The Carbon Brief profile: Mexico

In the latest article in a series on the world’s key emitters Carbon Brief looks at Mexico, a nation that is already bearing the brunt of droughts, extreme heat and hurricanes.

Mexico had the world’s 11th largest greenhouse gas emissions in 2018. It has often been touted as aclimate leaderamong less wealthy nations, with various targets to cut emissions and develop clean power.

Oil extraction has contributed to the nation’s economic growth, although the industry’s fortunes have been declining since the early 2000s. Meanwhile, wind and solar generation have tripled over the past five years.

Under past administrations, Mexico has played an important role in global climate negotiations and was one of the first nations to introduce climate change legislation.

However, progress has ground停止as the current government pours money into the state-run fossil fuel sector and dismantles policies to promote renewables.

(Update 08/06/2021: The ruling party of president Andrés Manuel López Obrador held onto power butfailed在墨西哥获得三分之二多数o’s midterm elections. A more decisive victorywould haveallowed the president to modify the constitution and roll back energy reforms introduced by his predecessor, which opened the country up to private investment in renewables.)

• Politics
• Paris pledge
• Climate policies and laws
• Wind and solar
• Hydropower and nuclear
• Oil and gas
• Coal
• Forestry and agriculture
• Impacts and adaptation

Infographic by Joe Goodman.

Politics

Officially known as the United Mexican States, the nation is a federal republic consisting of 31 states and the federal district of Mexico City.

It has the world’s15th largesteconomy in terms of GDP and the second largest in Latin America after Brazil, as of 2019.

墨西哥通常被认为是一个emerging economy．It wasadmitted tothe Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) group of wealthy nations in 1994, but its economic growth and poverty reductionhave both beenslow since then.

The nation isoften describedas a climate leaderamong poorer countries. However, asone studyputs it: “Mexico’s climate leadership consists mostly of pledges and adoption of legislation, but its actions have not yet changed its greenhouse gas emissions”.

Mexican politics has historically been dominated by the centrist Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which held power from the Mexican Revolution in 1929 to 2000, when it was toppled by the more right-wing National Action Party (PAN).

Other important parties include the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), which began as a left-wing offshoot of the PRI, and the left-wing populist National Regeneration Movement (MORENA), which was, in turn, formed by current president Andrés Manuel López Obrador when he left the PRD in 2012.

Also of note is the Ecological Green Party of Mexico, which hasbeen criticisedfor its lack of focus on “green” issues andrejectedby international green parties for its divergence on “basic principles”, such as supporting the death penalty.

Interest inclimate change has fluctuated in Mexican politics. During a six-year term that ended in 2012, the second PAN president Felipe Calderón significantlyraised its statusand introduced the nation’s first comprehensive climate legislation.

He also oversaw theCOP16UN climate summit, which took place in 2010 in the coastal city of Cancún.

Calderón’s successor, the PRI president Enrique Peña Nieto, came to power at a time of slow economic growth witha promiseto boost the nation’s oil and gas production.

While climate was not always a high priority for Peña Nieto, observersnotethat it has sunk further under López Obrador,who sweptto power on a populist platform promising an array of social programmes in 2018.

While running for president, López Obrador’s environmental manifesto,NaturAMLO– an allusion to his initials, AMLO – discussed climate change, albeit with a focus on adaptation. Hepledgedto address Mexico’s emissions by planting trees and expanding hydropower dams.

A native of the oil-rich state of Tabasco, López Obrador haspouredfunding into the state-owned company Mexican Petroleum (Pemex) andcurtaileda boom in private renewable projects in favour of energy self-sufficiency based on fossil fuels.

He has cut the budget of the Mexican environment ministryas part ofa government austerity programme andcriticisedenvironmental NGOs in Mexico for their supposed links with foreign governments.

As a result of all this,Bloomberghas stated that the Mexican president has the “rare distinction of being a leader with leftist roots whose environmental policy is closer to right-leaning climate deniers”.

López Obrador was among the world leadersinvitedto speak at Joe Biden’s leader’s summit in April, at which the US president urged other nations to “step up” their climate ambitions.

Instead, the Mexican president used his pre-recorded address tojustifyhis nation’s continued exploitation of oil deposits and push a programme in which tree-planters in Central America could access American work visas.

