur dioxide particles into the atmosphere, which were not monitored nor recovered.

The company’s co-founder Luke Iseman said he conducted the experiment in Baja California because he lives there.

The Mexican government said the experiment was carried out “without prior notice and without the consent of the Government of Mexico and the surrounding communities”.

Making Sunsets is already selling “cooling credits” for future balloon flights with larger amounts of sulphur dioxide for $10 each.

“Your funds will be used to release at least 1 gram of our ‘clouds’ into the stratosphere on your behalf, offsetting the warming effect of 1 ton of carbon dioxide for 1 year,” the company claims on its website.

Lily Fuhr, deputy program director at the Center for International Environmental Law (Ciel), said in a statement that by offering a “cheap and easy quick fix” to the climate crisis, the company “plays into the hands of the fossil fuel industry”.

“Solar geoengineering is too risky and ungovernable to pursue. We support the Mexican government in their plan for a ban and call on them to immediately stop the new flights that ‘Make Sunsets’ has announced for January 2023,” Fuhr said.

Side effects

James Haywood is a professor of atmospheric science at Exeter University and co-wrote the recent UN report on SAI.

He told Climate Home that Make Sunsets experiment was not dangerous as the amount of sulphur was so small.

“It is more of a [public relations] stunt,” he said, adding “it’s not going to make a blind bit of difference”.

But putting larger amounts of sulphur in the atmosphere can be dangerous, he said.

While many of the side-effects of SAI can be avoided if it is done properly, he said, some are very difficult to avoid.

For example, he said, putting large amounts of sulphur into the atmosphere is likely to increase winter rainfall over northern Europe and reduce it over southern Europe, particularly in Spain and Portugal.

Speaking before the Mexican statement, Haywood said that at the moment there “is no government, no governance” of geoengineering and that he wasn’t aware of any governments proposing regulations.

Ciel called on more governments to announce bans on the practice.

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With very few governments updating and improving their climate plans in 2022, the Mexican government’s initiative was celebrated at Cop27, with US climate envoy John Kerry even saying the document was “one of the most outstanding contributions among the G20 countries”.

During a public event with the Mexican delegation, Kerry called it a “huge significant shift from where Mexico was even last year at Cop26 in Glasgow” and later told the closing plenary that the country is “significantly strengthening its 2030 target”.

But a new analysis from Climate Action Tracker (CAT) now suggests the plan will still lead to more emissions than the previous government’s nationally determined contribution, which was published in 2016.

Political risk analyst Carlos Ramirez told Climate Home that the country’s foreign affairs minister, Marcelo Ebrard, was trying to position himself as climate-friendly in order to try and secure his party’s nomination for the next presidential election.

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Mexico, a country of 130 million, and Indonesia are the only two G20 countries not to have set net zero targets. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s policies have favoured state-owned oil company Pemex over private renewables companies.

Accounting trick

CAT analyst Maria Jose de Villafranca Casas told Climate Home that the new plan was “slightly better” than a 2020 version, also published under Obrador’s government.

But the 2020 version was revoked by a judge for being less ambitious than the 2016 version. The judge ruled that, as Mexico has enshrined the Paris agreement in its domestic law, each plan must be more ambitious than the last.

The new 2022 plan is still less ambitious than the 2016 one, de Villafranca Casas said.

At first glance, it looks more ambitous. The 2016 one targets a 22% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. The new one aims for 30-35% cuts. Both reductions are against an estimate of what emissions would be if no action was taken, called a ‘business as usual baseline’.

But the baselines are different. The 2016 one targets emission cuts from a lower baseline. This makes it harder to reduce emissions compared to it.

In absolute terms, the 2016 plan aims for lower emissions than the new one. The old target was 757 MtCO2e by 2030 while the new one is 786–863 MtCO2e. Both plans envision emissions rising from today’s levels until at least 2030.

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Da Villafranca Casas also accused the government of “creative accounting”. She said the new plan leaves forests, which suck in carbon, out of its baseline. This makes it higher. But it allows these forest carbon sinks to be included in its emissions figures. “While technically allowed, this approach is not transparent,” she said.

She said there was “a good possibility” that the new climate plan will be challenged in the courts like the 2020 one was.

Bid for popularity

Political risk analyst Carlos Ramirez told Climate Home that foreign affairs minister Ebrard was promoting “propaganda” to increase his popularity.

“[Ebrard] went to [Cop27 to] promise a seires of goals which look great on paper but when you come back to Mexico and see what they are doing, there’s no action”, he said.

“The president doesn’t care about climate change. He doesn’t care about the environment. He’s an old guard politican who sees oil as the main energy source and has basically cancelled all options for renewables”, Ramirez added.

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Kerry has made several visits to Mexico to push climate action. Cop26 president Alok Sharma has also been to Mexico to call for it to improve its climate plan. “Kerry can come 100 times,” Ramirez said, “at the end of the day, what I’ve seen is nothing on climate change”.

There is a presidential election in 2024. Current president Andrés Manuel López Obrador is very popular. He is not allowed to run again but his chosen successor is likely to win.

The two front-runners, Ramirez said, are Ebrard and the mayor of Mexico City Claudia Sheinbaum. She is a physicist and contributor to Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports. In Mexico City, she has promoted rooftop solar and cycle and public transport infrastructure.

Ramirez said Sheinbaum may make Mexico more devoted to climate action. But it would be difficult to overturn Lopez-Obrador’s pro fossil fuel policies, particularly as he will remain popular and powerful even after stepping down as president.

The post Mexico’s new climate plan is worse than its old one, analysts say appeared first on Climate Home News.

Gas and oil are commonly found together and the gas can either be captured and sold, burned as waste (known as flaring) or allowed to leak (known as venting). All these options lead to greenhouse gas emissions. Oil producers flare and vent gas when they don’t think capturing and selling it would be profitable.

In 2015, then Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto was one of 31 world leaders to promise to end routine flaring by 2030. Three years later, president Andrés Manuel López Obrador was elected on a promise to support Mexico’s state-owned oil industry and World Bank data shows flaring has shot up 67% from 3.9 billion cubic metres a year in 2018 to 6.5 billion cubic metres in 2021.

Mexico’s flare volumes have risen while oil production declined (World Bank)

The World Bank described this as a “worrying increase”. In its annual gas flaring report, the bank said: “Mexico’s focus over the last few years has been on energy security, however the increase in gas flaring has occurred while Mexico has also steadily increased natural gas imports, highlighting the potential flare gas recovery could play in its energy independence.”

This increase in flaring took place “despite oil production declining” the World Bank said. Mark Davis, CEO of flaring analytics company Capterio, said the rise was “due to higher poorer operational performance with much higher ‘flaring intensity’ (flaring per barrel of production)”.

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According to Capterio’s analysis, two oil fields stand out with dramatically higher flaring in 2021 – the Perdiz/Ixachi field in Veracruz and La Venta in neighbouring Tabasco. Both are on Mexico’s oil-producing Caribbean coast and are operated by state-owned Pemex.

Perdiz (left blue dot) and La Venta (right blue dot) are both in Mexico’s oil hub. (FlareIntel Pro by Capterio)

“What’s particularly striking is that the flaring at the Perdiz flare changed from regularly flaring less than 5 million [cubic feet] a day in 2020 to regularly flaring around 100 million [cubic feet] a day from late January through to late November in 2021”.

The reduction in flaring from 28 November, Davis said, appears to have coincided with bringing online a new plant which conditions the gas so it can be sold for power or cooking. There has been no such drop in flaring at La Venta.

The La Venta flare is visible from Google Earth and just a few hundred metres from peoples’ homes.

Globally, flaring volumes have risen and fallen with levels of oil production over the last few years. Progress in reducing flaring in countries like Nigeria, Kazakhstan and the US has been cancelled out by setbacks in Russia, Iran and Venezuela.

If the world is to eliminate routine flaring by 2030, Capterio analysis suggests it needs to be reduced by 44% a year from 2022 onwards. Progress so far has been “woefully inadequate”, Capterio says.

The World Bank says there has been “mixed progress” and signatories like Russia, Iraq and Mexico have “tremendous opportunities for improvement” as their flare volumes and flare intensity has increased.

But some environmentalists criticised the World Bank’s “problematic” framing of capturing gas as a climate solution. Friends of the Earth’s Luisa Abbot Galvão told Climate Home: “The [bank] frames the issue as gas being ‘needlessly’ flared, but bringing gas to market and potentially expanding countries’ gas infrastructure still contributes to climate change.”

She added: “Yes we need to reduce this pollution, which is harming frontline communities first and foremost, but the [bank] should be helping countries do this in the context of supporting their equitable phase-out of oil and gas more broadly.”

Galvão criticicised the bank’s energy director Demetrios Papathanasiou for suggesting that oil and gas production can be “decarbonized”. She called this a “dangerous narrative”.

Pemex did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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Pemex made headlines earlier this month after the leak triggered a huge blaze near one of its platforms, as the world watched aghast. 

For 76 years, the company has received billions of dollars in support from the US’ export credit agency, the Export–Import Bank (Exim), despite warnings of safety and environmental concerns. 

Since 1998, Exim has propped up the fossil fuel company with $16.14 billion in loans and guarantees, according to analysis by the Friends of the Earth of the bank’s annual reports, seen by Climate Home News.

Most recently, in September 2020, Exim approved $400 million worth of support to the company.

The funding would “facilitate the purchase of US oil and gas equipment and services provided to approximately 21 oil and gas field projects,” the Exim press release reads.

According to documents submitted by Pemex to Exim, one of the projects was Ku Maloob Zaap, the oil field located 90km off the coast of Campeche in the Gulf of Mexico, which was the site of the gas fire.

Ocean fire exposes weak regulation of Mexico’s oil and gas sector

Campaigners are demanding an investigation into the environmental and climate damage caused by the fire. 

But with little faith in the Mexican authorities, analysts told Climate Home they were looking to regional allies such as the US to exert pressure to hold Pemex accountable. 

Following last week’s incident, campaigners are escalating calls on Exim to end its support to Pemex.

“I don’t understand how they would be willing to lend any money to Pemex. The hypocrisy of US administrations, who make all these statements about climate, and then allow this company to be its biggest borrower. It’s outrageous,” Veronique de Rugy, a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center, told Climate Home News. 

The company was Exim’s biggest client until at least 2017, when the bank stopped disclosing its top borrowers in its annual reports.

Between 1998 and 2015, Pemex received Exim money annually, with loans and guarantees averaging $850 million every year, according to the analysis. From 2003 to 2016, the bank had more loans outstanding to Pemex than to any other client, it shows.

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In September 2020, after Exim authorised the latest loan to Pemex, Friends of the Earth wrote a letter to the bank’s chairman Kimberly Reed , criticising the decision. 

The campaign group opposed the loan “due to the hundreds of worker deaths at Pemex facilities from accidents and Covid-19, the harmful environmental impacts of Pemex projects, allegations of corruption against Pemex leadership, and the failure to provide a meaningful assessment of the environmental and social impacts of the Pemex projects”. 

At that time, Pemex had recorded more Covid-19 deaths than any other company in the world, according to analysis by Bloomberg. 

More than 190 workers and contractors died and over 570 were injured in fires, explosions and offshore rig collapses at Pemex sites between 2009 and 2016. 

The gas fire last week was not an anomaly, Kate DeAngelis, international finance manager at Friends of the Earth, told Climate Home. 

“Pemex has a long history of environmental destruction and poor safety record as evidenced by the hundreds of workers who have been killed from explosions, fires and other accidents at Pemex sites,” she said. 

Much of Pemex’s production is heavy sour crude oil, which is particularly polluting, according to DeAngelis. “Pemex has no plans to reduce its harmful environmental impacts,” she added. 

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A 2020 report by the Mercatus Center, a US-based think-tank, outlines significant environmental, safety and corruption concerns surrounding Pemex and questions Exim’s continued support for the heavily indebted fossil fuel company.

“Working with Pemex has posed a reputational risk to the Exim Bank for decades,” the report reads. “The Exim Bank’s willingness to continue lending to Pemex may come down to Pemex being too big to fail.”

At the end of 2020, Pemex said its financial debt stood at $113.2 billion, despite several capital injections from the government. In April, the company said it expected to maintain debt of $105 billion between 2021 and 2025.

Considering its long-standing relationship with Pemex, “Exim could have used that leverage to require strong environmental and worker safeguards, but it appears that Exim has never even attempted to do that,” said DeAngelis.

Exim did not respond to Climate Home News’ request for comment. 

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Pemex said a lightning storm ignited a gas leak from an underwater pipeline. “There was no oil spill and the immediate action taken to control the surface fire avoided environmental damage,” the company said in a statement.

Campaigners disagree, demanding an investigation into the environmental and climate damage caused by the fire. But with little faith in the Mexican authorities, they are looking to regional allies to hold Pemex to account.

Greenpeace Mexico accused Pemex, the state-owned company operating the pipeline, of causing “ecocide” in the Gulf of Mexico, citing the toxic properties and climate impact of methane gas. It blamed the rupture on ageing, poorly maintained infrastructure.

Pablo Ramirez, an energy and climate campaigner for Greenpeace Mexico, told Climate Home News that it was impossible to calculate the carbon footprint of the gas leak because there is no public information about the amount of gas usually transported by the pipeline. He described the lack of transparency in Mexico’s energy sector as “very problematic”.

Lorne Stockman, senior research analyst at Oil Change International, said the pipeline could have been leaking for a while before the gas caught fire. The global heating impact of methane is 84 time higher over 20 years than that of carbon dioxide, which is produced when it is burned. “Until and unless we get more information from Pemex, we won’t know how bad this was,” he said.

“This is just the latest example of how the oil and gas industry pollutes with impunity, and why we must work to shut it down as soon as possible,” said Stockman. “If this gas had not caught fire and caused this visual spectacle, most people would not have heard about it… But it’s clear that we cannot end the fossil fuel age quickly enough to mitigate the damage it is causing.”

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At a local level, Greenpeace raised concerns about the harm leaked methane could have caused to marine life. 

“The gas can rapidly penetrate the bodies of fish, doing direct damage to gills, skin, chemoreceptors and eyes, and filling up the gas bladder, making the fish unable to control its buoyancy,” Ramirez said. “Shellfish are also killed by exposure to gas.”

If fish are exposed to gas concentrations of 1 mg per litre they show signs of acute poisoning within 20 minutes and die within two days, he added.

Shocking footage of the enormous fireball, dubbed “eye of the fire”, sparked international criticism on social media, including from youth activist Greta Thunberg. 

“Meanwhile the people in power call themselves ‘climate leaders’ as they open up new oilfields, pipelines and coal power plants – granting new oil licenses exploring future oil drilling sites. This is the world they are leaving for us,” she wrote on Twitter.  

Mexico’s president Andrés Manuel López Obrador has bet heavily on the fossil fuel industry, describing oil as “the best business in the world.” He has dismissed renewable energy sources, referring to wind turbines as “visual pollution.”

The head of Mexico’s oil and gas safety regulator ASEA, Angel Carrizales, tweeted that the incident “did not generate any spillage”.

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Energy analyst Poppy Kalesi told Climate Home News that it was unlikely that Pemex would be held accountable by Obrador’s government or ASEA. 

Mexico has one of the most comprehensive regulatory frameworks for methane emissions on paper, but in practice it remains difficult to implement, Kalesi said. “ASEA has neither the authority nor the competence or capacity to conduct environmental audits on Pemex’s platforms and equipment.”

As a state-owned company with close ties to the government and without investor pressure, Pemex has no interest in building up competence to evaluate its methane performance, she added. 

Kalesi said the US and Canada could exert pressure on the Mexican government to hold Pemex accountable under the 2016 “three amigos” energy deal, in which the three countries pledge to produce 50% of their power by 2025 from renewable energy sources. 

