“The construction of the new Olmeca refinery, the purchase of the rest of the shares of the Deer Park refinery, the modernization of the other six refineries and the redesign of the strategy for crude oil extraction has allowed the beginning of the recovery of Pemex. Its strategic role for the development of the country has been revalued, while it has managed to recover and expand the generating capacity of electrical energy,” they point out.
“Andrés Manuel was called the ‘oil president’ and yes, he had an affinity for the exploitation of fossil fuels, however, he decided – not because of environmental issues – to close the possibility of exploiting oil wells in the Gulf of Mexico, that It’s something interesting. We came from a brutal opening with the Peña Nieto government that completely opened the Gulf of Mexico and granted concessions not only for shallow waters, but also for deep waters, which have a greater risk of spills,” said Renata Terrazas, from Oceana.
Unlike her predecessor, President Claudia Sheinbaum has declared that the energy transition will be her priority and promised that, by 2030, 45% of the country’s energy generation will be through renewable energy.
“With AMLO’s combination of not opening more wells in deep waters and with Claudia Sheinbaum’s commitment to renewables, the very clear path is that the Gulf of Mexico has to be closed to future oil exploration and exploitation. Everything that is not concessioned should no longer be concessioned again because it would increase Mexico’s participation in the emission of greenhouse gases,” highlighted the specialist in oceans and public policies.
International agenda
The environmental path that nations take together towards 2030 is decisive. Next year marks the 15th anniversary of the Paris Agreement and for the next COP30, to be held in Belem, Brazil, countries must present progress and new commitments regarding their goals for reducing polluting emissions (NDC). English).
“Claudia Sheinbaum ends her six-year term in 2030, the year in which three goals related to international agreements must be met: the Paris Agreement and its goal of reducing polluting emissions; the commitments of the Biodiversity Convention are met [Marco Mundial de Biodiversidad Kunming-Montreal] which establishes that countries must protect 30% of marine waters and 30% of the terrestrial part, and the Escazú Agreement, which is not up to 2030, but for which national implementation plans must be presented,” says Gustavo Alanís, who has participated in almost all the COPs held.
For the expert, we are in a time of great uncertainty. The interests of rich countries, industrialized countries and oil companies prevail over the global environmental agenda, which includes people and the flora and fauna of all ecosystems.
“In practice, rich countries are not meeting their climate commitments. In 2010 they committed that starting in 2020 they were going to provide 100 billion dollars a year so that poor countries and the most vulnerable countries could implement climate adaptation measures, and that never happened, that money was never put on the table. So the big question is, who can guarantee that now that they have tripled the figure (300 billion dollars) they are going to put in that money? Furthermore, in a context where we do not know what the financial architecture is going to be, what the deadlines are going to be, the type of schedule. In short, it is not at all clear and time is running out,” he concludes.
What awaits us in 2025?
The academic and specialized community consulted for this report openly agrees that the people who make up Claudia Sheinbaum’s environmental agenda constitute “one of the most professional and coordinated cabinets we have had in this century”, who are “very competent, well-known and experienced”, and that “the environmental agenda is in good hands”. However, “we must understand that they do not do magic” and the expectation is very high: they are high-level profiles who will have to face a six-year period marked by scarcity of resources.
The big pending issue is tax reform. Mexico is one of the most unequal OECD countries and collects the least. Tax collection amounts to just 14% of GDP, less than half of the OECD average, which is 34%, and lower than other similar Latin American countries.
“Many of the changes that are being proposed require money and if the government is not willing to raise money better, we are going to have a problem where everything is going to remain good intentions,” commented Terrazas.
For Leticia Merino, taxes in Mexico continue to be very regressive and that leads us to the situation of having a very slim state. “A large part of the contributions are paid by people like you and me through VAT. “A tax reform is required to avoid financing social programs at the expense of thinning the State to the point of ineffectiveness.”
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