Foreign wind farms cause uproar in Mexico

AFP, 4/7/13

Foreign energy firms have flocked to a narrow region of southern Mexico, known as one of the world’s windiest places, to build towering wind turbines, but some projects have angered and torn indigenous villages. The construction of wind farms has soared across Mexico, with the gusty Isthmus of Tehuantepec in the state of Oaxaca attracting investors from as far as Europe, Japan and Australia.

The projects are a key part of Mexico’s efforts to combat climate change, one of the priorities of former president Felipe Calderon that has been picked up by his successor, Enrique Pena Nieto, who took office in December.

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In focus: Mexico’s climate change laws

RTCC, 2/4/2013

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.

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.

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Mexico credited as world leader in cutting pollution

Chron, 1/13/2013

China, Mexico and other emerging economies are leading the fight against climate change by passing laws to cut carbon and raise energy efficiency, the Globe International alliance of lawmakers said today. A study of energy and climate laws in 33 economies showed 18 made “significant” progress in 2012, Globe said today in an e-mailed statement. The alliance, which brings together lawmakers from 70 nations, is meeting in London today and tomorrow to discuss ways in which governments can contribute to the international effort to contain global warming.

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Mexico Emulates Neighbor California With 35% Clean Climate law

Clean Technica, 4/15/12

Joining world leaders in climate laws, Mexico just passed new legislation that catapults the poor neighbor to the south of the U.S. to a leadership role on a par with its northern neighbor, California.

Mexico’s General Law on Climate Change was just passed by an 128-10 overwhelming vote in its 500 member Chamber of Deputies, and moves to the Senate. Since that body passed a preliminary version already, its chances of becoming law look excellent. Just as investment in clean energy soared in California following passage of its clean climate laws starting in 2006 with the first Renewable Energy Standard and following up with AB32, its climate law.

California’s 33% clean energy by 2020 target received enough offers from solar and wind developers to make 100% of its energy from these two sources, for example. Mexico boasts the same abundant solar and wind resources and could easily achieve the same goals as California.

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Climate Change, Migration and Security: Best Practice Policy and Operational Options for Mexico

Royal United Services Institute, 3/22/12

The Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) in London, GLOBE International and The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC/CEPAL), have collaborated and produced an interim report on their ongoing dialogue with Mexican officials regarding climate change and what it means for Mexico’s security.

This project follows on from the Royal United Services Institute’s (RUSI) previous work, which took place between 2008 and 2010, assessing the implications of climate change for national security in Mexico and Central America. The final report, launched in 2010, showed how climate change is expected to have profound impacts on Mexico and Central America, reshaping resource distribution, creating new dynamics of winners and losers, and making current challenges concerning poverty and governance more difficult to respond to. It was argued that these changes are likely to reshape the physical and political terrain of Mesoamerica and could have far-reaching repercussions for national and regional security.

Read the full report here.

New Hispanic group mobilizes around Colorado River

The Associated Press, 8/17/11

Hispanic leaders in the West have formed a new group called Nuestro Rio to focus attention on the Colorado River, which has sustained generations of Latinos.

The Colorado River system provides municipal water for more than 30 million people in Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming and Mexico, but climate change, drought, population growth and wildlife needs have heightened competition for the system’s limited water supplies.

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation is studying future gaps in supply and demand for water from the river system through 2060.

As western U.S. cities propose water projects to claim their share of scarce river water, Nuestro Rio, which is Spanish for “Our River,” wants to make sure Hispanic voices are heard.

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Global accord on climate change hailed as breakthrough

Patricia Espinosa

The Global and Mail, 12/11/2010

Global negotiators overcame deep suspicion and geopolitical rivalries to approve a breakthrough agreement early Saturday at the Cancun summit, a United Nations-backed deal that commits countries to increase their effort to battle climate change and preserves key principles of the Kytoto protocol.

The Cancun accord was hailed not only as a major step forward in fight against global warming, but a much-needed boost for multilateralism as 193 nations — from the U.S and China, to Grenada and Lesotho — put aside national differences and found common cause against a growing crisis.

“With this agreement, you have broken out of the inertia and feeling of hopelessness,” Mexican President Felipe Calderon told the exhausted ministers and negotiators. “Confidence is back. Hope has returned.”

In a surprise and dramatic move, Mexican Foreign Minister Patricia Espinosa seized the initiative on Friday evening by tabling draft texts based on the work of a 50-country working group. The group had met over the previous few days, with fluid membership and an open-door policy to all delegations.