“What the US and Canada can and should do is to use both their purchasing power and political pressure to give a hook to the Mexican government to hold Pemex accountable,” Kalesi said.

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The ruling Morena party led by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (widely known as Amlo) is likely to get around 200 of the 500 seats. Official figures suggest his allies in other parties will get around 95.

While Morena and its allies maintain an absolute majority, they will not have the 334 votes needed to change the constitution, which López Obrador has suggested he would do to overcome legal obstacles to his plans.

“My hope is that these unconstitutional reforms do not see the light in the end,” said New Climate Institute analyst Maria Jose de Villafranca.

Political risk analyst Carlos Ramirez told Climate Home News that the elections had “put a brake” on the reforms.

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The reforms would give the state-owned Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) a competitive advantage over private and foreign rivals.

Electricity generated by CFE, which predominately comes from burning coal and gas, would be prioritised in the grid over energy from private companies, which is generally cleaner and cheaper and so currently dispatched first.

Amlo’s proposed reforms would reverse previous reforms that President Enrique Nieto wrote into the country’s constitution in 2013, so that future governments would find it harder to undo them.

In March 2021, a judge ruled that López Obrador’s reforms must be frozen until the Supreme Court decides whether they are constitutional.

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Ramirez said that most Mexican legal experts agree that the reforms are unconstitutional but a Supreme Court judgement was unlikely be the end of the story.

He predicted López Obrador would try to gather support from opposition delegates from the PRI and Citizens Movement parties to reach a 2/3 majority.

He could also, Ramirez said, hold a referendum next year asking something like: “Do you think our energy resources should be for the use of Mexicans?”

While such a referendum would not be binding, it would “create the environment in order to pressure the legislature to strike down the 2013 energy reform”, Ramirez said.

López Obrador is ideologically opposed to private and foreign control of Mexico’s energy infrastructure.

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Energy ownership is an emotive issue in Mexico. The anniversary of the 1938 nationalisation of foreign-owned oil is now a national holiday.

Despite falling costs and Mexico’s plentiful sun and wind, Amlo has dismissed solar and wind energy, calling wind turbines “visual pollution”. The only low-carbon sources he has praised are large hydro and nuclear power plants.

Asked why he doesn’t want state-owned renewables, de Villafranca said: “He’s just a bit stubborn. He just keeps repeating the same discourse over and over without listening to the science and economic experts.”

Greenpeace Mexico’s Pablo Ramirez told Climate Home News that the right-wing opposition parties like PRI, PAN and PRD “have been adopting a very fake environmentalist speech” since López Obrador came to power. This has contributed to Amlo’s “narrative of environment as a right wing theme and the oil as the people’s interest”, he added.

Hope for Mexico’s energy transition comes, he said, from state governments. He pointed to Mexico City’s mayor Claudia Sheinbaum, who is a member of López Obrador’s party, but is also a physicist and contributor to Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports. She is promoting rooftop solar and cycle and public transport infrastructure.

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“After that, every time we turned on the water, it came out yellow,” Galicia Flores said. “We tried drinking it for a while, disinfecting it with bleach, but the kids started getting sick.”

The 68-year-old and her family have tried a variety of options over the years, knowing the once-clean water was a lost cause. 

“We live close to a city well,” explained Galicia Flores’ daughter Elena Hernández Galicia, “but that’s where only yellow water comes out. There’s even a sign out front: ‘Not drinkable.’” 

The family is one of many who regularly struggle to get clean water in Mexico City – an estimated 1.3 million of the city’s almost 9 million residents lack regular water access. As coronavirus rips through town, water-poor households are particularly vulnerable to infection.

Last year, the general coordinator of the Water System of Mexico City (Sacmex), Rafael Bernardo Carmona, admitted that more than 40% of the city’s running water is lost to leaks.

And, thanks to increasingly extreme weather conditions caused by climate change, along with rapid urban growth, the situation has grown critical: The World Bank and Mexico’s National Water Commission project enormous water deficits by 2030, gravely impacting water access for millions more.

Severa Galicia Flores stores well water in plastic jugs, disinfecting it with bleach, on her patio (Photo credit: Kylie Madry)

In Mexico, water has been a constitutionally protected human right since 2012 and is heavily subsidised – if it arrives at all. Pedro Moctezuma Barragán, an environmental sociology professor at the Metropolitan Autonomous University (UAM) in Mexico City and water activist with Agua para Tod@s, Agua para la Vida (Water for All, Water for Life), was key to the fight for constitutional recognition. “Our government made this promise to us,” he said, “and now they have to keep it.” 

San Gregorio Atlapulco, where Galicia Flores lives in Xochimilco, has been labeled by the Mexico City government as a “priority attention neighbourhood,” with some of the highest cases of the novel coronavirus in the area. 

Most residents of the area are in a similar position to her, some going days without water coming out of the tap, forcing them to choose between regular handwashing and other daily activities like washing dishes, laundry, and bathing. It’s a cruel twist of irony, seeing as “Atlapulco” is Nahautl for “where the water churns” – the neighbourhood was known, for centuries, for its fresh water. 

“The lack of water in Mexico has definitely made Covid worse,” Barragán said. “If you look at a map of neighbourhoods without water, and neighbourhoods with high numbers of coronavirus, they’re the same.”

Severa Galicia Flores (right) sits in her front garden with her daughter Elena Hernández Galicia and granddaughter Melissa Fuentes Hernández (Photo credit: Kylie Madry)

Luckily for Galicia Flores and her family, local nonprofit Isla Urbana is installing a rainwater harvesting system in their house today, almost three years after the earthquake. They were picked from a handful of applicants in the neighborhood.

“[The rainwater harvesting systems] are especially important given the sanitary crisis,” said Emilio Becerril, Isla Urbana’s public policy and management coordinator. “With more, and better, water, [recipients] can have higher levels of hygiene and health, free up time for other productive activities like education, work, etc, and apart from that, it significantly reduces the stress caused by water precarity.” 

The group hopes to install 22 systems through September, with another 15 coming in October. Since its founding in 2015, Isla Urbana has set up around 350 in San Gregorio Atlapulco alone. 

City officials and some scientists tout Isla Urbana’s mission as the perfect solution for Mexico City’s crumbling water infrastructure. The group won a contract with the city’s environmental ministry to design and implement a city-wide program, installing 10,000 systems in 2019. It is in talks to carry out another phase in 2021.

Isla Urbana installs a rainwater harvesting system at Severa Galicia Flores’ house on 9 September 2020 (Photo credit: Kylie Madry)

The struggle for water access is not just an engineering problem, it is deeply political.

Alejandro Ugalde González remembers how water used to flow freely through San Bartolo Ameyalco, the neighbourhood where he grew up. With a freshwater spring that had provided water to residents for centuries, things changed in San Bartolo when mega-housing developments started to go up nearby, he says.  

“These massive developments for the rich, every house has their own cisterns that hold up to 20,000 gallons of water, they use it to wash their cars, their horses, water their gardens, everything,” Ugalde González said. “And meanwhile, we stopped getting water in San Bartolo. Now the neighbourhood is split in two: the higher part and the lower part of the neighbourhood. We have to alternate water. Some people get water during the day, some just at night.” 

He’s loath to point all of the blame at the developers, however, saying that the local government, the Álvaro Obregón municipality, has permitted it. “Of course if we ask them if it’s happening, they’ll deny it,” he said. “But where else could all of this water be going? We know how much water comes out of the spring. But we’re not getting any of it.”

That’s why, in 2014, the neighbours of San Bartolo distanced themselves from the municipality, reclaiming its “traditional representation” as a pueblo originario (a small town that was later absorbed into Mexico City).

In the gated communities of San Bartolo Ameyalco, residents have plenty of water to keep their lawns lush (Pic: Kylie Madry)

This means that they now have a semi-self governing body, which Ugalde González was appointed head of in January, though many administrative issues like water management remain in the hands of the city.

The move was spurred by the events of 21 May, 2014, when residents sought to block the installation of pipes they feared would reroute water to other neighbourhoods. The municipality sent 1,500 police to “protect” the installation. In the resulting conflict, 100 residents were wounded and five detained for more than a year.

“It was an enormous violation of human rights,” Ugalde González said, “And the municipality wonders why we don’t trust them?” 

In the middle of the pandemic, many residents still go days without water. “The municipality tells us they’ll send us pipas [water tankers], but they refuse to come here,” Ugalde González said. And just like in San Gregorio Atlapulco, Covid-19 cases have been high in San Bartolo Ameyalco – though the neighbourhood dropped off the government’s “priority attention” list in August. 

There are other factors at play besides water, of course: Ugalde González points to an early lack of education around the coronavirus, pre-existing health conditions, and little government support as contributors to the havoc the virus has played in the area for the past six months.

Residents of San Bartolo Ameyalco painted a mural on the side of a water-pumping station in the neighborhood, the site of the May 21, 2014 clash with police. The mural reads “Freedom for political prisoners,” and “Water isn’t merchandise.” (Photo credit: Alejandro Ugalde González)

For citizens with low confidence in their government, rainwater harvesting systems could give a needed boost of trust in a city known for its rainy season – and its flooding. Every afternoon for close to half the year, massive amounts of water drop down into the city like clockwork  – leaving billions of gallons of potentially usable water to waste. Since Mexico City lacks a comprehensive water drainage system, most of that rain floods out onto the streets, into metro stations, and into homes, costing Mexico an estimated $230 million (£178 million) a year. 

The city’s drainage system is over 50 years old and the city’s population has rapidly expanded in that time, explained Mario Lopez Perez, who worked in Mexico’s National Water Commission (Conagua) for decades. “The pipes aren’t designed to handle double the capacity of water they used to,” he said.

Experts predict that the flooding will only get worse, as climate change causes more erratic weather patterns – in the month of September alone, Mexico City has seen some of its heaviest rains in the past 20 years. Beyond the flooding damage, the crisis is worsening the city’s sinkage levels, sewage spills and earthquakes. 

Rainwater harvesting may not be a long-term solution to flooding, but could offer a needed relief to an overworked, underproducing water system. “They reduce costs just as much for the families as for the government, since, when there’s no water, they have to subsidize pipas and other water delivery methods,” Becarril said. 

The relief they provide to individuals and families may not be the golden ticket, however. “[Rainwater harvesting systems] help, but don’t solve the problem,” Lopez Perez said. The ex-official points to more complicated approaches, such as better urban planning, and looking for more natural water sources, to keep future generations from going without.

But for today, Lopez Perez asks, “What am I supposed to wash my hands with, if I don’t have anything?”

This article is part of a climate justice reporting programme supported by the Climate Justice Resilience Fund. You can find our policy on reporting grants here.

The post Covid exposes Mexico City’s water access gap between rich and poor appeared first on Climate Home News.

The choreography of launching the 2050 plans, months in the making, was thrown off by last week’s shock US election result, which put climate sceptic Donald Trump in the White House.

But at a packed side event to the climate negotiations on Thursday, three panels worth of ministers and top officials lined up to show their enthusiasm for long term planning.

Peru, Ethiopia and Norway were among 22 countries backing the “2050 pathways platform” championed by French envoy Laurence Tubiana. Fifteen cities and nearly 200 businesses are also on board.

“The 2050 pathways have a critical role to play in the transition, because while having a good plan is never a sufficient condition for success, not having one is always a recipe for failure,” said Tubiana.

#Marrakech mail: sign up here for your daily #COP22 update

The US and Canada outline routes to an 80% reduction in emissions from 2005 levels by 2050. Germany’s plan is in line with the EU goal of an 80-95% cut from 1990 levels – not at the most ambitious end of that range, as campaigners had urged. Mexico, as an emerging economy, is aiming to halve emissions from 2000.

The US report runs to 111 pages, covering everything from the roll-out of electric vehicles to the uncertain prospects for sucking carbon out of the air.

“It’s not a new target but an analytics exercise to explore how the US might decarbonise major sectors of our economy through 2050 and beyond,” said lead negotiator Jonathan Pershing.

Ministra Galarza en firma del “2050 Pathways Platform”, compromiso de paises para reducción de emisiones #COP22 pic.twitter.com/7r4JOwmA3L

— Ministerio Ambiente (@MinamPeru) November 17, 2016

Germany’s version, agreed on Monday after extensive public consultation and wrangling between the economic and environment ministries, has a similar heft at 90 pages.

It is about sending signals to the market, explained Jochen Flasbarth, state secretary at the German environment ministry.

Taking car makers as an example, he said: “If you would go for a 30-40% greenhouse gas cut in the transport sector, you could go to biofuels and more efficient engines to meet the targets. But if you want to meet the Paris targets, it will not be enough. It is important to invest in the right technologies.”

Canada environment minister Catherine McKenna used an ice hockey analogy, loosely quoting famous player Wayne Gretzky:  “You skate to where the puck is going to be, not to where the puck has been.”

Climate Interactive models show the 2050 plans bending the curve of global warming predictions – but not enough for 2C

The overarching goal of the Paris Agreement is to hold global temperature rise “well below 2C” from pre-industrial levels and “pursue efforts” to stay within 1.5C.

Those on the front line of climate impacts like rising sea levels and drought demanded the tougher threshold, with support from developed countries including those putting forward 2050 plans in Marrakech.

Yet none of the emissions trajectories are in line with 1.5C, according to analysis from Climate Interactive, in a further blow to the hopes of vulnerable states.

And 2C is only achievable if other major emitters step up, the consultancy said. It estimates that India would need to peak emissions between 2025 and 2035, for example – a notion the developing country has been reluctant to engage with, prioritising energy access to lift people out of poverty.

“For any of these strategies to be in line with 1.5C or 2C requires all the other countries to act as well,” said co-author of the analysis Ellie Johnston.

The post Three amigos launch beyond-Trump 2050 climate strategies appeared first on Climate Home News.

It is now certain that less than one year will have passed from the beginning of the COP21 climate negotiations in December 2015 to the moment when the Paris Agreement will come into force.

These weeks and months are when the nations of the world stared over the precipice of catastrophic climate change and chose to act. By standards of international diplomacy, the ratification of the Paris Agreement has been remarkably swift.

Leaders of the many nations who have ratified the deal deserve our praise and gratitude.

From the biggest emitters, China, the United States and the European Union, to the smallest Island nations that are most at risk from the effects of climate change, each has recognized the scale of the threat we face and acted with commendable speed.

Habitat III: what to expect from the UN’s urban summit

After 20 years of waiting for an inter-governmental agreement to tackle climate change it is fantastic that nation states are now moving so rapidly to bring it into international law.

There is no time to waste because the next years are crucial. Global greenhouse gas emissions must peak by 2020 and then fall rapidly.

The next step is for countries to put forward national emissions plans that are as ambitious as the aspiration of the Paris Agreement. Almost none are at present.

Fortunately, mayors of the world’s great cities have also been using the months since December 2015 to ramp up climate action.

This determination to act by mayors is consistent with more than a decade of international leadership on climate change before the Paris Agreement, through powerful networks like the C40 Cities and common platforms for declaring commitments like the Global Covenant of Mayors.

At the height of the COP21 climate negotiations, Paris City Hall hosted more than 1,000 mayors and city leaders at the Climate Summit for Local Leaders.

This local and global display of commitment by mayors was instrumental in showing national leaders negotiating to secure the Paris Agreement that they were far from alone.

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Throughout 2016 cities have continued to deliver concretely ambitious climate action.

Last week, Paris confirmed the pedestrianisation of the right bank of the Seine, building on its world famous cycle hire scheme to further creating a city that prioritises sustainable transport.

This summer, Rio de Janeiro hosted the most ecological Olympic and Paralympic Games in modern history with new light railway lines, 150km of rapid bus lanes, and hundreds of kilometres of bike lanes that are creating a mass transit revolution in the city.

