The visit this Monday of the special envoy of the US Government for climate change, John Kerry, has resulted in a new approach of positions in the face of a future bilateral agenda. The Mexican Government took heart from its greatest environmental commitment, the social program of reforestation of thousands of trees in the south of the country and Kerry recognized the virtues of a project that is also based on the creation of agricultural employment and thus stop the things of migration . “We recognize that these forests can be a source of prosperity and a symbol of Mexico’s leadership at a critical moment for climate change,” said the US representative at an event in Palenque, just a step away from the border with Central America.
The intention of Mexico is, in fact, to extend the program known as Sembrando Vida to the countries of the south, linking the green agenda to immigration and to involve the US government in the company. Negotiations are progressing slowly after a frustrated first attempt. In April, in the run-up to the Climate Leaders Summit, the United States discarded the first Mexican proposal that involved offering work visas to Central Americans in exchange for contributing to reforestation.
The Mexican president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, published a letter last month addressed to his counterpart Joe Biden where he urged him to join a plan that, according to his accounts, involves the planting of three million hectares in Central America that would create 1 , 3 million jobs in the region. A plan that, in addition to the joint investment of both countries, would also have the support of the other great Mexican commitment, the cooperation and development project announced in 2019 and sponsored by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC).
The letter was responded to by the White House agreeing to carry out a first “joint pilot test.” On the eve of a new UN summit on climate change and in the absence of specifying figures and deadlines, Kerry limited himself for the moment to underlining the strategic importance of Mexico in environmental matters and announcing that it is a collaboration that he wants to “take further ”. López Obrador expressed himself in similar terms: “The US Government has the will that this program (Sembrando Vida) be expanded and thus also face the migratory phenomenon.”
Despite not fully embracing the agenda of the call Green New DealFlag of the most progressive sector of the Democratic side, Biden has shown that the environmental agenda is one of his priorities. In September, he announced an ambitious plan that aims to transform the electricity industry in the United States: to achieve that by 2050 45% of electricity comes from solar energy. A month earlier, he signed an executive order setting a goal for half of the new cars sold in the United States by 2030 to be electric or zero-emission – battery, fuel cell or plug-in hybrids.
Green politics has been one of the most worrying issues on the bilateral agenda from the beginning. López Obrador has redoubled his commitment to coal and oil. As a result, renewable energies are in decline, before the clear political line of rescuing at all costs the splendor of Pemex and CFE, the two old public energy companies. López Obrador’s orthodox energy policies have already caused diplomatic friction with the European Union and Canada.
In addition to defending the effectiveness of his agricultural program, for which he has invested 1,300 million dollars with a result of 450,000 jobs, López Obrador also mentioned his other objectives in terms of energy policy: “We are going to boost electricity by generating with water and we are going to limit oil extraction exclusively to domestic consumption ”.
Subscribe here to newsletter of EL PAÍS México and receive all the informative keys of the current situation of this country
#recognizes #Mexicos #environmental #leadership #reforestation #projects