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Mexico Announces Plans To Expand Renewable Energy Usage

Webster

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(The Guardian) Mexico has announced plans to expand renewables – specifically, to deploy an additional 30GW of combined wind, solar, geothermal and hydroelectricity capacity by 2030, writes Nina Lakhani.

This national renewable goal “will be a foundation for achieving Mexico’s updated nationally determined contribution, including an unconditional target to reduce emissions by 35% from business-as-usual levels by 2030,” said the US embassy in Mexico. This is up from an unconditional pledge of 22% cuts from business-as-usual made two years ago. Mexico’s emissions are projected to continue rising until 2030.

Carlos Flores, an energy policy expert in Mexico, said that coming up with 30GW of new clean energy in eight years will be “almost impossible”.

Let’s break this down.

Since being elected in 2018, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (Amlo) has repeatedly tried to dismantle the 2013 energy reforms which gave renewables an advantage due to their low costs. And while he’s been thwarted by the courts, his policies and anti-renewables rhetoric has caused uncertainty and mistrust among investors. “While there is a global appetite for investing huge amounts in renewables, why would anyone come to Mexico after what Amlo has done,” said Flores. “Between 2010 and 2018, 14,000MW of renewables were built in Mexico. Today, with everything against them, how will they build more than double?”

Another sticking point is the transmission network, which is the responsibility of the national electricity commission. All expansion projects were halted after Amlo took office.

The 35% unconditional pledge may be good news, but it’s impossible to say given that Mexico will not define cuts in relation to a specific baseline year, only on a “business as usual” scenario.

Climate Action Tracker’s Mexico analyst, Maria Jose de Villafranca, from the NewClimate Institute, said: “President Lopez Obrador has largely focused on dismantling climate policies and prioritising fossil fuels. A stronger target would be welcome, but until we can understand what baseline he is using, we cannot quantify whether this announcement is an improvement.”

The Mexican government has been approached for comment.

On a side note, Amlo is among several G20 leaders from some of the biggest polluting nations that include Brazil, India, and Australia, who didn’t show up for Cop.
 

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