Mexico City is taking decisive action to create a clean and efficient transport network, through the growth of its Bus Rapid Transport as well as the subway systems, while creating cycling infrastructure.

This includes cycle lanes, bike parking and a public bike share system, all integrated to the city’s transport card.

In pictures: the energy poor of Africa’s biggest slum

One of reasons that city leaders have been particularly bold is because we work together. Through networks like C40 we are learning from each other in delivering, so that success gets copied quickly and replicated around the world.

The cost of innovation is reduced and we are all able to learn from inevitable mistakes.

Cities will prove it again during the C40 Mayors Summit 2016 in Mexico City from 30 November – 2 December 2 where the most world’s most influential mayors, representing 650 million citizens will work together and present their common goals for a sustainable future, one year after COP21 in Paris.

Cities are leading the way to make the Paris Agreement concrete for citizens, but as mayors, we cannot do it alone. We welcome the leadership of national leaders in committing to the Paris Agreement but now we call on Presidents and Prime Ministers of every nation to empower their cities.

C40’s research shows that one third of the remaining global ‘safe’ carbon budget could be locked-in by urban policy decisions taken just between now and 2020.

Report: China, India back $150m GEF initiative to green cities

Supporting mayors to be able to take the most far-sighted decisions on, for example, land-use planning, transport infrastructure, and building codes, could be the single most efficient way for nations to kick-start their commitments under the Paris Agreement

For example, mayors of the world’s great cities have identified sustainable infrastructure projects, innovative policies and carbon cutting initiatives, but yet too often they are not able to deliver on their ambitions because they lack access to finance.

National governments must now help mayors and cities by devolving authority over finance for sustainable infrastructure.

In parallel, international financial institutions must grant cities direct access to green funds and lending mechanisms to finance their ambitious climate plans.

Our responsibility is huge and citizens reminds us of this every day. If today is a moment of great hope, we must never forget that the hard work of making the Paris Agreement a reality has only just begun. Cities are ready to help in getting the job done.

Anne Hidalgo is Mayor of Paris, Eduardo Paes is Mayor of Rio de Janeiro and Miguel Ángel Mancera is Mayor of Mexico City

The post After ratification, cities can deliver the Paris climate deal appeared first on Climate Home News.

The downfall of Dilma Rousseff and the instatement of her conservative vice-president, Michel Temer, not only have put an end to 13 years of Workers’ Party rule in Brazil, but also consolidated a historic defeat for the left in Latin America.

The region’s four biggest economies – Brazil, Mexico, Argentina and Colombia – now have center or right-of-the center governments. At first sight, that might spell doom for the mother of all progressive agendas, the fight against global warming.

The right-wing approach to regulation naturally gives leverage to the private sector to resist change.

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As it happens, this is Latin America, not by chance the birthplace of magical realism. Things that might be perfectly sensible elsewhere in the world don’t work quite the same way in this corner of the Earth.

The much-feared demotion of environmental protection in general and climate mitigation in particular has not always been thus far the logical consequence of the rise of the right.

In Mexico, for instance, the right-wing government of Felipe Calderón has famously helped salvage international climate negotiations at the Cancun conference, and kickstarted a comprehensive domestic mitigation policy that includes carbon pricing.

The chancellor who served that government is now the UN’s top climate official.

Report: Brazil to ratify Paris climate deal amid forest fire surge

In Colombia and Peru, the climate agenda seems to float above the mood swings of the ballots. In Argentina, the recently elected right-wing president Mauricio Macri is more sensitive to the issue than his predecessor, Cristina Kirchner.

In his first speech at the UN General Assembly, earlier this week, Macri touted climate change as the world’s biggest biggest challenge faced by Mankind. However, it remains to be seen how that increased sensitivity will play out, given the host of other pressing domestic problems the country faces.

Such apparent climate-friendliness of the right relates to how part of the left has traditionally regarded development and natural resources in this part of the world.

In Brazil and Argentina, but also in Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador, the left’s development playbook has included State ownership of behemoth fossil fuel companies (a token of “sovereignty”), to whom large sums of taxpayers’ money have been directed; State-driven expansion of heavy infrastructure (to “boost the economy”), often in disregard of social and environmental safeguards; and, in the Brazilian case, subsidies to gasoline and tax breaks to automobiles (to “keep families’ consumption rates” as an “anti-cyclic measure” against the “international crisis”).

Ms. Rousseff’s personal playbook has also featured a grudge against renewable energies, which she famously touted as “fantasy”, and alliance with agribusiness whereby Senator Kátia Abreu, the “Chainsaw Queen”, ended up as Agriculture minister – while the agrarian reform so dear to the left was all but forgotten.

Never before had agribusiness and fossil fuels received so much public investment as in her term. It should be noted, however, that Rousseff’s final act as President before being suspended, in April, was to send the Paris Agreement to Congress for ratification.

This may prove to be the highlight of Temer's term in office #Brazil #climate #ParisAgreement pic.twitter.com/pwfSQkoTo2

— Ed King (@edking_I) September 13, 2016

Michel Temer has been sending mixed signals since he took office as interim President. On one hand, some of worst Brazilian politicians now either sit in his cabinet or have an increased influence in his government.

His government plan mentions the environment only once – as a barrier to development. Indigenous lands, environmental licensing and protected areas are under pressure from his allies in Congress. The mighty Agribusiness and Industry associations (CNA and CNI) are empowered.

On the other hand, Mr. Temer’s Environment minister, Sarney Filho, is a well-known advocate of more ambition in the climate/environment agenda, and has seized on the opportunity provided by the recession to bury the controversial Tapajós mega-dam project.

The new chancellor, José Serra, has listed among the top ten priorities of Brazil’s foreign policy the “special responsibility” of his country in environmental matters. Maybe in a bid for international legitimacy, Temer has vowed to ratify the Paris Agreement in September 12th, making Brazil one of the first big polluters to do so.

Can Temer deliver?

The proof of the pudding, however, will lie in implementation. The most backwards economic agents are guaranteed to impose resistance to an early adoption of the mitigation policies from Brazil’s Paris pledge.

Will Mr. Temer compromise? Business interests in government and in Congress are also pushing for a weaker environmental licensing.

Will Mr. Temer acquiesce? The rural caucus (bancada ruralista) in Congress is eager to grab indigenous lands.

Will he give in? How will he deal with Petrobras, the state oil company at the heart of the recent corruption scandals, and the high hopes for the deep ocean oil against the reality of the Paris goals?

Most importantly, Mr. Temer must perceive climate mitigation as a strategic development issue. Brazil has several comparative advantages on adopting a clean development agenda as part of the pathway to economic recovery.

Clean energy, efficient agriculture, and forestry can deliver emission cuts and at the same time create jobs and revenue. It’s in the President’s hands to seize on the opportunity.

Carlos Rittl is the executive secretary of the Brazilian Climate Observatory, a network of 40 civil society organizations

The post Can the right be good for the climate in Latin America? appeared first on Climate Home News.

The commitment, signed at the second annual Climate Summit of the Americas in Guadalajara, Mexico, represents a step towards more emissions trading across borders.

“To effectively fight climate change, we must work together on a global scale,” said Ontario premier Kathleen Wynne.

“This milestone declaration will boost cooperation between our three regions and drive the reduction of carbon emissions across North America.”

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Quebec is already running a cap-and-trade system linked to California’s, with pollution permits changing hands for US$13 a tonne of carbon dioxide. Ontario set a similar programme in motion in July, with the intention of joining the established market in 2018. Mexico is preparing to pilot a carbon market in autumn.

The International Emissions Trading Association advocates for emissions trading as a way to spur polluters into cutting emissions where it is cheapest to do so.

Katie Sullivan, Americas director at IETA, said: “This declaration is further evidence that national and sub-national jurisdictions can link their cap-and-trade systems to achieve even greater economies of scale and access lower-cost reductions.”

UK envoy: Carbon pricing ‘too sluggish’ to meet climate goals

While favoured by the World Bank, IMF and several world leaders, carbon pricing has been slower to take off than many hoped. A World Bank review in 2015 counted 38 schemes covering about 12% of global emissions.

Critics say prices in most markets are too low to spur significant investment in clean technology, while industry lobbies continue to oppose measures to tighten supply.

Still, China is developing what will be the world’s largest national emissions trading system, while regional link-ups are seen as a way to complement or exceed national ambition.

California has unveiled plans to reinvest some US$900 million of carbon market revenues in green initiatives ranging from a clean vehicle subsidy to reducing methane from livestock.

The post Mexico, Ontario, Quebec pledge carbon market cooperation appeared first on Climate Home News.

Mexico also joined an initiative by the US and Canada to cut methane emissions from the oil and gas sector 40-45% over the same period.

Leaders Justin Trudeau, Barack Obama and Enrique Peña Nieto pledged to work together on building a clean energy economy, following a meeting in Ottawa.

President Obama praised Mexico’s “remarkable leadership” on climate change and delivering on the Paris climate pact.

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The clean power goal is “eminently attainable, but it’s not a slam dunk,” blogged Clare Demerse, policy expert at Clean Energy Canada.

Today, 37% comes from nuclear, renewables or fossil fuels with carbon capture and storage. To achieve the 2025 goal, nearly all new generation capacity must be clean, she said, accelerating an existing trend.

Canada is ahead of its neighbours, with 65% renewable and 16% nuclear on the grid, making it well placed to export. The countries agreed to collaborate on cross-border electricity transmission projects.

Meanwhile, methane rules tackle a greenhouse gas 25 times as potent as carbon dioxide over a 100 year timeframe.

The target adopted by all three countries will have an impact equivalent to taking 85 million cars off the road, analysts at the Environmental Defense Fund, Centro Mario Molina and Pembina Institute calculate.

Sam Adams, US director of the World Resources Institute, said the deal set a “powerful example” to others.

“Sharing a common vision for the future, these leaders recognize the importance of providing economic stability and greater climate security for the long term,” he said.

The post US, Canada, Mexico agree climate partnership appeared first on Climate Home News.

Against all the odds and unlike the previous year in Copenhagen, faith has been restored in the international climate change talks with the freshly minted Cancun Accord.

The deal commits the vast majority of the world’s countries to keep working on a plan to curb global warming.

At the centre of it is Mexican diplomat Patricia Espinosa, described as an “excellent leader of negotiations” in the definitive tome on UN talks since 2009, Power in a Warming World.

“She’s brilliant and sensitive,” says Claudia Salerno, a veteran climate diplomat who is now Venezuela’s ambassador to Brussels.

“Her talent was to be able to listen to everybody carefully, and she was smart enough to put together a fantastic team, a quality that should not be disregarded.”

Salerno has been at the heart of UN climate talks since 2009, and she welcomes this week’s news that Espinosa had been chosen by Ban Ki-moon to be the UN’s new climate chief.

“I cannot see a better person. As a mum I’m very happy my children’s future is in her hands,” she says, praising the choice of another Latin American woman to hold this tough position.

Report: Mexican ambassador selected as next UN climate chief

A UN bureau of national representatives could still veto Ban’s decision, but despite some grumbles over his pre-emptive announcement it seems unlikely and would set an unwelcome precedent.

One of the favourites to replace Christiana Figueres in the Bonn post, Espinosa brings the experience of a former foreign minister and ambassador to four countries.

A career diplomat since 1981, the mother of two is fluent in four languages and in 2015 was appointed to Ban’s high level panel on sustainable development.

Trade, drug abuse and the rights of women are listed as areas of expertise on her CV (see below).

In an interview with Climate Home in 2011, Espinosa stressed the essence of her strategy in Cancun was to ensure all countries felt involved, from China and the US to small island states.

“It was an uncertain year. Even when we came to the first day in Cancun we were uncertain what we could achieve, but putting the focus on an inclusive process and taking into account everyone’s views proved to be the right way to do it,” she said.

Former UK climate chief Chris Huhne worked closely with the Mexican during the Cancun talks after he was handed the task of steering negotiations on the Kyoto Protocol.

He speaks of a “consummate professional” who can play poker with the best. “Whatever her own views she will not suddenly show she’s unhappy,” he says.

(UN Photo/Paulo Filgueiras)

Equally important is a lack of political baggage, observes Benito Muller, managing director of Oxford Climate Policy and a convenor of regular climate negotiator meetings.

Mexico is a member of the OECD club of developed economies, and not part of the G77 group of developing countries, but it has long been seen as a bridge between the Global North and South.

“All parties feel she is unbiased. In the past we have had executive secretaries who despite the best intentions have been seen by both sides as biased,” he says.

Profile: Christiana Figueres eyes Paris prize

Bonn is a short train ride from her current residence in Berlin, but Espinosa faces huge challenges when she arrives at the UN’s climate HQ on the Rhine.

Figueres’ tenure will rightly be seen as a huge diplomatic success, given the unanimous support for the 2015 Paris Agreement.

Yet the task facing countries delivering on that deal is complex, warns Muller, with many areas of the agreement still needed to be filled in.

“It’s quite a difficult task, despite what people are thinking,” he says, and few have “any idea” how a proposed global stocktake on climate ambition in 2018 will actually work.

Report: Paris climate change pact to come into effect ‘by 2018’

Headaches include plans to introduce a standardised measuring, reporting and verification system, ensure adequate flows of climate finance are on offer and work out the role of market mechanisms.

“There is a lot of sensitive work and she needs to manage the process,” he adds.

“Countries have given the secretariat an enormous amount of work; it will need a manager,” says Salerno.

In that Espinosa appears to have made a start, travelling to Rabat last week to offer advice to the Moroccan chairs of the 2016 UN talks. “She should do well,” a senior official observing her close-hand said.

New approach?

Where Figueres starred as the fulcrum of the UN climate body’s efforts, fronting up on camera and behind the scenes, Espinosa’s reign may see a shift in emphasis towards creating a team.

Most analysts agree the key to her success in 2010 was her deployment of Mexico’s diplomatic muscle, led by Luis Alfonso De Alba, now ambassador to Vienna.

“Excellent choice, strong diplomatic skills, outstanding inter-personal relationships, but she needs strong technical backup,” emailed Jairam Ramesh, India’s former environment minister.

Picking up from the wreckage of Copenhagen and working closely with Figueres, her team embarked on a series of informal meetings in Berlin, New York and across Africa and Asia to re-engage governments.

Analysis: How to bring the Paris Agreement in this year

“She’s a natural team builder. She knows when she doesn’t have the skills and finds someone who does,” says Huhne, who was appointed by Espinosa to run a strand of talks in 2010.

Malini Mehra, a close observer of the 2009 and 2010 talks, speaks of the Mexican as an “innovator and consensus-builder who showed her mettle in Cancun”.

“It’s no exaggeration to say the Mexicans saved the UNFCCC from irrelevance after Copenhagen.”

The appointment is “a clear vindication of Mexico’s diplomatic service,” says Guy Edwards, a climate policy analyst at Brown University, Rhode Island.

Ruthless operator

Not everyone was so generous about the 2010 summit at the time. Speaking days after it finished Huhne told British MPs a “village cricket team meeting” would have been better organised.

Bolivian diplomat Pablo Solon, who alone opposed the Cancun Accord, was scathing in the Guardian, labelling it a “giant step backwards” and criticising Espinosa’s decision to announce it agreed.

“Bolivia may have been the only country to speak out against these failures, but several negotiators told us privately that they support us,” he wrote.

Comment: Why there’s no time to dally on the Paris Agreement

It is the ability to think clearly in a crisis that sets Espinosa apart, says Salerno, adding they worked closely together at the end of the summit to secure agreement.

Aware of the deep levels of hostility towards her proposals – which did not include binding emission targets for rich nations – Espinosa offered delegates an extra five hours to come to a solution.