More broadly, the Mexican government has at leastpaid lip serviceto tackling climate change on the international stage. However, the framing has been more around adaptation and the nation’s vulnerability to climate change than mitigation.

Despite the current administration’s apparent ambivalence, asurveyconducted by thePew Research Centerin 2018 found that 80% of Mexicans saw climate change as a “major threat” to the country, up 28 points from 2013.

As in the US during Donald Trump’s climate-sceptic administration,some citiesand states in Mexico have emerged as climate leaders without support from the federal government.

Yet with a midterm election set to take place in June to decide all 500 members of the lower house of Mexican congress and governors in 15 of 32 states, López Obrador’s MORENA party is expected to increase its hold on Mexican politics.

Paris pledge

Mexico’s emissions in 2018 were 695m tonnes of CO2 equivalent (MtCO2e), according to theCAITdatabase maintained by theWorld Resources Institute(WRI), which includes emissions from land use, land-use change and forestry (LULUCF).

Its per-capita emissions are 5.5tCO2e, slightly below the global average.

The nation was one ofonly a handfulto come forward with an updatednationally determined contribution(NDC) under the Paris Agreement by the end-of-2020 deadline.

However, the new Mexican target remained the same as the previous one, namely to unconditionally reduce emissions by 22% below a business-as-usual (BAU) scenario by 2030 – and up to 36% below BAU, if it receives financial, technical and capacity-building support from other countries.

Crucially, the new NDC also revised the BAU projections upwards, meaning achieving the same target would actually result in higher emissions by 2030. The new document also omitted a reference to Mexico’s emissions peaking in 2026.

According toClimate Action Tracker(CAT) – an independent analysis of climate pledges produced by three research organisations – the unconditional target would previously have led to 763MtCO2e in 2030, excluding LULUCF.

现在,它估计s that the same target would result in 774MtCO2e. This is 76% higher than Mexico’s emissions in 1990.

CATconcludedthat the change in baseline for the NDC moved the rating of Mexico’s climate pledge from “insufficient” to “highly insufficient” for achieving international goals.

It noted that the pledge lowers both “climate ambition and transparency, contrary to Paris Agreement rules”.

While the wording of the agreement around submitting new NDCs issomewhat loose, it is generally taken to mean that nations’ should submit more ambitious pledges over time.

This backsliding on pledges reflects a wider trend in current Mexican politics. However, under previous administrations, Mexico hasbeen recognisedfor its leadership in international climate negotiations.

As a non-Annex I country to theUN Framework Convention on Climate Change(UNFCCC) it did not have to adopt a legally binding mitigation target under the Kyoto Protocol. Annex I status was based on membership of the OECD at the time, which Mexicoonly joinedshortly after the UNFCCCwas ratifiedin 1994.

Nevertheless, Mexico was one of the first countries toadopta voluntary mitigation target in 2008 and thefirst“developing country” to submit its NDC in the lead-up to the Paris Agreement in 2015.

Itwas alsoone of the first nations to submit along-term climate strategyafter the adoption of the Paris Agreement in 2016.

The leaders of Mexico, Canada and the US alsoagreedat their annual “three amigos” summit in 2016 to a North America-wide target of 50% clean power generation by 2025.

According toWRI, the nation’s position within the OECD has allowed it to play a “a bridging role” in climate negotiations between richer and poorer nations.

Mexico hosted COP16 in Cancún a year after the UN climate talks had largely collapsed in Copenhagen. Despite modest outcomes, the summit waswidelyviewed as a success and the Mexican leadershipwas praised．

COP president and Mexican foreign minister Patricia Espinosa was later selected for the role of UNFCCC executive secretary.

Part of the “Cancún agreements” was the launch of theGreen Climate Fund, which was, in part, intended to help raise $100bn a year by 2020 to help poorer nations with climate adaptation and mitigation. (This targethas notbeen met, with efforts partly hampered by theUS withdrawalfrom the fund during the Trump administration.)

Mexico wasa contributorto the fund in its “initial resource mobilisation” in 2014, pledging $10m of the $10.3bn total, but ithas notcontributed to the fund’s subsequent replenishment. The nation has also benefited from the fund, with four projects receiving $23m in financing.

