Mexico unveils plan to cap greenhouse gas emissions by 2026

theguardian.com

Reuters in Washington

Friday 27 March 2015

• Plan promises 22% greenhouse gas emissions cut by 2030
• Mexico one of first to submit national climate plan to UN before Paris talks

A woman and a boy walk past wind turbines and an electricity tower at La Ventosa in the Mexican state of Jalisco. Photograph: Stringer/Mexico/Reuters

 

 

Mexico on Friday said it will cap its greenhouse gas emissions by 2026, becoming one of the first countries to formally submit its national climate plan to the United Nations ahead of a climate summit in Paris in December.
Mexico’s foreign and environment ministries presented the national climate submission in Mexico City, unveiling a strategy to begin reducing emissions by 2026, leading to a 22% reduction in greenhouse gases below business-as-usual levels by 2030.

           

After 2026, Mexico greenhouse gas emissions would become decoupled from economic growth, leading to a 40% reduction in emissions intensity per unit of GDP between 2013 and 2030, according to its submission.

Mexico also pledged to slash emissions of “short-lived climate pollutants (SLCP)”, such as soot and methane, by 25% below business as usual by 2030.

Mexico set its targets unconditionally, without requiring financial support from developed countries. But it said it could raise its 2030 greenhouse gas reduction target to 36% and its SLCP target to 40% if it gained access to climate funds and technology or if there were a global carbon price.

After Mexico unveiled the targets, President Enrique Pena Nieto and the US president, Barack Obama, announced a new joint climate policy task force to “further deepen policy and regulatory coordination in specific areas” including vehicle fuel efficiency, appliance standards and electricity grid modernisation.

The White House praised Mexico for being the first major emerging economy to submit its national strategy, known in UN jargon as its intended nationally determined contribution (INDC) to the United Nations. The United States is expected to submit its own plan early next week.

 

“Mexico is setting an example for the rest of the world by submitting an INDC that is timely, clear, ambitious, and supported by robust, unconditional policy commitments,” the White House said in a statement.

Christina McCain of the Environmental Defense Fund said Mexico’s unconditional commitment “demonstrates that 21st century economies are recognising low-carbon growth as the path of the future”.

Originally, the hope had been that many countries would accept a UN invitation “for those ready to do so” to submit their national plans by 31 March, leaving time to compare and perhaps toughen them before Paris.

“We now expect many, many more countries to submit their INDCs over the coming days, weeks and months,” said Nick Nuttall, spokesman for the UN secretariat.

Reform secures modernization

Thursday, 17 July 2014 01:10

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

thenews.com.mx

Reform secures modernization

Legislators praise changes in the government

BY VÍCTOR MAYÉN

The News

Senators and deputies of the PRI and the PAN in the Permanent Committee said on Wednesday that the secondary energy reform laws, passed by the Energy and First Legislative Studies Committees in the Senate, represent the path of modernization for Mexico and secures the countries position as one of the ten most important economies in the world.

The legislators criticized leftist conservatives for being resistant to change in the energy sector.

Institutional Revolution Party (PRI) Coordinator in the Chamber of Deputies, Manlio Fabio Beltrones Rivera said that this is an important act of modernization initiated by President Enrique Peña Nieto with the proposal he presented to congress on April 30.

“We are in a moment of modernization in every sector,” said Beltrones. “This legislation presented by President Enrique Peña Nieto also creates progress and clarity in the energy sector. These laws are for the benefit of everyone, not to negatively affect certain land owners who have owned their property for a lifetime. They too should benefit from our progress.”

For his part, Senate PRI Coordinator Emilio Gamboa Patrón said that the laws will have enormous benefits for the country and its citizens.

“This is fundamental and we will continue to modernize the country as is necessary because Mexico can be, without a doubt, among the ten most important economies in the world,” said Gamboa.

“I am sure that this reform and the telecommunications reform will create much more economic vitality in our country and generate jobs with higher salaries for employees. I am convinced that this reform will benefit Mexico.”

National Action Party (PAN) Deputy and Secretary of the Energy Committee Rubén Camarillo Ortega said that the law passed in the Senate includes a large number of the proposals presented by the PAN. He said that energy reform, in theory, will create an additional 1.5 percent Gross Domestic Product growth annually.

The reforms and the new laws create the possibility for increased petroleum production, reaffirm Mexico’s sovereignty with respect to hydrocarbon property and create jobs with higher pay, said the deputy.

The left fails to see the short, medium and long term benefits of this reform for the Mexican people, said Ortega.

FIDE Offers Zona Dorada Businesses Credit to Modernize

by Maureen Dietrich

30 Jun 14  

mazmessenger.com

 

In a meeting held yesterday with members of the Zona Dorada business association, Daniel Vergera Dueñas, representative of the federal Fideicomiso para el Ahorro de Energía Eléctrica (FIDE) outlined credit programs to update electrical equipment with new technology and reduce consumption by 40 percent.