“To be fair, she gave us hours to try and move things but it did not happen,” says Salerno. “She did not want to do it [announce the deal] but she had exhausted other possibilities…

“I cried over that and she cried over that… we did not want that scenario to happen.” Those wounds have long healed, argues Salerno, but it’s perhaps a sign the Mexican is not to be underestimated.

“She is tough enough and ruthless enough that in the end if there is a problem and if it’s a small minority she will steamroller them,” says Huhne.

The post Patricia Espinosa: Who is the UN’s incoming climate change chief? appeared first on Climate Home News.

Prickly pear or ‘nopal’ as it is locally known will put through an anaerobic generator to produce biogas (Flickr/ Razi Marysol Machay)

By Alex Pashley

In Mexico, cars will soon run on cactus.

A company has built the world’s first digester to make biogas from the desert plant’s fruit, according to media reports.

The plant’s eight-ton daily production will fuel Zitacuaro town hall’s vehicle fleet in central Michoacan state, website Noticias MVS reported.

The fruit or prickly pears are pureed, mixed with manure, then left to decompose, producing methane. That gas is used for fuel and burned to generate enough electricity for 300 homes at 50% cheaper than grid prices.

Nopalimex, primera planta de #biogás de #nopal a nivel mundial abre en Zitácuaro.
https://t.co/kByiLXiwz5 pic.twitter.com/GH0Qe012nw

— Buenas Noticias (@BuenasNewsMx) February 2, 2016

The idea came about as businessman Rogelio Sosa looked for ways to lower his fuel bill for his company, which makes corn and cacti chips, Noticias MVS said.

Economic development secretary Adrian Lopez inaugurated the project to be operated by Sosa’s firm, NopaliMex.

Lopez said the project should be taken as an example by the government to spur clean energy sources.

Mexico signed off earlier this year on a green law, which requires renewables to provide 35% of the country’s electricity needs by 2024.

The post World’s first cactus-powered plant opens in Mexico appeared first on Climate Home News.

For Germany, carbon pricing is a way to promote investment in renewables (Windwärts Energie GmbH / Photographer: Mark Mühlhaus/attenzione)

By Megan Darby

Six heads of state are calling for carbon pricing, in the highest level intervention to date.

Germany, Chile, France, Ethiopia, Philippines and Mexico leaders on Monday voiced support for moves to make climate polluters pay.

That will help governments and businesses deliver on the climate plans they have submitted towards a UN pact, they argued.

“Low carbon technologies are an element in the fight against worldwide climate change,” said German chancellor Angela Merkel.

“With a price for carbon and a global carbon market, we promote investment in these climate friendly technologies.”

Coordinated by the World Bank and IMF, the statement came out as negotiators entered a fiery week of talks, ahead of December’s critical Paris summit.

Report: Developing countries demand additions to slimmed-down climate text

Diplomats in Bonn were due to start line-by-line discussion of a draft text that had been radically slimmed down by two co-chairs.

But developing countries said the editor’s knife had gone too far and demanded to be allowed to reinsert some elements first.

Rachel Kyte, climate envoy at the World Bank, was unconcerned to see all mention of carbon pricing dropped, however.

She told Climate Home: “We don’t, as the World Bank Group, believe that we have to legislate carbon pricing in the negotiated text.”

Instead, the multilateral organisation is concerned with what happens “on the Monday morning after Paris,” when governments start to put their plans into practice.

Paris tracker: Who has pledged what for 2015 UN climate pact?

Out of more than 150 “intended nationally determined contributions” (INDCs) to a climate deal, around 80 refer to carbon pricing.

“We regard those plans as a first generation investment prospectus for a more competitive, cleaner future,” Kyte said. “We are pleased that so many of the INDCs do mention getting prices right.”

At the last count, 40 countries and 23 regional authorities covering 12% of global greenhouse gas emissions had a carbon tax or trading system.

The biggest of these, in the EU, has faced fierce opposition from energy intensive industries like steel and chemicals. These sectors argue the increased costs put them at an unfair disadvantage to competitors overseas.

Meanwhile green groups warn the market price is too low, at $8 a tonne, to spur significant climate action.

“As new schemes expand, importantly in China, designers must ensure the carbon price is both high and reliable enough to drive low-carbon investment at scale,” said Damien Morris of UK think tank Sandbag.

Analysis: Why are big EU polluters moaning about carbon leakage?

France president Francois Hollande acknowledged competitiveness concerns, but said: “We must therefore act with resolve.”

A price on carbon “is the most tangible signal that can be sent to all economic actors,” he added.

Chile is taxing its transport and power sectors and using the revenue to fund education reform, president Michelle Bachelet said. “We believe in the polluter pays principle.”

And Ethiopia, one of the first developing countries to put forward a climate plan, hopes to finance some initiatives through international carbon markets.

“Like many nations, Ethiopia has much to gain from early action on climate change – and much to lose if we collectively fail to act,” said prime minister Hailemariam Desalegn.

“A carbon price can be a win-win, not just for nations like Ethiopia, but for the entire planet, provided that it is coordinated and its incidence does not unduly fall on the poor.”

California governor Jerry Brown and Eduardo Paes, mayor of Rio de Janeiro, also endorsed the statement.

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Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto devised the energy transition law on winning office in 2012 (Flickr/ Mexican President’s Office)

By Alex Pashley

Mexican lawmakers’ apathy to pass its prize climate policy is stunting the potential of its wind and solar industry, say experts, dimming its green reputation.

President Enrique Pena Nieto launched sweeping reforms to break the 75-year monopoly of creaky state oiler Pemex and privatise its electricity market in 2013.

The “energy transition law” paved the way for renewables to provide 35% of the Latin American country’s electricity needs by 2024, up from their 14% share last year.

With wide scope for wind in blustery Oaxaca, and solar in sun-drenched Sonora state, that target isn’t “beyond the realm of possibility,” says Duncan Wood, director of the Mexico Institute at the Wilson Center, a think tank.

But the so-called “green package” still languishes in the Senate, nine months after the lower-house passed it, and more than year behind schedule.

“What’s clear is that this isn’t a legislative priority. The government is distracted,” adds Wood.

Fast-tracking the privatisation of the country’s oil and gas industry is higher up the agenda. Officials are readying a second auction of five offshore oil blocks for September after its first flubbed.

In tying together several strands of policy like a carbon tax, clean energy certificates and feed-in tariffs, the package is a comprehensive assault on climate change.

The government has vowed to slash greenhouse gas emissions 22% below current projections by 2030. Heat-trapping gases will peak in 2026, it said in March.

Report: Mexico releases pledge for 2015 UN climate change pact

The country of 124 million people won plaudits when it unveiled its contribution to a UN-backed global warming agreement at the end of the year – the first nation classed as developing to do so.

“It really blazes the path for others – developed and developing,” said Jennifer Morgan at the World Resources Institute.

“The relative target is not everything one might hope for, but given Mexico’s economic growth, there is reason to be cautiously positive,” wrote Brown University’s Timmons Roberts.

The plan includes pipelines to switch oil-fired plants to natural gas and energy efficiency measures for industry.

But the renewable target is central. It could cut emissions 95-115 million tonnes by 2030, about half of the mitigation effort, according to Jorge Villareal, an independent energy analyst.

“It’s a tool the federal government can use to show off the forward strides of climate policy in Mexico.

“It can follow the US, EU, China that have committed ambitious carbon-reduction goals with a bold accent on decarbonising their energy matrices,” he tells RTCC from Mexico City.

‘Tall order’

After a summer recess, Senate re-opens in September, giving an opportunity for at least a debate, if not approval, of the bill.

The energy ministry, business associations including the largest cement-maker Cemex, and NGOs are driving support. Lobbyists from the fossil fuel industry lead the countercharge.

Signing off on it before the Paris summit in December would be a strong statement, but Villareal concedes he wouldn’t bet on it.

“I think it’s a challenge. Climate targets tend to be a bit aggressive at first. It’s a tall order for this to be executed,” says Christian Gomez, energy director at the Council of the Americas.

Mexico’s partnering with the United States, through cooperation on fuel economy standards and developing better electricity connections, had potential for carbon cuts.

“Wind is blowing up right now,” says Gomez, as prices have fallen and investments are getting underway. But stronger incentives are crucial.

Of renewables’ 14% share of Mexico’s energy mix in 2014, wind, solar and geothermal make up 3%. As in many countries in the region, hydropower eclipses those sources with a 11% stake.

Report: Mexico uses climate threat to justify ‘slum clearance’

Away from a stalling upper chamber, NGOs have criticised the environment ministry Semarnat for cutting itself slack in its carbon-reduction targets.

Ministers revised downwards the country’s past emissions on calculations made in its National Strategy on Climate Change (ENACC) in 2010, analysts at the Mexican Center for Environmental Law said.

The adjustments allowed the government to increase what it could emit in 2030 from 605 to 792MtCO2e.

For CEMDA’s Ana Mendivil that boost is concerning: “We want to know why the baselines were modified and so, if the calculations are justified.”

As more accurate data on population rise and GDP becomes available baselines change, Mendivil acknowledges, but she wants Semarnat to make public its methodology to dispel fears it is toning down targets.

Semarnat didn’t respond to requests for comment on the figures.

Ultimate test

The totals are small, but they have implications for a country viewed as a regional leader on climate change. The Dominican Republic is the only other country in Latin America and the Caribbean so far to have submitted a climate pledge to the UN.

But for Wood at the Wilson Center, implementation of the package is the ultimate test of Mexico’s commitments. He doesn’t expect the law to go through until 2016 at the earliest.

But president Pena Nieto’s zeal to post its plan in March, meeting an informal UN deadline, was a positive step. Commitments under the gaze of international partners are made of stronger stuff than domestic ones, he says, citing Mexico’s adherence to the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Amid corruption scandals and ongoing drug-related violence, climate change largely concerns elite groups. But with the foreign ministry driving engagement with partners, it’s a “prestige issue”, Wood adds.

As the government spurs investment in its cosseted fossil fuel industries, the time to endorse renewables is now, adds Mendivil. “If we don’t pass the energy transition law, everything is sloped toward hydrocarbons.”

The post Mexico’s dragging energy reforms threaten green reputation appeared first on Climate Home News.

Houses in Pachuca, in Hidalgo state, Mexico (Photo: wikimedia commons)

By Alex Pashley

Slums hem Mexico City’s margins blanketing the contours of Latin America’s biggest metropolis.

The hillsides of Xochimilco, the third largest of the capital’s 16 delegaciones or boroughs, are a melee of densely packed dwellings stacked high by successive waves of migrants.

But in staking out their patch in the valley mega-city, some residents live in the path of floods and mudslides.

That risk is set to amplify as global warming pummels the country harder each decade.

In an unprecedented move, the government has drawn up a strategy to clear slums at risk of climate change-induced natural disasters.

As part of its contribution to a UN global climate pact, the world’s 13th largest emitter of greenhouse gases in March outlined its climate change adaptation strategy until 2030.

It aims to guarantee food and water security for its 122 million citizens, as well as halve the number of municipalities classed as “most vulnerable” to climate impacts through the prism of human rights and gender.

But one line of the document, namely action number 9 for adaptation in the “social sector”, is causing concern.

“Relocate irregular human settlements in zones prone to disasters through land use regulations,” it reads.

Slum clearance?

Translated, that means only one thing for Maria Jose Veramendi, a senior attorney at environmental law group AIDA Americas: slum clearance.

As far as she knows, it is the first time climate change has been used to justify such a policy.

“I think it is a dangerous thing to put in there,” she tells RTCC. “It’s clear it is needed but you cannot use human rights and the protection of people in the face of climate change to enforce zoning regulations.”

If the issue is vulnerability to climate change, she asks, why is it only “irregular” settlements that have to move?

Seven in ten Mexicans live in urban areas, a trend that has surged since the 1960s as cities absorbed job seekers and the displaced.

Nowhere is that clearer than in the capital, where settlements have sprung up to devour the unclaimed countryside.

Mexico City (Photo: UN)

A fourth of its estimated 22 million population live in unauthorised housing on “conservation land”, according to the city’s environment watchdog PAOT.

Xochimilco in turn holds 300 of the city’s 835 unauthorised slums, with nearly 80% of the borough sitting on an ecological reserve.

That puts it in the line of waterways supplying the city, while urban transformation has led to soil erosion encouraging landslides. Add that to seismic activity in the zone, and the picture darkens.

Unauthorised buildings

Amparo Martinez, a senior official who drafted the adaptation plans tells RTCC 250,000 unauthorised households sprung up between 2000 and 2007, a mark of the city’s expansion.

“Although Mexico isn’t a big emitter, it does have a geographical situation marked by vulnerability. We have to strengthen the high reservoirs so we don’t have landslides,” says the director general at the National Institute of Ecology and Climate Change (INECC).

“We at INECC are planning the scientific and technical process to strengthen capacity and lower their vulnerability.”

Mexico’s urban pollution is set to soar from 80 million in 2010 to 103 million in 2030, Martinez adds. Growing demand for water has led to over-extraction of groundwater, causing the city to sink and putting strain on the valley’s drainage system. That widens the risk.

Luis Herrera, a Mexican urban planner at the United Nations Human Settlements Program, says relocation is an “incredibly sensitive and complicated issue”. He prefers to talk about “improvements” than “clearances”.

Though access to running water and sewerage systems has soared lowering the amount of unauthorised slums, Herrera says. Plus communication between communities and the state is better now, in the case of relocations.

“It’s a new idea which hasn’t entered the culture,” he says of moves to treat such projects as climate adaptation, adding: “I’m not suspicious.”

Climate vulnerability

Mexico has suffered increasingly frequent tropical cyclones, floods and droughts in the last 50 years, according to its “intended nationally determined contribution” (INDC). Such extreme weather events cost the country an annual $1.4 billion between 2000 and 2012.

Its INDC submission made it the first developing country to volunteer emissions goals towards an international deal.

Observers hailed the plan as ambitious, with its target to peak emissions in 2026 and cut heat-trapping gases 25% in 2030 compared to its current trajectory.

“It really blazes the path for others – developed and developing – if Mexico can do this so can other major economies like Japan and Brazil,” said Jennifer Morgan at the World Resources Institute.

Still, its plans are just a statement of intentions.

Joel Audefroy, a sociologist at the National Polytechnic Institute in Mexico City says the government lacks the funds or political will to successfully uproot settlements.

“People won’t want to change their places despite it being in crisis. They have their work, their livelihoods,” Audefroy adds.

Consultation failure

Andrea Rodriguez, a lawyer at AIDA Americas, is suspicious of the plans, citing the state’s precedents in shifting communities aside to build wind farms or dams for hydroelectric power.

Despite being signatory to international treaties enshrining citizens’ right to housing, the state had failed to carry out prior consultations with indigenous groups before appropriating land in certain cases, she said.

“The dilemma from a legal point is up to what degree you can use climate change as a national exercise to give permission to move people,” Rodriguez says.

That remains to be seen as officials flesh out the policy to take effect from 2020.

“All will be given better conditions and better opportunities,” says policymaker Martinez.

“There’s a lot of mistrust at the root of this, but with the strengthening of institutions and organising by the populations themselves to find alternatives, the problems can be resolved.”

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US Special Envoy for Climate Change Todd Stern in Geneva in 2010 (Flickr / US Mission)

By Alex Pashley

Chief US climate diplomat Todd Stern encouraged Canada to take Mexico’s lead in submitting robust carbon cutting plans yesterday.

As Canada holds off, Stern praised Mexico’s “excellent submission” days before the UN’s climate bureau’s informal March 31 deadline at the close of the Major Economies Forum in Washington DC.

