Mexico's new president promises to resume the fight against climate change

MEXICO CITY (AP) — In her first days as Mexico's new president, Claudia Sheinbaum explicitly distanced herself from the fossil fuel dependency promoted by her predecessor and mentor, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, and vowed to restart the energy transition he halted.

“We will strengthen renewable energies. “The goal is for them to have a 45% share (of total electricity production) by 2030,” she said on Tuesday in her first public speech in the capital's Zocalo Square, shortly after she was sworn in as the country's first female president was.

Specific details are still sparse, but her speech marked a sharp departure from the energy policies of former President López Obrador, a passionate supporter of fossil fuels who, among other things, spent more than $20 billion to build a new oil refinery and halted auctions for it has enabled developers to build solar and wind farms in the country.

The president said she would unveil an “ambitious energy transition program” in the coming days aimed at “reducing the greenhouse gases that cause climate change.”

But Sheinbaum has also promised to strengthen the country's Federal Electricity Commission, which owns older plants that burn mostly fossil fuels, as well as the state oil company Pemex.

Even without details, experts and environmentalists said the change in rhetoric was notable.

“The terms 'sustainability' or 'renewable energy' really never appeared in López Obrador's policies,” said Rosanety Barrios, who worked at Mexico's Energy Regulatory Commission for more than a decade. “He never used the term in any speech or document. And she used it all the time.”

During her campaign, Sheinbaum repeatedly promised to promote renewable energy to meet increasing demand for electricity, driven in part by rising temperatures due to climate change. In a speech to Congress, also on Tuesday, with López Obrador sitting a few steps away, the promises seemed more tangible.

The goal of reaching 45% clean electricity by 2030 is significantly higher than last year's 24%, according to the Energy Department. If achieved, Mexico would be back on track to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement, which aims to keep the global average temperature to no more than two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

The energy policies promoted by López Obrador led Climate Action Tracker, an organization that assesses the actions countries are taking to comply with the Paris Agreement, to downgrade Mexico's rating to “critically inadequate.”

In her speech to Congress, the president also announced the country's first limit on oil production – 1.8 million barrels per day. All crude oil in Mexico is produced by Pemex, and this amount is roughly equivalent to the amount the company produced on an average day in 2023.

That's far less than the 2.6 million barrels per day López Obrador promised at the start of his term.

Sheinbaum recalled that more than a decade ago, a 2013 energy reform pushed by then-President Enrique Peña Nieto called for production of 3 million barrels per day. “It’s ecologically impossible,” she said. “It is better to promote efficiency and renewable energy sources.”

At the same time, however, Sheinbaum has vowed to “strengthen Pemex,” and she has never criticized the construction of the new Dos Bocas refinery, paying several visits to it with López Obrador.

Experts said Mexico is unable to increase oil production using traditional methods because its fields are depleted.

“Mexico has 10 years of oil left at current production rates, which is modest. Mexico is almost out of oil,” said Adrian Fernandez, who has a doctorate in environmental science from Imperial College London and runs the Mexico Climate Initiative, a think tank.

Still, Fernández praised Sheinbaum's words “because it means she won't try to increase oil production.”

Mexico would need to invest significant resources in either hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking, or deep-sea exploration to increase production beyond current levels, he said. So far the country has rejected both.

Fernández also said that Sheinbaum's speech was “completely consistent with her experience and knowledge.” The president has a doctorate in energy engineering and a degree in physics and was a member of the UN panel of experts on climate change that won the Nobel Prize in 2007.

This week, Sheinbaum witnessed firsthand the devastating effects of climate change in Mexico. On Wednesday, she visited Acapulco in the southern state of Guerrero on her first trip as head of government to survey the damage caused by Hurricane John, which struck the coast last week first as a hurricane and then again as a tropical storm.

The storm left a trail of devastation as the city was still recovering from last year's Hurricane Otis. The strength of both hurricanes was accelerated by rising ocean temperatures due to global warming.

The big question, however, is whether the new president can achieve her goals within Mexico's current legal framework. Before leaving office, López Obrador pushed through a constitutional reform that heavily favors the Federal Electricity Commission.

On the one hand, Sheinbaum has supported this change in the law, promising that the state will retain control of 54% of electricity production. On the other hand, she said she would once again encourage private investment in renewable energy, something the previous government discouraged with rules still in place in favor of state CFE.

“In my view, the biggest problem Claudia has is legal uncertainty,” said Barrios.

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