Climate policies and laws

In 2012, Mexican parliament passed theGeneral Law on Climate Change, a comprehensive piece of legislation that includes emissions reduction targets and provides the institutional framework for their implementation.

Initially, the law included a 30% reduction in emissions by 2020 compared to BAU and a 50% reduction from 2000 levels by 2050. These objectives were conditional on international support.

It also has a target of 35% clean power generation by 2024 and, in 2015, theEnergy Transition Lawbuilt on this with shorter-term targets of 25% by 2018 and 30% by 2021. In addition, Mexicohasa longer-term target of 50% clean power by 2050.

The general climate change law was amended in 2018 to reference the Paris Agreement and incorporate Mexico’s NDC targets, including its unconditional goal.

These laws have been well received, with Mexicohailedas the “first developing country”and“the first large oil-producing emerging economy” to adopt climate legislation.

In formulating its climate law, Mexico took direct inspiration from the UK’s Climate Change Act, as well asadvice fromUK officials when creating the law.WWF-Mexico状态d in 2012 that the legislation put Mexico in “an elite global club, with the UK and its Climate Change Act as the only other members”.

However, despite these laws, Mexico’s climate progress has been slow and its emissions have continued to rise.

Even accounting for a pandemic-related dip, CAT hasconcludedthat Mexico will “most likely not achieve” its 2020 emissions pledge.yabo亚博体育app下载by climate thinktank Ember suggests that the nation only achieved its 25% clean power target last year – two years later than its target.

Unlike the UK’s legally binding system, the Mexican targets are not mandatory andyabo亚博体育app下载by theGrantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environmentat the London School of Economics concluded that the law lacks mechanisms for accountability and enforcement.

Asyabo亚博体育app下载由环境保护基金(EDF)表示the time, the lack of legally binding emissions limits meant that the “absolute strength of the law and whether it accomplishes its mitigation goals will depend on political will and leadership”.

Implementation of policies in line with the new lawshas beenpatchy. A report by the National Climate Policy Evaluation Committee – a body established by the climate change law – found that for the 2014-2018 period just 43% of policy areas were progressing according to schedule.

Nevertheless, across this period there wassome progress, including the expansion of clean energy projects and the development of acarbon tax．

Mexico has also piloted an emissions trading scheme (ETS). The formal launch is currently set for 2022, with up to 700 companiesexpectedto participate.

Wind and solar

Mexico has significant potential for renewable power owing tohigh solar radiationacross most of its territory andhigh wind speeds, particularly in southern states such as Oaxaca and Yucatan.

Wind and solar power have grown rapidly in recent years, expanding from 3% of the electricity mix in 2015 to 10% in 2020,according toEmber.

Progress on renewables has largely been tied to government views on the relative roles of the state and the private sector in supplying Mexico’s electricity. Changingpolitical currentsin recent years mean the future of Mexican renewables isnot guaranteed．

For decades, most of the electricity market was controlled by the state-ownedFederal Electricity Commission(CFE), with some private investment allowed in 1993.

The nation’s growing power demand was covered primarily by fossil fuels, as the chart below shows.

Electricity generation in Mexico by fuel, 1985-2020 (Terawatt hours). Figures for 2020 are calculated using % change from analysis conducted by the climate thinktank Ember. Source:BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2020andEmber Global Electricity Review 2021．Chart by Carbon Brief usingHighcharts．

In 2013, president Peña Nieto signed into law acomprehensive energy reform这是intendedto end CFE’s monopoly and allow greater competition in power generation and supply. It also reopened Mexico’s large oil and gas reserves to external investors.

It brought in two key laws, theElectricity Industry Lawand theEnergy Transition Law, to encourage private investment in the power sector.

The reform alsoreiterateda target of generating 35% of Mexico’s electricity from clean sources by 2024, with interim targets along the way.

According to an “energy outlook” published by theInternational Energy Agencyin 2016, the reform was “expected to reverse the country’s declining oil production, increase the share of renewables in the power sector and slow the growth in carbon emissions”.

Itincludedthe creation of clean energy certificates (CELs) that set a minimum level of clean electricity consumption for all large consumers, including CFE, and allowed for the purchase and sale of these certificates in a cap-and-trade scheme.

However, the current administration has backtracked on many of the 2013 reforms and tried tolimitthe privatisation of the energy sector. López Obrador hassaidhe wants CFE’s share of generation to remain at 54%, the level when he took office.