“[W]e’ll certainly be encouraging [Canada] to be as ambitious as possible,” Stern told reporters at the close of the two-day conference. “Our other North American partner Mexico came forward with an excellent submission, so we’re encouraging Canada to be strong like Mexico.”

Mexico’s plans to peak emissions by 2026 as part of a global deal to be finalised in December, amp up pressure on the North America’s last country to post cuts to greenhouse gas emissions.

Paris Tracker: Who has pledged what for UN pact?

Canada is set to miss its pledge to lower emissions by 17% on 2005 levels by 2020, the Climate Action Tracker group estimates, instead overshooting its target by 9%.

The world’s fifth oil exporter, powered by its abundant tar sands, has come under criticism for its commitment to tackle global warming.

Last month a government spokesperson told RTCC delays in its UN pledge owed to consultation with provinces and territories to “ensure it has the most complete picture … before submitting.”

Secretary Kerry at #MEF on #climatechange: science is getting better every year while messages are getting worse. pic.twitter.com/xvJfESgax0

— Jochen Flasbarth (@JochenFlasbarth) April 19, 2015

Mexico’s haste showed leadership and shined a light on “those that are able to do so but didn’t meet the deadline like Canada and Japan,” Jennifer Morgan at the World Resources Institute told RTCC today.

The WRI climate change head underscored the potential of North American collaboration, citing recent dialogue between Mexico and the US — two of the NAFTA trade bloc trio — on climate policy.

“It does seem to me you are seeing two of the NAFTA members trying to pull things forward, while another is lagging behind,” said Morgan.

News: US climate envoy hails special relationship with China

The multi-annual Major Economies Forum gave the chance for “informal and candid exchanges … often hard to find elsewhere,” Stern said.

It gathered 17 of the world’s leading economies, plus 11 additional invitees from the Marshall Islands to Saudi Arabia, in the run-up to a critical summit in Paris in less than eight months.

Stern said the meeting had been constructive, as well as “notable in the degree of clear focus” among all parties on thorny issues to be hammered out in the coming months.

Those included talks on financing to adaptation to climate impacts, a ‘loss and damage’ fund, and ways to ensure countries’ emissions pledges were enough to rein in dangerous climate change.

Pollution from shipping was also on the agenda, with the Marshall Islands announcing plans on Monday to encourage the huge number of trade vessels carrying its flag around the world to invest in energy efficient technologies.

Stern said he wasn’t worried about delays in countries’ publication of climate plans — so-called intended nationally-determined contributions in UN parlance  — and expected to reach a deal in Paris.

Reflecting on the much-hyped but disappointing Copenhagen summit in 2009, Stern said expectations were more “measured” this time around.

“There’s a substantially greater level of understanding of how this kind of agreement can come together, a greater sense of realism even at the basic structure,” Stern said.

The post US envoy Stern urges Canada to deliver UN climate pledge appeared first on Climate Home News.

Mexico President Pena Nieto (Pic: World Economic Forum/Flickr)

By Ed King 

Mexico has announced it will target a greenhouse gas emissions peak in 2026, as part of a UN climate change pact due to be agreed in Paris this December. 

The country’s foreign minister José Antonio Meade tweeted it was important for the government to participate “consistently and constructively in global negotiations.”

The plans also include a target to cut emissions 22% from business as usual levels, described by Nat Keohane, vice president at the Environmental Defense Fund as an “absolute emissions target by another name”.

It makes Mexico the first country classed by the UN as developing to officially declare how it would contribute to a plan to address global warming.

INDC de México -22% de GEI frente a línea base sin condiciones @isastuder @PerroDeLaCiudad @rebedebuen @HilarioVRL pic.twitter.com/VxZy970Yva

— Jose M Valenzuela (@josemaria_mx) March 27, 2015

“This is a significant moment – if we needed any clear signals that we are in a new era I think this is a great one,” Keohane said.

The inclusion of an emissions peak date was significant, said Jennifer Morgan from the World Resources Institute, demonstrating leadership and setting a benchmark for others to follow.

“It really blazes the path for others – developed and developing – if Mexico can do this so can other major economies like Japan and Brazil,” she said.

“They worked extremely hard to meet this deadline and took it very seriously.”

A statement from the White House said the submission “sets an example”, adding it hoped it would “encourage other economies to submit INDCs that are ambitious, timely, transparent, detailed, and achievable.”

White House officials also released details today of a new US-Mexico climate taskforce, headed on the US side by energy secretary Ernest Moniz.

It aims to build on the strong links Mexico already has with California, with cooperation planned on fuel economy standards, appliance efficiency and developing better electricity connections between the two countries.

Other than Mexico, only Norway, Switzerland and the EU’s 28 member states have delivered their ‘intended nationally determined contributions’ (INDCs) to the UN ahead of a March 31 deadline set for countries that felt ready to contribute.

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Mexico, Switzerland and South Korea form a team of misfits in UN climate talks (Pics: Flickr/in pulverem reverteris, Derek, Jed Scattergood)

By Megan Darby

International climate talks are typically presented as a struggle between the developed and developing worlds.

The reality is more complex, but there is an undeniable tension between those rich countries responsible for the bulk of historic emissions and the emerging economies that have an increasing impact on the climate.

Much has been made of last year’s US-China pact straddling that historic divide and its significance in unblocking agreement at the last round of climate talks in Lima. Less is said about a small negotiating bloc that has been steadily influential in bridging the same gap since 2000.

The environmental integrity group (EIG) is made up of Mexico, Switzerland and South Korea, plus the European principalities of Liechtenstein and Monaco. Negotiators for these unlikely allies tell RTCC the partnership, borne out of frustration with the process, can be a strong advocate for progressive climate policies.

Spanning three continents and three time zones, as well as the firewall between developed and emerging economies, the group has a reach like no other.

As the European Union seeks to position itself as the bridge-builder in UN climate talks ahead of this December’s critical summit in Paris, this small but significant group could give them a run for their money.

Swiss initiative

The group was conceived during negotiations for the Kyoto Protocol, when countries not part of any bloc were shut out of certain conversations.

Franz Perrez, environmental ambassador for Switzerland, explains: “There was a moment when negotiations moved to a smaller setting, where only some groups were permitted to engage and we were not part of that.”

His predecessor was escorted out of the room, while representatives of formal groups stayed – an “unacceptable” situation to Switzerland.

Famously for its neutrality, Switzerland never joined the European Union that surrounds it on all sides. Nor did it agree, at the time, with the Umbrella Group, which covered most other developed countries including the US, Australia and Japan.

“These groups did not feel like home,” says Perrez.

So Switzerland declared its intention to form a new group and invited other unaffiliated countries to join.

Outgrowing the G77

For Mexico and South Korea, the issue was that their economies had outgrown the G77, which represented the developing world.

Now firmly in the upper-middle income category, Mexico was accepted into the OECD in 1994 and South Korea followed two years later.

When it came to climate talks, Roberto Dondisch, director general of global issues in Mexico’s foreign office, says: “We were being left out of the process.

“Although Mexico carries weight, it is not the same as having an official group.”

The dynamics of UN climate talks have changed since the EIG formed in 2000. The importance attached to formal blocs has waned and several unofficial alliances claim a similar status.

For example in 2012 six Latin American countries including Peru, Costa Rica and Panama formed AILAC, which might seem a more obvious home for Mexico.

But while Mexico consults with AILAC, its primary allegiance remains with the EIG.

The EIG is valuable as a “microcosm” of the talks, says Dondisch. “If we can get together and agree on something internally, often we can get to deals that are acceptable for almost everyone.

“That was certainly the case [at the last round of UN talks] in Lima, where some of the language that you see in the final document came out of the EIG.”

Strength in diversity

Jai-chul Choi, South Korea’s ambassador for climate change, echoes that view. It is “a group of diversity” he says, that can help to find common ground between blocs with different interests.

“When we have internal consultation among the EIG, the negotiation is very tough,” he says.

“Korea plays a sort of mediating role between Switzerland and Mexico and finally we reach a common text.”

For example in Lima, Choi says the group helped forge a last-minute compromise on “loss and damage”. This was the contentious issue that dominated the previous year’s talks in Warsaw, of compensation to countries experiencing climate impacts they cannot adapt to.

Switzerland, in common with most of the developed world, was resistant to its inclusion in the Lima deal, while Mexico was strongly in favour.

The formula they came up with, which acknowledged the Warsaw decision without adding to it, was enough to keep the show on the road.

Ambition

What keeps the group together, despite its members’ different interests, is a determination to play a constructive role in the talks.

“On certain areas, we have very similar positions,” says Perrez. “The name ‘environmental integrity group’ has become a guiding principle.”

Each country boasts a relatively ambitious climate policy.

In line with the European Union, Switzerland is targeting a 20% cut in emissions from 1990 levels by 2020.

Mexico has been among the most vocal champions of green growth and last year became the first Latin American country to introduce a carbon tax.

Dondisch says: “We don’t see green development as a hurdle, we see it as an area of opportunity.”

And South Korea this month launched Asia’s first national carbon market – a “big strike” for the country’s climate policy, Choi says.

“At the moment, Korean society is very dependent on fossil fuels. By launching the carbon market, every Korean industry is making some complaint but we want to give them a signal on a long term basis.

“As a country, in particular without any energy sources, we have to move towards a low carbon economy.”

Broad participation

In Paris, the group is seeking a legally binding deal with “broad participation”.

That means refusing to perpetuate a hard division between rich and poor. Or to be more precise, a division between the “annex 1” countries expected to cut emissions under the Kyoto Protocol and the rest.

Annex 1 is a list of countries who were in the OECD back in 1991 plus former Soviet states. The EIG agrees with the US that a more nuanced view of countries’ climate obligations is in order.

“Differentiation has to reflect the realities,” says Perrez. That means emerging economies, with their increasingly substantial emissions, shouldering some of the responsibility. (For Liechtenstein and Monaco, with a combined population of 75,000, it also means cutting small countries some slack.)

The EIG, with its members including non-annex 1 countries, can make that argument with more credibility than a purely developed bloc.

China, despite committing to limit its own emissions, has been curiously reluctant to require other emerging economies to do the same. In Lima, it continued to back the “like-minded developing countries,” which opposed changes to the way differentiation was framed.

“The outcome of a Paris conference should be balanced in terms of development need and environmental integrity,” says Choi.

“The EIG is in the best position to facilitate the negotiations due to its membership.”

South Korea is upping its engagement with China and Singapore, he adds.

Listening

The group still has its internal differences, particularly on issues like cash support for poor countries to cut emissions and adapt to climate change.

They agree on broadening the donor base, with all members contributing to the UN-backed Green Climate Fund.

But Switzerland was branded “fossil of the day” by NGOs in Lima for its opposition to legally binding commitments on climate finance.

“It was important we didn’t have expectations that would never be fulfilled,” says Perrez in Switzerland’s defence.

It is not the biggest or most economically mighty group, but its unique geographic and economic mix mean it can punch above its weight.

“None of us have the impression the world cannot move without us,” says Perrez. “We have to listen to others outside our group in order to have an impact.”

The post Meet the unlikely climate allies bridging divides in UN talks appeared first on Climate Home News.

Put carbon price up while fuel is cheap, the IEA has urged
(Pic: Flickr/Johnny Overpants)

By Megan Darby in Lima

Oil prices have plummeted in recent months, from US$115 a barrel in June to less than US$70.

That dramatic shift could increase greenhouse gas emissions in the short term, as consumers take advantage of cheap fuel.

It also gives policymakers a “golden opportunity” to scrap fossil fuel subsidies and bring in carbon pricing, a leading energy expert argued on Tuesday.

Maria van der Hoeven, executive director of the International Energy Agency, said they could consider measures that “would have been unthinkable a year ago”.

She was addressing media at the UN climate talks in Lima, where negotiators are considering a target of net zero emissions by 2050.

That target, which would all but eliminate fossil fuels from the energy mix, may be “too ambitious”, van der Hoeven warned.

The IEA’s world energy outlook only runs to 2040, but it envisages a significant role for fossil fuels for decades to come.

Clean energy

Others warned the fuel price drop could make clean energy look less competitive.

“The reduction in the price of oil will limit in some way the renewable development – that is without question,” said Mexico’s environment minister, Guerra Abud.

Despite being an emerging economy, Mexico has cut emissions 4.5% over the past three years and brought in legislation to support green energy.

As an oil exporter, Mexico’s coffers also suffer directly from a lower price, although Abud said his finance colleagues were “wise enough” to take out insurance.

Philippe Joubert, head of the Global Electricity Initiative, told RTCC: “Obviously, [the low oil price] is not helping renewables, because basically the business case for fossil fuels is improving in terms of immediate costs.”

Power companies “are all absolutely convinced that green power is the future, but we are also absolutely convinced green power should be the same price,” he said.

But he added utilities were long term businesses and would be more concerned about trends than short term price movements.

German efforts

Environment minister Barbara Hendricks said the oil price was “not very important” for Germany’s renewed efforts to cut emissions.

Berlin last week passed a climate package to reverse a three-year rise in emissions.

Germany has an emissions reduction target of 40% from 1990 levels by 2020 – stronger than is required by the European Union.

But a recent assessment showed it was only on course for 32-35%, as a result of rapidly phasing out nuclear power and burning more coal.

The rescue package includes tighter curbs on power sector emissions, energy efficiency incentives and a boost for electric vehicles.

One of Germany’s biggest energy utilities, Eon, recently announced plans to sell off its fossil fuel assets, to focus on renewables and energy services.

Adnan Amin, head of the International Renewable Energy Agency, said the oil price drop would not make a big difference in the electricity sector.

“The place where the impact will be felt the most is a chilling effect on use of biofuels for transport and heating,” he said.

Last week, UN climate chief Christiana Figueres said the volatility of fuel prices showed the importance of moving to renewable energy sources.

The post Oil price slump a “golden opportunity” to price carbon – IEA appeared first on Climate Home News.

Mexico President Pena Nieto (Pic: World Economic Forum/Flickr)

By Ed King

Mexico is set to break clean energy investment records in 2014, according to analysts from Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF).

In a sign of confidence in the Pena Nieto government’s plans to back renewables, investment hit US$1.3 billion in the first half of the year, compared to $1.6bn in the whole of 2013.

The picture across Central America is mixed, with renewables investments in Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama slightly down on 2013 at $317 million.

“However, the drivers of wind, solar and geothermal investment are even stronger in those countries than in Mexico, and this year’s political changes have mostly been positive for renewables,” said BNEF in press release.

The wind and solar sectors are set for further increases, said BNEF, with Central America primed to install 1GW of wind capacity in 2014, with another 1.3GW annually until 2016.

Earlier this week Mexico’s parliament passed new energy reforms. These aimed to break the monopoly of state-owned company Pemex on the oil exploration sector and open up the electricity market to small generators.

The country, which is the world’s 9th largest oil producer, already has some of the world’s most ambitious climate change laws. These are set to curb greenhouse gas emissions, which are currently growing at a rate of 1.5% a year.

Monica Araya from the Latin American environmental thinktank Nivela called on regional governments to respond to the latest data, and make it easier for clean energy entrepreneurs and their technologies to flourish.

“It is exciting to see a new openness to renewable energy generation,” she told RTCC.

“Now our regulators and financial experts need to support – not derail – this emerging clean-energy cluster by at the very least remove key barriers to progress.”

Analysis: Mexico eyes economic benefits of landmark climate law

In May the government also signed off a target to boost renewables 33% by 2018, a move Fernando Olea, head of the UK-based Carbon Trust’s operations in Mexico said left him “stunned”.

Yayoi Sekine, Latin America analyst at BNEF, said the high costs of oil in the region were one reason why governments are so keen to explore other options.