Ms. Espinosa was widely credited for her deft and transparent management of the intricate and often-heated negotiations. She avoided the mistake of last year’s Copenhagen meeting — where major countries crafted a deal behind closed doors that was later rejected by the convention as a whole — while still managing to keep negotiations on track.

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Calderón calls on business leaders to fight climate change (in Spanish)

Proceso, 12/6/2010

El presidente Felipe Calderón reconoció que a México le cuestan más las consecuencias del cambio climático que las acciones para prevenirlo, y en ese sentido pidió a empresarios de la industria turística y desarrolladores de vivienda involucrarse en medidas para mitigar el problema.

Al encabezar hoy en Playa del Carmen el encuentro con industriales hoteleros denominado “Turismo responsable ante el cambio climático: ¿Qué sigue?”, el mandatario dijo que este año el país gastará mas de 5 mil millones de pesos en preservación forestal, suma que, dijo, no se compara con los 14 mil millones de pesos que costará la reconstrucción de Monterrey, arrasada por “una sola tormenta tropical”, o la reposición de las más de 40 mil viviendas entre Veracruz y Chiapas, en las que hubo 60 muertos.

Ante tales las circunstancias, Calderón insistió que es más barato invertir en la prevención del cambio climático, y adelantó que para este tipo de acciones “podríamos estar destinando entre el uno y medio y tres por ciento del PIB mundial, a lo largo de los años”. Empero, advirtió, que de no hacerlo “tendríamos que pagar hasta 20 por ciento del PIB mundial” solo en el pago de los daños.

Sostuvo que el turismo puede ser una manera de preservar el medioambiente. Para ello, dijo, es necesario encontrar la ruta del desarrollo sustentable y hacer compatible a esa industria con la naturaleza. Agregó que es necesario “cambiar el patrón cultural y diseñar una vocación ambiental del propio turismo para poder captar esa gran oportunidad”, y se pronuncio por incentivar el turismo ambiental que tiende a crecer.

“Esto no sólo porque el turismo sustentable va a proteger el medioambiente, que es requisito indispensable de viabilidad colectiva, sino porque representa una gran oportunidad de negocios, y yo creo que esa es la clave”, argumentó.

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Mayan village in Mexico impacted by climate change

Associated Press, 12/5/2010

The first time Araceli Bastida Be heard the phrase “climate change” was on TV two years ago. Then she began to understand why strange things had been happening in her village.

Tabi was in its second year of drought, and the corn that sustains the village was left stunted on the stalks. Farmers couldn’t bear the midday heat anymore, and were in their fields at dawn in order to finish before noon.

After a half-mile (1-kilometer) walk from school, Bastida Be’s son would return home with headaches. Summer nights were too hot to sleep until after midnight. And winters were so cold the villagers had to buy blankets.

A year earlier, Hurricane Dean reached deep into Mexico’s rain forest, destroying Tabi’s beehives and blowing down several thatched-roof homes.

“We don’t know what’s going on. All we know is that something has changed,” says Bastida Be, 31, who tends her own corn crop while her husband is away working in construction jobs on the coast.

In Cancun, a resort 155 miles (250 kilometers) to the north, world governments are grappling with Tabi’s problems. A 193-nation climate conference is debating measures to restrain emissions of carbon and other gases that are causing the Earth’s temperatures to rise. They also are discussing how to help people like Tabi’s 400 residents adjust their lives to new conditions.

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As host of Cancún climate talks, Mexico shows off its greener capital city

The Christian Science Monitor, 12/1/2010

Twenty years ago, news coverage of Mexico‘s pollution problem rang apocalyptic.

“Mexico City smog reaching record levels; disaster feared,” read a 1992 headline in the Los Angeles Times. “Mexico turning into a gas chamber,” the Calgary (Alberta) Herald exclaimed. Mexico’s capital was considered the world’s most polluted city in the early ’90s. Scientists measured alarming levels of lead, ozone, sulfur dioxide, and carbon monoxide in the air. Respiratory illnesses abounded. Runners donned surgical masks.

But the apocalypse never arrived. Among a host of initiatives, the government reduced road time for older cars, cut gasoline lead levels, and established emissions standards and verification procedures.

“Air quality has improved dramatically over the last decade,” says Richard Fuller, president of the Blacksmith Institute in New York, which studies toxic hot spots around the globe. “It used to be one of the worst. Now it is a model.”

As Mexico hosts the United Nations climate conference in Cancún through Dec. 10, with leaders from around the globe gathering to talk about a binding treaty to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, the notoriously dirty capital is touting itself as a green city.

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