Wind and solar projects tend to be privately owned – often by foreign companies –running counterto the president’s nationalist ideals and desire for energy independence.

He hasdescribedwind turbines as “visual pollution” andaccusedrenewables developers of fraudulent activity and corruption.

In 2019, the governmentcancelledthe nation’s fourth long-term clean energy auction, despite previous rounds settingglobalrecordsfor low solar prices. This has created uncertainty for private investment and future energy prices.

Other actions include CFE cancelling the new high-voltageYautepec-Ixtepectransmission line from the wind power-rich state of Oaxaca and the National Energy Control Center (CENACE)pausing电网对新太阳能和风能项目ects.

Finally, during the pandemic the administration has introduced a比尔that critics have dubbed the “fuel oil law”, which prioritises power generated by CFE – including that derived from coal and oil – over cheaper, privately owned wind and solar power in the grid.

The governmentarguedthat the intermittent nature of renewables would not be able to sufficiently supply the grid during lockdown. [Experience in Europeshowed that grids were able to operate reliably despite higher renewable shares during lockdowns.]

The fuel oil law hasfacedlegal challenges in Mexico, withwarningsthat it could provoke trade disputes with other nations, including the US.

The new bill also modified CELs, allowing older hydropower, nuclear and geothermal plants owned by CFE to obtain them. Prior to the change,only projectsbuilt after 2014 qualified for CELs.

Companies responded withlegal actionwhen this was initially proposed in 2019, arguing the policy was meant to promote new renewables rather than prop up old infrastructure.

The move to prioritise CFE projects over private investors has sincebeen suspendedby a Mexican judge, and a decision from the nation’s Supreme Court on the matter is pending.

If the law does not gain approval from the court, López Obrador hassuggestedhe would change the constitution to allow it, just as his predecessor changed the constitution with his energy reform. A two-thirds majority for MORENA and its allies in the upcoming midterm elections could make this a possibility.

With renewable investments under threat, local governments in states including Nuevo León, Puebla and Querétar have beenchallengingthe federal government’s actions and searching for ways to ensure continued deployment.

When the energy reform legislation of 2013 was brought in, itreiteratedMexico’s goal to generate 35% of its electricity from clean sources by 2024 and imposed interim targets including 30% by 2021.Last year, just 25% of electricity came from clean sources.

López Obrador has said he is still committed to these clean power targets, butyabo亚博体育app下载by Wood Mackenzie suggests his government is on course to miss them as the current pipeline of wind and solar projects comes to a close.

Missing these national targets could have significant economic consequences. A Mexican governmentstudyfound that achieving a goal of 43% clean electricity by 2030 could increase employment in the electricity sector by 38% and make “considerable contributions to energy security”.

Hydropower and nuclear

Unlike with wind and solar, López Obrador’s administration has been supportive of hydropower and nuclear plants, which are largely owned and operated by the CFE.

Hydropower supplies 8%of Mexico’s electricity generation, more than any other single renewable source.

However, Mexicoonly generatesaround 27 terawatt hours (TWh) of hydroelectric power each year, less than a tenth of US generation and half of Colombia or Venezuela’s.

Expanding the nation’s hydropower capacity has been central to the current administration’s energy goals, with ahydroelectric policythat focuses on modernising existing plants.

CFE owns 59 of Mexico’s 86 hydropower plants, but according toArgus Media, as of 2019, only 14 of these plants were active. The president hassaidthat improving existing dams will be enough to supply the nation’s power needs without the need for new dams.

However, there areconcernsthat market challenges andpushbackfrom local communities could hamper the development of the nation’s hydropower and leave the power sector reliant on fossil fuels.

According tothe Mexican Association of Wind Power, each megawatt-hour (MWh) generated by CFE hydropower plants costs more than double the price of a MWh from the long-term renewable supply auctions cancelled by the government.

Prior to López Obrador taking power, hydropower growth hadstagnatedamid public opposition to large-scale projects, such as Chicoasen 2 in Chiapas, which has now been given the green light.

Mexico also hastwo nuclear reactorsat Laguna Verde generating around 4% of its electricity. Its first commercial nuclear power reactor began operating in 1989.