“These countries have unusually good wind, solar, geothermal, and hydro-electric power resources,” she said.

“Using these to meet much of the additional electricity demand in coming years, and replacing that costly oil and diesel power makes sense. It is becoming a key plank in the region’s energy policies.”

Her colleague Michel Di Capua, head of Americas analysis, praised the region’s new approach to wind, geothermal  and solar, but warned against reading too much into the current figures.

“Renewables are not having everything their own way in these countries. Mexico continues to see strong investment in gas-fired generation, taking advantage of both its domestic resources and its proximity to US shale plays,” he said.

“Hydro-electric has run into some difficulties in Costa Rica and Panama, because of drought. And across the Central American region, financing for renewables does not come easily, making the role of development banks and export-import banks vital for projects to get off the ground.”

The post Mexico on course to break clean energy records appeared first on Climate Home News.

Governor Jerry Brown visited Mexico City on a trade mission
(Pic: kc_aplosweb/flickr)

By Megan Darby

Mexico and California have formally agreed to collaborate on climate action in a historic pact signed on Monday.

California governor Jerry Brown inked the memorandum of understanding with Mexican environment minister Rodolfo Lacy Tamayo as part of a trade and investment mission to Mexico City.

Priorities include developing carbon pricing, curbing deforestation, promoting renewable energy, controlling short-term climate pollutants and cooperating in diplomatic efforts.

Brown said: “California can’t do it alone and with this new partnership with Mexico we can make real progress on reducing dangerous greenhouse gases.”

The two economies, which share a 136-mile border, have a “long and rich history of environmental cooperation”, said Tamayo.

The agreement will “take our joint work to a whole new level,” he added.

Governor Brown signs historic agreement with Mexico to collaboratively address Climate Change. pic.twitter.com/17JfVMKut9

— mark s ghilarducci (@CalOES_Dir) July 28, 2014

The Environmental Defense Fund NGO, which co-sponsored the event, hailed the deal as “exactly the sort of leadership the world needs”.

Nathaniel Keohane, EDF vice president on international climate issues, said: “California and Mexico can give a crucial boost to the growing global momentum on key policies like carbon pricing that can achieve ambitious reductions in climate pollution, drive clean energy innovation, and promote low-carbon prosperity.”

Jointly responsible for more than 2% of global carbon dioxide emissions, California and Mexico have also been among the leaders on climate action in the Americas.

The Globe Climate Legislation Study named Mexico the “standout country in 2012 on climate change”.

It was praised for passing comprehensive climate change law and laying the groundwork to protect forests through the UN’s REDD programme.

Last year, the country introduced a voluntary carbon exchange, allowing polluters to offset their emissions.

Despite imposing no binding obligations on companies, the platform proved popular with organisations wishing to show their green credentials.

Report: Mexico eyes economic benefits of climate law

Meanwhile, Brown picks up the baton from Arnold Schwarzenegger, who as governor pledged to lead the way on US climate action.

Schwarzenegger’s administration brought in a cap and trade system for carbon pollution, which has yet to be replicated at a national level.

In a personal contribution to the cause, the former action movie star converted his fleet of fuel-guzzling Humvees to run on biofuel and hydrogen.

Californian citizens are being asked to save water as the state experiences one of its severest droughts ever.

President Barack Obama has cited the drought as a reason to act on carbon emissions. Climate change will make such weather-related disasters harsher and costlier, he said.

The post Mexico and California sign climate and clean energy pact appeared first on Climate Home News.

Mexico President Pena Nieto appears to have backed the country’s green agenda (Pic: Jesús Alberto Cano Veléz/Flickr)

By Ed King

Mexico City’s traffic jams are the stuff of legend.

Some commuters leave for work at 530am just to be at their desks by 8, racing along the Anillo Periférico before it slows to a crawl.

By mid-morning the city’s huge highways are choked by cars, lorries and shiny SUVs, leading its long suffering residents to brand the congestion the world’s worst in a 2011 survey.

The traffic contributes to the grey-brownish pall of smog that frequently covers the city, blocking out the mountain views for the 21 million inhabitants.

If pollution levels remain high for two days, the “Hoy No Circula” (“No Driving Today”) program automatically comes online, restricting cars based on their number plates.

(Pic: Flickr/colink)

But the locals, frustrated at weak government initiatives to address air pollution, would be surprised that internationally, Mexico has a growing reputation for climate-friendly policymaking.

In 2012 the government passed one of the world’s toughest climate laws, with a requirement to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide by 30% below business-as-usual levels by 2020, and by 50% below 2000 levels by 2050.

Last month the energy department announced a new 33% renewables target for 2018, hugely ambitious given the current level is 14%.

It was a move that means Mexico is often used as a case-study by diplomats and UN officials explaining how developing countries can contribute towards greenhouse gas cuts.

That is the theory.

In practice decarbonising the Mexican economy is a huge challenge. The country’s last submission to the UN in 2012 revealed emissions have soared 33.4% since 1990, growing 1.5% a year.

Transport and electricity are the main sources of carbon pollution, followed by agriculture and deforestation.

Presidential support

Climate change was not something President Pena Nieto shouted about when he took office in 2012, talking frequently about poverty, jobs and addressing the brutal war on drugs.

He has won praise since from the World Bank for overdue structural reforms in education, telecommunication, fiscal policy and notably energy.

Many analysts thought Nieto would either water down or scrap Mexico’s flagship climate law, passed months before he came to power, but he now appears to believe it is necessary.

What is especially interesting is that it was during a bleak economic outlook in 2013, Nieto started to make the case for a new form of green growth.

“The great promise of a better future for humanity; it is the ability to grow and create wealth without damaging our environment or our natural heritage,” he told an audience in the capital in June that year.

“It is essential that we adopt the Inclusive Green Growth paradigm.”

The world’s 14th largest economy and 9th biggest oil producer has endured a tough couple of years, recording a 1.1% growth rate in 2013, compared to 4.3% in 2012.

The future now looks a little brighter, with figures for April 2014 showing a 1.3% growth rate, the highest monthly figure since 2012.

Financial rewards

Nieto is not alone in appearing to believe that green growth based on energy efficiency and better resource use could offer the country a competitive advantage.

“It’s completely possible to both get economic growth and to tackle climate change,” former Mexico President Felipe Calderon told Bloomberg last week.

“The traditional trade-off that a lot of people talk about between growth and responsibility to the environment is a false dilemma.”

Calderon, previously a chairman of state oil company Petroleos Mexicanos, is currently working on a report exploring the economic benefits of climate friendly policymaking, due out in September.

The Global Commission on the Economy and Climate will present 10 recommendations to world leaders at UN chief Ban Ki-moon’s climate summit in New York.

Some of the proposals, such as cutting fossil fuel subsidies, investing in efficiency, building better urban transport links and boosting renewables are already being rolled out in his home country as part of the new climate legislation.

According to the US Energy Informational Administration, Mexico is poised to become one of the world’s fastest-growing wind energy producers, with over 1.2 gigawatts in the pipeline.

“One key reason for this encouraging move towards political consensus is that many legislators increasingly recognise the positive co-benefits of climate change legislation,” said Alejandro Encinas, a Senator from the PRD centre left party.

“These range from greater resource efficiency and increased energy security to the reduction of air pollution. All this, in turn, mirrors a crucial shift in the political debate on climate change.”

Struggle

Few believe a green revolution will occur overnight. According to the World Bank, 52% of Mexico’s 120 million citizens live on the poverty line, while the drugs war is a constant drain on resources.

Coal consumption by the power industry has also risen in recent years, as has natural gas, driven by a 25% surge in demand over the last decade.

As a leading emerging economy, significant steps to reduce the use of fossil fuels are likely to be watched closely by countries in similar circumstances, such as China, India, Brazil and South Africa.

Mexico’s carbon emissions have risen steadily since the 1980s (Pic: US Energy Information Administration)

One vital step could be the forthcoming energy reforms, and the ending of the 76-year monopoly of hydrocarbon giant PEMEX, the world’s largest shallow-water oil producer.

According to a government document outling its plans, the promotion of green energy will be a key plank in its future strategy.

“The State will promote the environmental protection through sustainability criteria, establishing obligations for participants in the electric power industry to generate with clean energies and reduce polluting emissions,” it says.

Congress still has to approve the reforms, but supporters are optimistic.

Senator Aarón Irízar, a senior member of Nieto’s PRI party, told RTCC the government’s 2013 liberalization of the energy sector and the national oil firm could be one of its major green achievements.

“PEMEX will be made one of the cornerstones in the fight against climate change, using a strategy that develops renewable energy and saves energy,” he said.

An equally tough problem is the subsidised fuel prices consumers have enjoyed for decades, highlighted in a 2013 report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

Centrally-set prices ensure driving costs are low – encouraging many Mexicans to drive gas-guzzlers and avoid the country’s limited and often dangerous public transport facilities.

Subsidies in the 34 OECD countries amounted to $55-90 billion between 2005-2011, and Irízar admits they are deeply entrenched in the Mexican psyche.

“Although it is a complex decision, and will take many years, I do believe that is politically possible to address the subsidies that the state has been covering several years,” he said.

“The policy of subsidy is unsustainable from an economic point of view.”

Chinese threat

Cutting support for oil and gas producers is essential for the country’s long-term prosperity, according to Fernando Olea, head of the UK-based Carbon Trust’s operations in Mexico.

He’s running a new initiative aimed at reducing the energy costs of 150,000 small and medium sized businesses, working closely with the energy ministry.

“Mexico has been living with energy subsidies for as long as anyone can remember. People don’t realise the cost of power. There has been no effort to take control of this,” he said.

Olea says there are concerns that as subsidies disappear, businesses that have never factored in electricity costs could struggle, or go under.

“Focusing on competitiveness will be our main selling point. Mexican traditional industries have suffered from Chinese imports for the past 20 years…very much so for the past 8-10 years,” he said.

“They cannot sell a cheaper shoe or other goods coming in from China even with very steep Chinese import taxes…they realise they have to cut their costs.”

Cooling, heating and lighting are three of the main targets in the Carbon Trust initiative, which aims to deliver $1 billion in reduced energy costs and cut carbon emissions by over 6 million tonnes.

Awareness

What makes Mexico’s green drive curious is the apparent lack of enthusiasm for any of its climate laws among the general public.

As a result, the urgent need to boost productivity and efficiency appears to be at the core of the government’s messaging, with positive side-effects for the environment.

“As such, there is no public support for decarbonising the country,” said Irízar, saying a focus on the jobs green policies can bring is more effective.

For Nieto, the real interest in green policies is a need to protect resources and natural elements that are “fundamental to human survival,” he said.

It’s a notion his fellow Senator Encinas backed up, pointing to the positive narrative Mexico’s government has tried to place on its climate laws.

“Until now, it has been largely framed by the narrative of sharing a global burden – with governments, naturally, trying to minimise their share,” he said.

Business sense

WWF’s Global Cleantech Innovation Index 2014 report points to how far the country still has to go, rating Mexico the 36th most attractive country to clean tech entrepreneurs.

But it points to a rapid rise in the 2013 INSEAD Global Innovation Index, and praises the energy reforms, which it says “open up possibilities” for new technologies to be deployed.

“Recently approved cleantech-friendly government policies and R&D budget have yet to improve access to private finance or increase local cleantech investors’ start-ups in the country,” it says.

“Little venture capital investment and no high-profile cleantech companies account for a low score on emerging cleantech innovation.”

As a result of Nieto’s business-friendly climate approach, he is likely to be greeted warmly by fellow leaders at Ban Ki-moon’s New York summit this September.

Mexico City was chosen as the home for the 2014 GLOBE World Summit of Climate Legislators, and the country’s diplomats now speak from a position of authority at the UN climate negotiations.

For Olea, who said he was “amazed” at the “boldness” of the 33% renewables target, the best is yet to come, although he has some warnings for investors.

“I think Mexico is pretty enthusiastic and happy to change in some ways. But if you want to tell people how to do their own tortillas you won’t get anywhere,” he said.

“The big challenge here is current capabilities. The Mexican traditional sector is undereducated and composed of working families or extended families, that keep inheriting the families for some many years they grow into it.

“It’s not that they don’t want to change, but it’s hard to think differently when you’ve been thinking the same way for generations.”

The post Mexico eyes economic benefits of landmark climate law appeared first on Climate Home News.

By Gerard Wynn

Mexico gas-fired power generation will  surge in the wake of a projected doubling in US pipeline imports, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said last Thursday.

The shift to natural gas would cut dependence on more polluting fossil fuels including coal and oil, but may also undermine emerging wind power growth in the south and west of the country.

The US shale gas revolution has already slowed growth in the country’s domestic wind power sector, by cutting wholesale power prices and market incentives for the renewable power source.

“Nearly three-quarters of the projected growth in Mexico’s natural gas consumption between 2012 and 2027 is projected to occur in the electric power sector,” said the U.S. government energy research service, quoting data from Mexico’s national energy ministry, SENER.

“The growth comes largely from new combined-cycle plants, which benefit from greater operational efficiencies and lower emission levels compared to other generation sources.”

In all, Mexican natural gas consumption in the power sector would increase to 6.1 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) in 2027, compared with 2.7 Bcf/d in 2012, according to the Mexican projections.

US natural gas producers would be major beneficiaries, with pipeline exports projected to more than double to Mexico in the next five years.

That would follow a doubling between 2009 and 2013, according to SENER.

“SENER projects that US pipeline exports to Mexico will reach 3.8 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) in 2018. This would be more than double U.S. pipeline exports to Mexico in 2013, which averaged 1.8 Bcf/d,” the EIA said.

Wind

Mexican power generation is presently dominated by fossil fuels, where natural gas has recently surpassed fuel oil and coal as the number one power source.

“Power plants using fossil fuels comprise the overwhelming majority of Mexico’s electricity generation. In the past, petroleum products were the leading fuels in Mexico’s electric generation mix. However, natural gas consumed for electricity generation has risen significantly in recent years, a shift that has been a leading driver of Mexico’s rising natural gas consumption,” said the EIA.

Non-hydro renewables are dominated by geothermal power, and supply only 3% of the country’s electricity.

“The most significant source is currently geothermal, including the 645-MW Cerro Pietro plant in Baja California, followed by biomass and waste combusted in fossil-fueled power plants. At present, there is relatively little wind and solar generation in Mexico.”

The country has strong wind resources in the west, in Baja California where there are plans for a transmission line to allow modest wind power exports to the United States.

“Sempra International is developing the Energía Sierra Juarez (ESJ) wind farm. The electricity from this farm will be exported to the United States on a new transmission line. The 156-MW first phase of ESJ will be completed in 2014. ESJ’s longterm development plan includes additional phases, with a potential total capacity of over 1.2 GW.”

There are also strong resources in the south of the country, in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in Oaxaca, where the EIA noted several projects were due to come on line by early 2015 with several hundred megawatts of wind power capacity.

The post US – Mexico gas exports to double in next five years says EIA appeared first on Climate Home News.

(Pic: Paul Bica)

By Nilima Choudhury

Mexico has agreed to sign the Majuro Declaration, an ambitious document created by the Pacific Islands which invites nations to become ‘climate leaders’.

The country will join Indonesia, Korea, Thailand, France, Malaysia and Costa Rica in “lending their support” to the Pacific Islands, and who have been said to be preparing their commitments towards the declaration.

The Pacific Islands states, including the Marshall Islands and Tuvalu, are some of the most vulnerable to climate change, as rising sea levels erode the coastlines of the tiny islands.

The Declaration says: “In supporting this Declaration, a government, economic entity, company, civil society organization or individual commits to demonstrate climate leadership through action that contributes to the urgent reduction and phase down of greenhouse gas pollution.”