Vergera Dueñas explained that any business interested in modernizing its equipment through the Programa de Eficiencia Elécrica could apply for credit of 50,000 up to 50 million pesos at an interest rate of 8.33 percent plus IVA.

A second program, Programa de Ahorro y Eficiencia Energética Empresarial, focuses on smaller establishments such as boutiques, corner supermarkets and family stores. Those businesses can apply for credit of up to 350,000 pesos at an interest of 14 percent plus IVA, to be repaid within three years. 

(from Noroeste)

Mexico’s Pemex to Modernize Service Stations as It Readies for Competition

laht.com

MEXICO CITY – Mexican state-owned oil giant Petroleos Mexicanos said it will modernize its 10,900 service stations nationwide as it prepares for competitors to enter the market starting in 2018.

Pemex is “building a franchise of modern, strong, profitable and well-positioned service stations,” CEO Emilio Lozoya said Thursday at the inauguration of an annual petroleum retailers’ convention in the Caribbean city of Playa del Carmen.

He added that the company’s network of service stations, which meet demand in a country with 25 million automobiles, must not only offer the highest-quality fuel but also top-of-the-line service to more demanding customers.

Last December’s energy overhaul, whose implementing legislation is currently being debated in Congress, allows private players into Mexico’s oil industry for the first time since it was nationalized in 1938.

The modernization measures being considered include re-launching Pemex’s brand, improving the image of the company’s gas stations and customer service, bringing new products to market and forging partnerships with leading companies.

Some measures have already been implemented, including a training program that will eventually reach more than 26,000 managers, supervisors and sales staff, Lozoya said.

Pemex sells a daily average of 771,000 barrels of gasoline on the domestic market, with 57 percent of the total coming from its network of six refineries nationwide and rest from imports.

EPN unveils funds to modernize ports

Monday, 02 June 2014 01:10

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

thenews.com.mx

Navy Secretary Soberón’s achievements are praised

THE NEWS

After honoring the work of Navy Secretary Vidal Francisco Soberón Sanz on Navy Day, President Enrique Peña Nieto unveiled Sunday an ambitious program to modernize Mexican ports and its maritime fleet.

At an official dinner in Tampico, Tamaulipas to honor members of the Navy and all maritime workers, the president outlined a four-part plan for the future of Mexican maritime policy.

The first is to update the regulatory framework for the protection of the seas and ports.

The second part will expand and modernize the port infrastructure, the third will invest more than 3 billion pesos in the fishing industry, and the fourth will modernize the maritime fleet.

The president took the opportunity to highlight the agreement signed by the Navy’s Soberón and Secretary of Tourism Claudia Ruiz Massieu Salinas to train and certify lifeguards working on the tourist beaches of Mexico.

“We will work together to stop the inertia which threatens to slow our development,” said Soberón. “Reform is a positive change that will bring prosperity to Mexico.”

He expressed his solidarity with the president in support of structural reform, especially in the energy sector.

As part of the celebration of Navy Day, President Peña Nieto led a ceremony to honor sailors who have died in the line of duty, for which he threw a wreath into the sea from the ship Papaloapan

‘Mexico’s fishing sector improving’

Monday, 21 April 2014 01:10

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

thenews.com.mx

Country is reducing incidental catches: FAO

BY CIRCE VARGÓN

The News

MEXICO CITY – The United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) on Sunday said that Mexico is advancing in making its fishing industry more sustainable and reducing incidental catches.

Incidental catch refers to fish caught in large nets by commercial fishermen that are not commercially sought after, and are not returned to the water.

FAO representative Nuria Urquía Fernández said that the country has managed to reduce the amount of “rough fish” caught by commercial fishermen, as this is one of the organization’s main fishing concerns in the region. She added that the Mexican Food Production Secretariat (Sagarpa) and the National Fishing Institute (Inapesca) have been working closely with the FAO to reduce incidental catches.

Urquía Fernández said that the FAO has established a code of conduct of better fishing practices, and that Mexico has received an award in its efforts in preventing incidental catch, including the freeing of dolphins caught in tuna nets.

Inapesca Director-General Raúl Adán Romo Trujillo said that a general interest exists to ensure that the fishing industry does not generate a negative environmental impact where ships operate, adding that his institute has worked on the design of new fishing methods and equipment to avoid incidental catch and allow for the freeing of non-targeted fish.

FAO Fisheries and Aquaculture representative Suuronen Petri said that his organization’s joint project with the Latin American and Caribbean region has the objective of promoting the regulation of fishing on a global level.

He said that the Global Environmental Fund (GEF) — a fund with a 2014 budget of $6 million — is how the FAO promotes projects oriented to improving fishing practices with the goal of making them sustainable.

National Aquaculture and Fishing Commission (Conapesca) director Adrián Salgado Vargas said that Mexico already has a legal framework in place that has promoted a sustainable fishing industry, a greater availability of seafood products and a continued job flow in the industry.

He said that an example of this increased sustainability is the mandatory use of turtle excluder devices, which allows animals larger than 10 centimeters to escape capture.