政府已renewedthe operating licence for unit one of the Laguna Verde plant for an additional 30 years to 2050, by which time it will have been in operation for 60 years.

According toreports, CFE has also been considering the development of new nuclear reactorsboth atthe Laguna Verde site and along the Pacific coast.

Oil and gas

Mexico was, as of 2019, the 13th biggest producer and13th largestconsumer of oil in the world, according toBP data．

Oil production has fallen from its peak in the early 2000s, but it still has asignificant placein Mexican culture.Fuel pricesand subsidies have been highly political issues in the nation.

In 1938, the状态seizednearly all of the assets of foreign-owned oil companies, effectively nationalising the industry.Oil Expropriation Dayis a national holiday and many view the state-run Mexican Petroleum (Pemex) as asource of pride．

TheMexican oil boombegan in the late 1970s, with Pemex discovering the Cantarell Field – the nation’s largest reserve – in the Gulf of Mexico in 1976. At itspeakin 2004, Cantarell was the world’s second largest oil field, producing 2.1m barrels per day.

With oil production in sharp decline and Pemex lacking the resources to tap into its remaining reserves, Peña Nieto’s energy reforms in 2013 were meant to attract private investment and reinvigorate the sector.

However, falling oil pricesalso hamperedhopes of private investment and opponents on the left, including López Obrador himself, saw the move as “theft” of Mexican resources.

When he took over from Peña Nieto in 2018, López Obrador set about modernising fossil fuel plants and building new oil infrastructure. At the heart of his administration’s agenda is the revitalisation of Pemex, which once powered the Mexican economy, but is now the world’smost indebtedoil company.

The centre point of this effort is theDos Bocasrefinery in the president’s home state of Tabasco, the construction of which has involvedcutting downprotected mangrove trees.

The president has vowed to end reliance on fuel imports, but as it stands the nation largelyrelieson the US to refine its low-quality oil and supply it with petroleum products.

Mexican oil is generally low quality and contaminated with sulphur. As the nation hasramped upits gasoline production it has been left with large volumes of high-sulphur fuel oil owing to its inefficient refineries. This has coincided with aglobal banon this dirty fuel in shipping.

As a result, the nation has turned to burning this “combustóleo” in power plants, replacing natural gas which isoften importedfrom the US and furtherdiscouragingthe development of renewables. Last year, 10% of Mexico’s electricity was produced by burning oil.

The president has alsopostponeda rule requiring low-sulphur diesel for vehicles until after he leaves office in late 2024.

Switching a power plant from natural gas – which currently provides 60% of Mexico’s electricity – to fuel oil increases its CO2 emissions by 16%,according toBloombergNEF.

Natural gas production in Mexico has beendecliningfor around a decade, with Pemex only managing to slow the decline under the current administration.

Despite this, from the outset the president hassaidhe would ban fracking and hasblocked effortsto launch operations in Mexico’s northern border states.

Meanwhile, progress on decarbonising the Mexican transport sector has been slow. Mexico made up more than一半of the Latin American electric vehicles market – which is just 1% of the global market – in 2019, but the current administrationdoes not provideany incentives to promote the industry.

Cars are the nation’sbiggest export, but there areconcernsthat the global shift to electric vehicles may leave Mexican factories behind.

Coal

As of January 2021, Mexico had 5,378MW of operating coal plants, according to theGlobal Coal Plant Tracker．This accounts for 4% of the nation’s total power generation.

Mexico’s electricity production from coal halved compared to the previous year in 2020, the largest percentage reduction of any G20 country.

While this dramatic dip was largely due to Covid-19, over the past five years Mexican coal generation has fallen 60%,according tothe climate thinktank Ember.

This decline in coal generation was made up by new wind and solar generation rather than natural gas, Ember says.

However, this trend could bereversedunder López Obrador, who has advocated for the reactivation of old coal plants while undermining new renewables development.

政府已allocated a budget for upgrading coal and other fossil-fuelled power plants, some of which had already been set for retirement under the previous administration.

Mexico also operates coal mines, although it is only home to around 0.1% of the world’s reserves.

The presidentvisitedthe coal mining regions of Coahuila at the end of 2020 to announce the reactivation of the CFE’s coal-fired plants,supplied withMexican coal. Nevertheless, the CFE hasinsistedthat it will continue to prioritise natural gas generation over coal.