So far, Mexico’s presence at the climate talks appear to have been positive with emphasis placed on action:

#Mexico at #COP19 #climate ministerial: “We don’t have time to wait to address climate change. This is about human life.”

— WB Climate Change (@wbclimatechange) November 20, 2013

RT @VerbWeb: Mexico ends with a quote “God always forgives, Humans sometimes forgive, and Nature never forgives” #COP19 #UNFCCC

— Andres Fuentes (@andresafm) November 19, 2013

Outside of the Pacific islands, signatories to the Declaration includes the US, European Union, the UK and Hawaii. Their commitments include emissions reduction targets and the inclusion of renewables in their energy mixes.

Marshall Islands VP states “the body count is growing” as he asks #COP19 for #climateaction to maintain the well-being of his people

— Riley McAuliffe (@mcauliffe_riley) November 21, 2013

Speaking to RTCC at the negotiations in Warsaw, Tony de Brum, the minister assisting the president of the Marshall Islands, said the Declaration is a gift from the Pacific to the UN to bring the world together and renew efforts to combat climate change.

“It indicates that the Pacific islands, themselves being vulnerable, are not going to just sit there and wait for the tide to come in. We’re going to do our part to be leaders in this,” he said.

De Brum also expressed his government’s disappointment at their “big brother” Australia’s stance during the negotiations in Poland.

“We have been disappointed with some of the anti-climate change rhetoric that has come out of Australia. It has not been helpful, it’s poorly timed, it’s somewhat akin to cabinet shuffling that we’ve encountered arriving in Warsaw,” said de Brum.

“We hope they can somewhat soften their stance on climate change.”

A spokesman for the Marshall Islands has told RTCC that the government has also had “initial discussions” with California and United Airlines about signing the Declaration.

The post Mexico signs Majuro climate change declaration appeared first on Climate Home News.

(Pic: Flickr/Angélica Rivera de Peña)

Mexico: President Enrique Pena Nieto is set to present his energy plan to Congress this week. Mexico is the world’s 10th biggest producer of crude oil, according to OPEC data. (Planet Ark)

USA: Technology to capture greenhouse gas emissions from coal-fired power plants may be more ready for wide deployment than industry officials and political leaders in coal states would have the public believe. (Gazette)

UK: Fast charging units for electric cars are becoming a more common site at service stations in the country as a result of investment from Nissan and Ecotricity (Business Green)

UK:  The energy minister Michael Fallon has warned privately that fracking might soon face fierce resistance from the middle classes in Conservative heartlands in southern England. (Guardian)

UK: In response to rising anger and media coverage over fracking, the Department of Energy and Climate Change has published a guidance note (DECC) dealing with safety and the environment.

UK: Met Office figures show that, with a mean temperature of 17 °C, July 2013 was the third warmest in the national record going back to 1910, behind 2006 (17.8 °C) and 1983 (17.3 °C). (Met Office)

Egypt: A solar-powered steriliser could provide remote areas in the developing world with a portable, off-grid solution for sanitising medical instruments and equipment. (All Africa)

Sweden: Volvo, Sweden’s largest car manufacturer, is planning to unveil a foldable solar charging station that can be broken down and stored in the truck of a car. (Forbes)

The post Mexico President Pena Nieto poised to unveil energy plan appeared first on Climate Home News.

Two important habitats for marine life, coral reefs and eelgrass meadows, will survive climate change but it will make them vulnerable.

Ocean acidification will make coral skeletons more feeble and coral reefs more vulnerable to battering by the seas – but it may not kill the corals, according to new research from the University of California, Santa Cruz.

The Californian scientists report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) that they tested coral’s response to changes in future ocean chemistry not by experiments in a tank in a laboratory, but under real conditions – off Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula where submarine springs naturally alter the chemistry of the surrounding sea water.

“People have seen similar effects in laboratory experiments,” said Adina Paytan, of the university’s Institute of Marine Sciences. “We looked in places where corals are exposed to lower pH for their entire lifespan. The good news is that they don’t just die. They are able to grow and calcify, but they are not producing robust structures.”

As carbon dioxide levels rise, falling rain becomes even more weakly acidic, and all rain eventually makes its way into the oceans, changing the water chemistry subtly.

Ocean acidification will make coral reefs more vulnerable to battering by the seas. (Source: Esie esq)

By monitoring seawater chemistry near natural submarine springs, and by examining cores from colonies of an important Caribbean reef-building coral called Porites asteroids, the scientists were able to show that predicted future changes in water chemistry did have consequences for creatures that exploit that chemistry: it became more demanding for the coral animals to build up the blocks of calcium carbonate skeletons. As the skeletons become less dense, so they become more vulnerable to storm waves, and to coral predators.

Corals are also vulnerable to temperature rise, and recent research has shown that corals can recover slowly from devastating spells of heat. Now it seems they can survive changes in ocean acidity. The question of course is whether reefs can survive both at the same time – and other stresses such as pollution and overfishing.

Eelgrass meadows

Meanwhile, far away to the north and across the Atlantic, Swedish researchers at the University of Gothenburg have been testing the effect of both rising temperatures and changes in sea chemistry on another important marine ecosystem: the eelgrass meadows.

Christian Alsterberg reports in the PNAS that they raised the temperature in laboratory tanks containing eelgrass, while at the same time bubbling extra carbon dioxide through the water, to simulate the real changes predicted in the decades to come.

The aim was to see how the plants, and the animals for which the plants form a natural habitat, responded. As water temperatures increased, for instance, so did the metabolism of many of the crustaceans that live in the eelgrass meadows.

As a consequence, the animals consumed more algae, and grazed the meadows more efficiently. Benthic microalgae on the sediment of the meadows responded more vigorously. Overall, there seemed to be no great effect on the meadows.

But that depended on the presence of crustaceans: without these small, algae-eating animals, the outcome could have been much worse. The research is just another piece in the vast jigsaw puzzle of climate science, in which small changes can have complex outcomes.

“The experiment also taught us the importance of investigating climate change using several different approaches, in order to fully understand its effects and to predict future impacts,” said Alsterberg.

This article was produced by the Climate News Network.

The post Coral reefs can survive ocean acidity – report appeared first on Climate Home News.

For the first time climate policymakers have a clear idea of how countries around the world are attempting to control their greenhouse gas emissions.

We have selected the highlights from Globe’s analysis of Mexico’s  attempts to address climate change.

Visit the Globe International website to download a full report and access data from the other countries featured.

Commentary: Terry Townshend

Mexico was the standout country in 2012 on climate change.

It passed a comprehensive climate change law – The General Law on Climate Change – with the support of all major political parties, a real achievement in a usually partisan Congress.

In parallel, Congress approved legislation to prepare for the implementation of so-called REDD (Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation).

This progressive stance is indicative of Mexico’s positive approach to tackling climate change.

In 2005, Mexico successfully lobbied to become part of the “+5” group of countries to participate in the UK’s G8 Summit outreach on climate change and subsequently hosted the 2006 meeting of the “Gleneagles Dialogue”, an informal forum on climate change involving the G8 and major emerging economies.

In the UN space, Mexico put forward proposals for a Green Fund, hosted the annual UN negotiations in Cancun in 2010 and, as a member of both the OECD and the developing country bloc, it has acted as a bridge between the rich and poor countries, helping to build trust.

The next challenge for Mexico, domestically, is to ensure the law works.

As Christiana Figueres said at the 1st GLOBE Climate Legislation Summit in London on 14 January, the priority for Mexico, and other countries with climate laws, is “implementation, implementation and implementation”.

The cross-party GLOBE Mexico group in the new Congress is committed to its scrutiny role and is working on an action plan that will help to ensure the government delivers on the commitments and targets in the law, including by scrutinising the national budget to ensure sufficient resources are allocated to facilitate delivery.

The experience of GLOBE Mexico on legislative scrutiny will be of great help to legislators from other countries as they develop and pass their own laws.

Political background
The GLCC was published in the Official Diary of the Federation on 6 June 2012 and became official law on that day.

This was a major advance in Mexico’s actions to tackle climate change. After a long process of negotiation that lasted two years, the key breakthrough was a meeting in October 2011, convened by GLOBE International and addressed by former UK Deputy Prime Minister, Lord Prescott.

At this meeting the legislators from different parties, who had proposed separate drafts of a climate change law, agreed to merge them into one single proposal.

The GLCC was voted on, and approved, in the Mexican Senate on 6 December 2011, coinciding with the UNFCCC COP17/CMP7 in Durban, South Africa.

The news was warmly welcomed as it showed how different political parties could come together to tackle climate change.

Forests and land use legislation
On 19 April 2012 the Mexican Congress passes a series of legal reforms on the Environmental Law (1988, last amended in 2010) and on the Sustainable Forest Development Law (2003), to facilitate the implementation of the REDD+ mechanism in Mexico.

The legal reforms take a critical step towards ensuring that local communities who sustainably manage their forests receive economic benefits derived from any future carbon payment scheme.

Energy legislation
The Law for the Use of Renewable Energies and for the Finance of the Energy Transition (LAERFTE) and the Law for Sustainable Energy Use (LASE) were passed on the same date, on 28 October 2008. In September 2009 a fund for renewable energy was created at the initial value of MXN 3 billion.

In a similar vein, the Law of Bioenergy Promotion and Development was passed in late 2007 with the purpose of developing bioenergy in the country, thus contributing to energy diversification and sustainable development while supporting rural areas and promoting social inclusion.

Major climate laws
General Law on Climate Change/2012 – This establishes the basis for the creation of institutions, legal frameworks and financing to move towards a low carbon economy. As a General Law, it specifies the different responsibilities of the Federation, Mexico’s pledge under the Copenhagen Accord, in terms of committing the country to an emissions reduction target of 30% below Business As Usual (BAU) by 2020, subject to the availability of financial resources and technology transfer.

The GLCC also creates a climate change fund to channel public, private, national and international funding projects that simultaneously contribute to adaptation and mitigation actions, such as supporting state‐level actions, research and innovation projects, technological development and transfer, and the purchase of Certified Emissions Reductions (CERs).

Law for the Use of Renewable Energies and Funding the Energy Transition/2008 – Seeks to reduce Mexico’s dependence on hydrocarbons as the primary source of energy. Promotes and regulates the use of renewable energy sources and clean technology for electricity generation through the Special Programme for Renewable Energy Use.

Law for Sustainable Energy Use/2008 – Promotes scientific research related to sustainable energy use and demands permanent sustainable energy use programmes are enacted in all properties owned by the Federal Administration.

Law for Bioenergy Promotion and Development/2007 – Ensures that the Inter‐sectoral Commission for Bioenergy Development promotes the production and commercialisation of bioenergy inputs from activities in rural areas related to agriculture and animal husbandry, forests, seaweed, biotechnology and enzymatic processes.

Inter‐secretariat Commission on Climate Change/2005 – This Commission’s aim is to promote and develop Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) projects in the public and private sectors.

Accelerated Depreciation for Investments with Environmental Benefits/2005 – The bill allows investors to deduct up to 100% of the investment in renewable energy projects from tax liability during the first year, in accordance with General Law for Ecological Equilibrium and Environmental Protection. Once the tax deduction is granted, the plant must remain active for at least 5 years.

General Law for Sustainable Forest Development/2002 – The bill seeks to regulate and promote the conservation, protection, restoration, production, organisation, agricultural activity and management of Mexico’s forests in order to secure sustainable forest development.

RELATED VIDEO: Why Mexico must balance responsibility to nature with rapid economic development

The post Mexico’s climate change laws appeared first on Climate Home News.

The new Mexican government has eased back on tight new vehicle efficiency measures in an attempt to avoid a legal challenge from carmakers that threatened its ambitious climate change legislation.

Rules requiring new cars to reach 35 miles per gallon were on the table following up on the country’s ambition carbon reduction measures announced last year.

Legal action proposed by Toyota and other car makers threatened to upend this popular legislation but a compromise allowing manufacturers to average results over a longer period has appeased them.

The decision will concern campaigners who believe the new government run by Enrique Peña Nieto has no interest in implementing Mexico’s ambitious climate legislation.

Vehicle efficiency standards could also help Mexico’s air pollution problems. (Source: Flickr/kc_aplosweb)

Last year Mexico pledged to reduce its greenhouse gas emission by 30% by 2020 and 50% by 2050 and established a renewable energy drive.

Fernando Bribiesca Federal deputy and congressman in Mexico, told RTCC that it was likely the government would try to backtrack on this agreement, but said the widespread support for the climate law in the Mexican Congress would make this difficult.

“It could be interesting to see the new government implementing the law. They’re trying to work more on economic development, which implies using more carbon and extracting more oil but all parties are united on this so,” he said.

“If they [the government] ignore it we will need to raise the level of debate. Politics is often about conflict. It got support from all parties so politically it wasn’t difficult, the problems are with implementation.”

RTCC Video: Fernando Bribiesca on the future of Mexico’s ambitious climate laws

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Thursday 20 December

Last updated: 1205

Norway: With the new UN climate deal still year’s away, Norway have announced they will steps up their efforts investing in the slowing of tropical deforestation as part of “first aid” to slow climate change.

“In the meantime we must give the climate first aid,” Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said. (Reuters)

Oceans: Changes in ocean salinity reveals the impacts of human climate change, according to a new study. Comparing ocean data against climate models, the researchers said they found that the changes seen matched those that would be expected from human induced climate change. (ABC Science)

US: President Obama has identified climate change as one of his top three priorities in his second term. In an interview for Time’s Person of the Year he said the economy, immigration and climate change and energy could be at the top of his agenda for the next four years. (The Hill)

UK: Businesses are being urged to reduce their energy demand over the Christmas period by switching off appliances – including PCs, vending machines and fridges – as they head out for the holidays. Figures from the Carbon Trust show that office equipment consumes around 15% of electricity in UK offices, costing £300 per year, and it is expected to rise to 30% by 2020. (Business Green)

UN: UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon says the recent climate change conference in Doha has kept the international community on track for a comprehensive, legally binding agreement by 2015.

“That is what governments have pledged to do, and it is what they must achieve,” he said in his end of year press conference. “As a spur to what we know will be very difficult negotiations, I intend to bring world leaders together in 2014.” (UN)

Wales: In what could be seen as an ironic move, the Big Pit, Wales’s national coal museum has announced that it will install 200 solar panels. The panels are expected to produce about 6% of the museum’s energy. (Guardian)

Mexico: Two new studies have shown that Mexico and its neighbours could be at the top of the list of countries vulnerable to global warming. They show that a combination of warmer weather and less rainfall in the coming years could devastate yields of the countries’ traditional crops like corn and beans, as well as the region’s coffee harvests. (Reuters)

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Mexico is a country leading the way on climate change action.

Earlier this year it became the second country to pass comprehensive legislation to cut emissions.

As well as legally binding emissions goals, Mexico’s climate change bill, which was passed in April, encourages a voluntary carbon emissions trading market, and gives the energy ministry authority to establish policies and incentives to promote low-carbon technologies.

When the country held the G20 meeting last month, outgoing President Calderón insisted on the environmental agenda being a priority at the talks, which were held just before the Rio+20 summit.

In the second of the series RTCC is running on Youth Climate groups from around the world, we talk to Christopher Córdova, Director of PIDES International (Plataforma Integral de Desarrollo Sustentable) to find out what it is like to be part of the youth climate movement in Mexico.

What is your group doing and what areas of work do you focus on?

PIDES NGO is based in Mexico City but we have a team spread in 14 countries and we have developed many different projects. We have projects on climate change mitigation in Mexico for instance and now we have a very big project for testing an international theoretical model in different places – in Qatar and in Costa Rica.

We wish to test a theoretical model which tries to explain how the green economy transition can be fast-tracked, in the local, the national and the international realm.

