Mexico Passes Climate Change Law

The Mexican legislature has recently passed a climate change law. As reported in Nature, the new  law will reduce emissions
of carbon dioxide by 30 percent below business-as-usual levels by 2020, and by
50 percent below 2000 levels by 2050. The law also mandates that Mexico will derive 35
percent of its electricity from renewable resources 2024. The climate change
bill passed Mexico’s lower house with a vote of 128 for and 10 against and in
the Senate the legislation passed unanimously.

The strong support in both the house and the Senate suggests the Mexico’s
legislators are not concerned about the country’s fossil fuel
industry. According to U.S. based petroleum consultancy DeGolyer and
MacNaughton, the country sits on the world’s third-largest petroleum
reserves.

This legislation is much needed as Mexico is both the world’s
11th largest economy and
11th largest GHG emitter.

The next hurdle will be ensuring that this legislation is acted upon. “We’re very good at making laws. And
then the problem is enforcing them,” Juan Bezaury, a Mexican public policy
expert with the Nature Conservancy, told Nature.