Forestry and agriculture

Tree-planting has been a key part of Mexican environmental policy for years, although it has faced its share of controversy.

In 2007, during his first year as president, Calderón oversaw an initiative thatplanted250m trees across the nation, joining in by planting a pine tree in the grounds of his Mexico City residence.

While the scheme was praised by the UN, a Greenpeace Mexico studyfoundthat 74% of the trees that had been planted that year died and another 17% were sick. It also drew criticism for failing to offset the extensive deforestation taking place across the country.

According to theEconomist, the programme was “widely considered a failure”, with officials admitting at the time that at least 40% of the trees had died.

López Obrador has launched his owntree-planting programme– “Sowing Life” – which has been pitched primarily as a way tocreate jobsand stem migration by encouraging farmers to stay on their land.

In remarksmade during US president Biden’s virtual climate summit in April, López Obrador said that Mexico aimed to expand the programme to Central America.

Calling it “possibly the largest reforestation effort in the world,” the presidentsaidthe programme would create 1.2m jobs and plant 3bn additional trees. As a slightly incongruous afterthought, he suggested the US should offer work visas to those who had participated.

There is evidence that the programme may actually be having the opposite intended effect.

A study by the World Resources Institute and investigation byBloombergsuggested the initiative may have caused 73,000 hectares of forest loss in 2019.

Farmers told Bloomberg they had cut down trees in order to access government grants to plant saplings on the land. López Obrador hassaidhe will investigate these claims.

Deforestation continues to be anissueacross the nation. According to theFAO, between 2010-2020 Mexico experienced a net loss of 125,100 hectares of forest each year.

Nevertheless, according to anational inventorysubmitted to the UNFCCC in 2018 by the Mexican government, the nation’s agriculture, forestry and other land use (AFOLU) sector has remained a fairly consistent net carbon sink from 1990-2015, absorbing 50-60MtCO2e each year.

(This is different from the LULUCF values in the infographic above, which are based on CAIT data and suggest Mexican land is predominantly a source of emissions. The datasets are not directly comparable as unlike AFOLU, LULUCF does not include agricultural land.)

According to the inventory, livestock is a sizable source of emissions, responsible for around a tenth of the total in 2015.

While there is little political discussion around cutting emissions from the nation’s agriculture, there isrecognitionthat global warming is already having an impact on Mexican farmers.

Impacts and adaptation

According to Mexico’ssixth national communicationto the UNFCCC from 2019:

“Mexico is a particularly vulnerable country to impacts of climate change due to its geographical location, its topography and its socioeconomic characteristics.”

As many of these changes are “mostly unavoidable” the document notes that adaptation is “necessary and urgent”.

Located between the Pacific Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico, and spanning regions of desert, rainforest and mountains, the nation is vulnerable to tropical cyclones and flooding, as well as droughts and heatwaves, all of whichcan be exacerbatedby climate change.

The annual mean temperature of the nation hasalreadyrisen by around 1.5C since the 1850-1900 period.

In 2021, Mexicoexperiencedone of its most intense droughts in decades, which affected nearly 85% of the country in April and sawmore than60 large reservoirs go below 25% capacity.

Research has also linked climate change to a wider “mega drought” that has been impacting northern parts of the country for almost two decades.

These extreme dry conditions will likely have significant knock-on effects, withone studysuggesting that drought-induced crop failures could drive millions of Mexicans to migrate.

A government adaptationdocumentfor the coming decade notes that between 1970 and 2013, of the 22 category 3 cyclones that struck the coasts of the Mexican Pacific and Atlantic oceans, 10 had occurred in the previous 12 years.

Climate change has also been linked to thestrengthof hurricanes that affect Mexico. In coastal regions, sea level rise and storm surges alsothreatenlow-lying infrastructure and the tourism industry.

Mexico has assembled various plans to adapt to the impacts of climate change and adaptation features in the General Climate Change Law itself.

The country’sNational Strategy on Climate Change(ENCC) is a planning mechanism for medium- and long-term climate action, which includes adaptation as one of its priorities. It identifies 1,385 municipalities, home to 27 million people, which have high climate-related disaster risk.

The current administration hasidentifiedadaptation and nature-based solutions as important areas of focus.