This big project is led by PIDES International. PIDES NGO manages the project in Mexico and our branch of it PIDES International manages all the international projects, so the projects which are not based in Mexico. We also have a research centre – a youth led research centre which is called the Junior Observatory of Sustainability.

This research centre publishes reports and also special and also special research about climate change, about youth participation, about sustainable development, about the green economy transition etc. For instance we have this research now which is called ‘Paths to Sustainability in the Middle East’.

So we have many different projects, some theoretical and some practical on all of these issues – mainly youth, sustainability, green economy and climate change.

We have had representatives in COP16 which was in Mexico. We led a youth event at COP16 in Mexico – the Climate Village. We were the organisation that was leading that youth event, supported by Mexico’s government. Then we were in South Africa also, invited by the Mexican government too and we sent a person also to this year’s Rio Summit and shortly we will send another representative to Qatar for COP18. So we have been involved in those international negotiations processes.

But we also have these other projects. Our focus is on the practical projects rather than only following the negotiations and all of that. And also we have this focus on being a bridge of communication among governments and civil society. So we are not only interested in representing civil society before governments but being a youth led bridge, a youth led channel of communication. We really want to continue to strengthen our communications schemes between Civil Society and governments internationally.

What results have you seen from your work so far?

We are just finishing a project in Mexico this month called ‘Bet for Climate’ – it was financed by GIC, the cooperation institution of the German Government and the German Embassy in Mexico. That project was aimed to lower the carbon footprint of different High Schools in six states of Mexico. So by lowering the carbon footprint the students could bet to local governments that they could lower their carbon footprint faster and more efficiently than the local government itself.

So it was a very very good strategy for strengthening the idea of the power of organisation and the power of youth, building the confidence of those students and also helping them to organise practical projects aimed to lower carbon footprints no matter where they are.

It was in the schools this time but later on they can direct this carbon footprint lowering strategies in all of the institutions and the idea of building this bridge with government – with local government particularly – and also spreading this idea that it is not government alone that needs to lower the carbon footprint of a given country, a given state or a given province but that it is the whole of society that is responsible for that.

Also in terms of research and publishing we have published a lot of books by our research pillar and these books have reached what we consider a wide audience – other organisations are now using some of our categories, some of our theories. We have a theory of the notion of sustainability and now the theoretical model of the ICPS (Integral Cooperation Platform for Sustainability) model which has been designed and tested by PIDES International in collaboration with ISPA-NET Consulting (Integral Sustainable Policy Alternatives – New Economic Tools) which is the consultancy that we work with.

We have seen results also in our reach in lectures. We have lectured in 11-12 countries – I have personally presented lectures in nine countries – and have presented more than 70 lectures. And we have reached a wide public in those presentations – mainly students but there have also been policy makers, in particular local policy makers. That is another result that we can count as part of our permanent programme of training and capacity building.

And now with PIDES International with this pilot programme with the ICPS model for the National Integral Programme for Sustainable Development which is going to be tested in Costa Rica and in Qatar over the next two years.

What challenges have you faced in your work? What has or hasn’t worked?

The group hold lectures and talks in countries across the world

I believe that one of our biggest challenges has been to make our point to explain to youth, to civil society in general, to NGOs in different countries that it is not government’s responsibility.

It is everyone’s responsibility to transition to a low carbon world economy, to sustainable development and to implement all of those measures. I think there is some misleading information about who is responsible for our current unsustainable patterns of production, distribution and consumption of goods and services.

A lot of people from civil society think that it is all governments’ fault and they do not consider their own responsibility in consumption for instance. That has been a very hard part, maybe one of our greatest challenges, in trying to explain that it is everyone’s responsibility and trying to be clear enough in how to share that responsibility and what is to be done by government, what is to be done by companies and the business sector, what is to be done by civil society, what is to be done by youth etc.

We have found that the best way to overcome this is by completing the circle that goes from research, from theory to practice. That is why we are not an NGO that only focuses on practical solutions or implementing solutions but also about theorising and generating ideas that we think are integral and also sustainable and through creating first the theory in the paper, in the document, publishing it, spreading it through a lecture, getting the feed-back from the public, publishing again and then closing the circle by implementing that solution in a particular project.

What support have you seen for your activities?

Thanks to this idea of having both theory and practice in the same organisation and also being open to collaboration with governments and companies I think we have seen quite a lot of support and we are very grateful. Through embassies, individual diplomats, companies, universities, research centres and cultural institutions, national governments, local governments environmental agencies etc we have seen quite a lot of support because we have offered this alternative of bringing both theory and practice within the same solution.

They have seen that we are, yes, young people and, yes, civil society but we know what it takes to produce a public policy for instance. So governments see that we understand their language. And young people understand that we understand their language. It is a very nice scheme that has worked for us.

What are the impacts you are seeing in your country and local area from climate change?

Yes there are many. I will just mention two which are most representative. Mexico is a big country with a huge climate diversity and a huge ecosystem diversity and biodiversity too. It is one of the 17 mega-diverse countries in terms of biodiversity in the world. So it is very complex.

In the south there is a lot of water and there is a more humid climate. Both have been changing quite a lot. The rain for instance in the province of Tabasco in the past – 50 years ago – it could rain almost all year round and now there is a rainy season. So that has definitely changed the ecosystems. Also there are hurricanes in the south of Mexico which seem to be stronger every year and this causes huge damages to the coastlines of the south of Mexico.

Mexico is already feeling the impacts of climate change (Source: tjschloss/Creative Commons)

On the other hand in the north, at the beginning of this year there was a huge shortage of water and a big, very intense drought. It was very severe for food production in the north. The north of Mexico is much more arid, and has a lot less water than the south, but this year it was very very intense. It was way more intense than expected and it really impacted food production and some isolated communities really had a lot of problems in terms of food security.

What is your vision for 2050? How do we get there?

We are seeing at the very centre of the climate problem, the climate reality there is the issue of climate financing. The thing is we are not getting even 10% of the resources that we need to mobilise in order to really tackle climate change, so that is a huge thing. And our current mechanisms are never going to produce the amount that we require to really stop climate change. So initiatives like AOSIS, the Alliance of Small Island States [a coalition made up of those states imminently threatened by climate change], it is really like a desperate call for the international community to start acting in a really comprehensive way on this and at the very centre is the issue of finance.

So by building this strategy of the ICPS model we aim to start discussing seriously the issue of financing. Because as many experts have stated this is not an environmental problem. This is a political problem. And the political problem is resource allocation and before that actually getting enough resources. That is why we are developing this model intended to produce international solutions as well as producing the required resources financing those solutions.

What we are saying is that by 2015 we need to have a solution for financing. That is the most important part.

What would help your group moving forward in the future?

For our strategy for the ICPS model we will actually require – we do not require it now because we are just finishing the preparation process. But we will require it as soon as it is launched officially, we will require two things.

One, once the strategy is finished, we will need $5 million in order to create a world awareness campaign in media which will be celebrity led. We will ask celebrities all around the world to lead this media campaign in order to get the 3% of global GDP that we need to finance sustainable development and to eradicate extreme poverty.

In order to get to that we are seeing that the world needs a voluntary tax on most of its goods and services but with full operational rules which include full transparency in the resource allocation ands also the governments should not be in charge of allocating the resources.

So in a few months we will be looking for this $5 million and we will be looking for exposure – a lot of exposure internationally in order to foster our strategy of the IPCS model because we think that it is a model which will really help to transform the economy.

Why did you get involved in the climate movement? What do you think youth groups bring to the debate?

Since 2008 the group has been working to raise awareness for climate change

On the institutional side PIDES has been working for three years and we are totally passionate about these issues of sustainable development. It has been a very rich process because one thing has led us to the other. Our research has brought us to the point of applying solutions. And from implementing the solutions we have got the feedback from thousands and thousands of people, very valuable feedback which has inspired us much more.

Form the personal side. I did my first lecture when I was 14 and my first book was published when I was 15 so I was involved in all of these issues from a young age. Since then I have had this beautiful opportunity of travelling the world, presenting my books. I am very grateful for the governments who have supported by work and who have invited me to come to their countries to present – Indonesian government, Mexican Government, Moroccan Government.

I think there are two aspects. Firstly youth will inherit the world, they will inherit the world of the future. But I think there is a deeper aspect and that is that we were born and we are reaching adulthood in the age of information. That makes us one state ahead of the other generations before us. In the age of information, it is proven to be far more valuable than any other resources. Information is so important and it is the youth who are use to it and are used to accessing it. This gives us the possibility of really transforming reality – we are the insiders of the information era and the previous generations are the outsiders.

But the problem is that rather a lot of young people out there who do not have this access. The gap between the young who have access to information and those who do not is even wider than those separating different generations. Unless we close that gap it will be bad for the future. We have to reduce these inequalities. We have to share information and share the opportunity of accessing information – but it is huge challenge to close that gap. We have to strive to bring information tools – along with better living standards – to those who still live without this access.

Related Video: Members of PIDES talk to RTCC at the Durban Climate Talks about the work they are doing in explaining the dangers of climate change and environmental degradation to youth in Mexico…

The post Youth Profile #2: How PIDES are working on practical solutions to climate change in Mexico appeared first on Climate Home News.

How could Uganda learn from CDM projects in Mexico? (©Hector Tapia and Juan Martínez/CDM PoA 2535 Cuidemos Mexico)

A growing demand for energy in Uganda, coupled with a lack of investment in infrastructure is leaving the country with power shortages.

Both public and private investment is needed to ensure the energy capacity in the country meets the growing demand.

Through partnership with the World Bank, Mexico is implementing a sustainable lighting project.

Registered under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) the project replaces incandescent light bulbs with more efficient, environmentally-friendly ones, compact fluorescent lamps, better known as energy-saving light bulbs.

In the tenth in the series of UNFCCC CDM Radio Club reports RTCC is hosting, Emmanuel Okella news editor and environmental journalists for Radio Simba-Uganda wonders if such a project can be implemented in his own country, where there is an acute shortage of power supply.

At the sidelines of the UN climate talks in Durban he talks to the Mexican Deputy Director for Climate Change, Luis Alfonso about a program that aims to benefit 47 million households in his country.

The radio club aims to spread the word about the CDM in Africa and extend the benefits of the mechanism to communities that have not yet benefited from the scheme.

The post PODCAST: What lessons can Uganda learn about the CDM from Mexico appeared first on Climate Home News.

Mexico is undergoing a major energy transformation that will see a flurry of investment in wind energy during this decade.

A Walmart funded wind farm in Mexico. (Source: Flickr/Walmart)

The country’s installed wind capacity will grow from 2GW at the end of 2012 to 12 GW by 2020, according to the AMEE, Mexico’s wind energy association.

The UN ranks Mexico as the 11th largest producer of CO2 emissions globally meaning a shift to a cleaner energy supply can have significant consequences for global levels. It currently sources 88.9% of its energy from fossil fuels.

The majority of the new wind farms are planned for the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, the narrowest strip of land between the Pacific Ocean to the west and the Gulf of Mexico to the east, where the average wind speed is 25 mph.

According to the country’s government, it could potentially supply 139% of its current electricity demand from wind power.

Last month, Mexico introduced radical new climate change laws that include a 50% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2050 and a target to source 35% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2024.

The post Mexico embarks on ambitious clean energy roll-out appeared first on Climate Home News.

New report warns against the potential damage to ecosystems from a rush to Arctic investment (© USFWS Endangered Species/Creative Commons)

In a busy post-Easter news week, RTCC summarises five of the biggest ideas on climate change, energy and clean development that emerged.

It’s a particularly international affair this week as the big stories dragged us from the Arctic to Mexico via Europe and Africa…

1) Rushing to exploit the Arctic is a bad idea

It sounds like common sense but Chatham House and insurers Lloyd’s of London published a report this week spelling out exactly why this is true.

They have called on oil firms to spend more time on spill response research before expanding operations in the Arctic.

The study estimates the Arctic economy to be worth $100bn during the next decade.

Shell meanwhile, released its Sustainability Report, which reaffirmed its commitment to work in the region.

2) Building a European supergrid is a good idea

As the UK announced it was in talks to bring Iceland’s geothermal energy to the UK via a 1000km long power cable, the Redpoint Energy consultancy told RTCC why sharing resources is a good plan.

A European wide grid joining southern solar power and northern wind energy could cut the cost of consumer’s bills and carbon emissions at the same time.

3) Communities vital in low-carbon development

Communities will be at the heart of successful low carbon energy projects in the Global South, says conference (© UN/Ba Trang)

Communities’ local needs must be considered first for low-carbon projects in the developing world to be successful. That was the consensus at the Low Carbon Energy for Development Network’s first conference held last week.

Communities must be at the heart of decision making, said the experts from around the world who had gathered in Loughborough, UK. Not only must local needs be considered, but also the local knowledge and skills. This means considering the traditional values of local groups and ensuring that knowledge is transferred, as well as technology.

Our latest podcast also touches on this, looking at why the CDM has not been as successful in Africa as many other parts of the developing world.

4) Countries fire first salvos (and starting pistol) on next round of UN talks

After a three month hiatus to consider their positions after the last UN climate change negotiations in Durban, some countries began to publicly show their hand this week.

The UNFCCC, which manages the process, will hold the first major discussions of 2012 next month.

India has stated that the EU carbon tax on aviation is a “deal breaker” and that Germany could be a key partner moving forward.

The EU meanwhile, said the process was too slow and called on Qatar, the host of this year’s grand finale of the negotiations in November, to take a lead.

Mexico looks set to become the second country in the world to introduce climate law (© kc_aplosweb/Creative Commons)

5) Climate leaders come in all shapes and sizes

Mexico became the second country in the world this week to make moves to legislate on climate change as the country’s General Law on Climate Change was passed by the House of Representatives – showing climate leadership can come from unexpected places.

If passed by the Senate it will bind the country to a series of targets, leading to a 50% cut in emissions by 2050. The law would make them the second country – after the UK – to legislate on climate change.

The post A week in climate change: five things we learnt appeared first on Climate Home News.

Mexico could become the second country worldwide to pass legislation on climate change (© kc_aplosweb/Creative Commons)

Mexico is set to become the second country worldwide to begin legislating against climate change, as its House of Representatives passed a climate law.

If passed by the Mexican Senate, the General Law on Climate Change will require the whole country to reduce its carbon by 50% by 2050.

The law will include potential rules to phase out fossil fuel subsidies and make renewable energy as competitive as oil, gas and coal.

It will also bind Mexico to a target of cutting carbon emissions by 30% by 2020 – with the help of international support – and for 35% of the country’s electricity to come from clean sources by 2024.

If adopted, the law will make Mexico the second country – after the UK – to pass comprehensive national climate change legislation.

Currently the 11^th biggest emitter and the 11^th largest economy, it is estimated that if Mexico continues on its current path it could be the 5^th largest economy by 2050.

While some companies in the country’s steel and coal sectors have opposed the law, many companies from overseas have expressed a need for a national legal framework to build confidence in green investments in Mexico.

The proposal for the climate law also includes provision for “emissions markets” to help the country reach its targets.

WWF have showed strong support for the law in Mexico. Having urged politicians in the country to support the law, they welcomed the latest step towards implementing the legislation.

Samantha Smith, leader of the WWF Climate and Energy Initiative wrote on the WWF website: “In a world with nine billion people in 2050, “renewable” and “sustainable” will be essential, not just for nature but for basic access to food, water and energy.

“What makes this even more remarkable is that Mexico is not really a rich country. By the government’s own count, some 40% of the population lives in poverty. Yet its government and Congress see that ending poverty and growing the economy will be that much harder unless they, we, all of us do something about climate change.”

The law will now go before the Mexican Senate.

The post Mexico to introduce radical climate law appeared first on Climate Home News.