Mexico, in the environment, against the tide

Theme climate change It is not something prevalent in the Mexican government’s discourse and even the messages being sent are due to a lack of interest and a low level of participation in global meetings on the subject.

From November 1 to 12, it was United Nations Conference on Climate Change (COP26), in Glasgow, Scotland, which will be attended by a very small Mexican delegation, led by External Relations SecretariatIt’s (SRE), but it won’t even be led by Undersecretary: Martha Delgado.
Mexico, along with other countries and civil society organizations, has raised its voice on several occasions, due to the severe restrictions it has imposed United kingdom To enter their territory and be able to participate in COP26.

Last August, the Mexican Foreign Ministry prepared a statement stating that it could not participate in the meeting in person, due to health restrictions. However, the text remained in the drawer, because the dialogue with the English government continued.

Only about two weeks ago, the Mexican government signed a document prepared by Group of Latin American and Caribbean States (Grulac) in the United Kingdom, where they have called for strict restrictions on participation in the COP.

The United Kingdom’s Minister for the Americas, Wendy Morton, has been asked to relax the rules imposed and not to discriminate against groups and countries in particular.

Namely, the United Kingdom has red list of countries, where there was an infection greater than COVID-19Including Mexico.

Therefore, he asked every official and member of civil society who seeks to participate in COP26 come from a country on the red list, that must provide a complete vaccination scheme, limited to specific antigens; In addition to doing a quarantine for at least 10 days.

Today, the UK has already relaxed the measures: it is accepting any of them Serum It requires, at a minimum, a five-day quarantine to be borne by the host country.

But even so, Mexico decided that it would send a very small delegation that would not be headed by a high-ranking authority.

indifference?

Before that summit of COP16 Held in Cancun, Quintana Roo, in December 2010, Mexico took a very strong lead after COP 15, in Copenhagen, Denmark, because the final declaration was not agreed upon with all countries.

It was that Mexico came to remove. Ambassador Luis Alfonso de Alba dedicated himself to traveling around the world for dialogue and negotiation, and thus succeeded in the COP16 held in Mexico which led to the Paris Agreement, 5 years later.

The Paris Agreement was the great international agreement, under which Mexico pledged to tackle climate change, by reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
But the current national environmental policy has been too low. For example, still waiting Climate Change Program 2020-2024Which the Ministry of Environment pledged to develop and publish

But the various infrastructure projects that the current government has, are not in line with the fight against climate change: the Dos Bocas refinery, the Maya train, among others.
Besides the president himself Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador He warned that the use of oil will continue.

refinery construction manIt is performed on the land where the mangroves were located; But resources have also been allocated to modernizing coal, diesel, gas and oil power plants.

Worse still, the environment budget has been drastically reduced. In 2019, the budget saw a 32% decrease compared to 2018.

By 2021, budget environment It was 1,780 million pesos, down 10% compared to 2020.

disappointment

Andrés Flores Montalvo, Director Climate change and energy from the World Resources Institute (WRI, for its English acronym), commented that there is some disappointment on the part of civil society and some sectors of the international community, that Mexico, like Brazil and other countries, does not make a greater commitment than it did to the Paris Agreement, a fact that can easily be verified.

“If we look at the goals discount Mexico, which was introduced in December 2020, is exactly the same that was introduced 5 years ago, when the Paris Agreement was signed. It can be said that it is less ambitious, because the baseline of the trend has been adjusted, Mexico’s goals are related to Work in the name of Usuafor (BUA), for direction. We all think Mexico can do a lot more than that, but in many ways it’s not seeing the level of commitment expected of a great economy like Mexico.”

He added that energy policy is going in the opposite direction of what Mexico has to offer in terms of decarbonizing its economy.

He added that what was committed in the matter of climate change is in the law, it is not a fact.

“Decarbonizing the economy definitely affects sectors like mining and the oil sector, but new, clean and good jobs can be created, improving the environment. Mexico doesn’t see it in everything and here we have great opportunities and abundant resources to transition to a cleaner and free economy,” Flores Montalvo said. from carbon.

for this part, Anaide Velasco, subordinate Mexican Center for Environmental Law, agreed that the current Mexican government does not pay attention to the issue of climate change. In terms of mitigation, he said, the agenda is far behind.

He criticized that the discourse and its intent is to strengthen the sovereignty of energy from the strengthening of Federal Electricity Authority (KV) and Pemex.
“But they are companies whose function depends on fossils,” he said.

He pointed out that it is clear that the issue of environment and climate change is not a priority.

In response to a question about the decrease in the budget for the environment, she indicated that since 2015, a decrease has begun to be observed, and for 2022 there is an expectation whether it will actually increase.

Also read: Climate crisis will force millions of Mexicans to flee: WB