ASU scientist finds women shaping Mexico's shrimp industry

phys.org

by Judy Crawford

Growing up in a small, coastal town in Puerto Rico with grandfathers who were both farmers, Maria Cruz-Torres knew from a young age the impact of the environment on people's livelihoods. So it was perhaps a natural thing for the Arizona State University anthropologist to focus her research on the relationship between adequate fishing resources and food security in northwestern Mexico – where she has discovered that women in particular play a critical role.

Cruz-Torres comes from a family of strong Latina women that includes her mother and three sisters, besides her father. She was the one who loved the sciences and dreamed of becoming a doctor one day. But in her second year of medical school at the University of Puerto Rico, the internationally recognized scholar balked at performing an autopsy and realized that medicine was not for her.

"I couldn't tell my family that I didn't want to be a doctor," said Cruz-Torres, associate professor in ASU's School of Transborder Studies and senior sustainability scientist in the Global Institute of Sustainability. "My mother is a nurse and wanted me to become a physician, and I wanted her to be proud of me."

But another door opened when her affinity for the natural world led Cruz-Torres to switch her major to marine biology, inspired by Puerto Rico's first female marine biologist with a doctorate, Alida Ortiz. Cruz-Torres took the professor's seminar in fisheries her senior year. The topic she tackled – the social aspects of the country's fisheries – up to that point had been little explored.

So her professor connected Cruz-Torres with a worldwide expert in maritime anthropology, Bonnie McCay, Board of Governors Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of Human Ecology of the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences at Rutgers University. Cruz-Torres moved to New Jersey and eventually earned her doctorate in anthropology/human ecology under McCay's tutelage.

Studying Mexico's fisheries-dependent communities

In searching for a location for her postdoctoral research, Cruz-Torres said it was Mexico that offered the support she needed: "The Minister of Fisheries in Mexico City sent me several books and asked me to come," she said. "He also connected me with another woman, a well-known historian who was writing about fisheries, and asked her to be my mentor."

It was 1990 and Mexico had just begun raising shrimp in hatcheries under a United Nations program to expand rural development, Cruz-Torres explained. At the time, the fisheries obtained their larvae from the ocean, where wild shrimp were abundant.

Cruz-Torres centered her research on the fisheries-dependent coastal communities of Sinaloa, a state in western Mexico on the Gulf of California. The University of Sinaloa has a marine sciences department that trains students in fisheries and aquaculture, and a local technical school offers a fisheries degree, but not much research was being done on the social and sustainability aspects of shrimp aquaculture, she said.

"Shrimp in this region has a lot of value," Cruz-Torres said. "It is not only an export commodity, but it is consumed locally. People living there, in fact, have shrimp recipes for every social occasion.

"My research also is showing that shrimp is used as a currency, such as paying for a visit to the doctor. Especially in Mazatlan, Americans and Canadians living there accept shrimp as payment for things they provide to locals, such as clothes and services."

Cruz-Torres pointed out that this agricultural region uses a lot of pesticides and fertilizers. Some of the chemicals and metals they contain end up in lagoons and estuaries, even washing into the ocean where they are being found in fish and marine organisms.

"For many people, the shrimp industry is their main livelihood allowing them to survive on a daily basis," she explained. "When those fishing resources are depleted, there are not many options. But one of them is for people to migrate."

How Mexican women are changing the shrimp industry

Cruz-Torres said that women are key players in helping these communities cope with a changing fishing industry. Her research is identifying several significant trends. One is that not only men are migrating north to find work in maquiladoras, border factories run by United States companies in Mexico. Young women, even entire families, are leaving Sinaloa to find jobs in Mexicali and Tijuana, she said.

"They come with expectations, but often the high cost of living and the stress of living in the U.S. cause them to return," Cruz-Torres said. "Sometimes they save enough money from working in the U.S. to buy land, build homes and start their own businesses back in Mexico."

The anthropologist said that women are also organizing unions and becoming labor activists to improve working conditions in both the border-town maquiladoras and in Sinaloa's shrimp fisheries. Additionally, more and more of them are managing small family businesses that sell shrimp within the larger hierarchy of Mazatlan's seafood processing and marketing industry.

"I think my research will give visibility to women in the fishing industry," Cruz-Torres explained. "Instead of being an invisible part of the labor force, these women are becoming a very important part of the popular culture now. They are almost famous in many ways."

For her part, Cruz-Torres has been able to capture the women's stories via her research, said McCay, calling the scientist "exceptional" as an interviewer and ethnographer.

"Maria has proved the ability to endure exceptional hardships in difficult environments and communities – harsh deserts, extreme poverty, prevalent crime and corruption – and to gain the trust and confidence of people who have so many reasons to distrust any outsider, particularly someone with pencil, paper and tape recorder in hand," McCay said.

"The trust and confidence given to Dr. Cruz by the people of the communities in western Mexico that she has studied are extremely valuable, and Dr. Cruz goes further in respecting this value by writing the brilliant accounts of their lives that figure in her articles and books."