The wreckage of the two vehicles after Tuesday's accident. civil protection jalisco
Seven people were killed and another three were injured in Jalisco on Tuesday when a cargo truck tipped over onto a family’s pickup on the Jalostotitlán-Tepatitlán highway near San Miguel del Alto about 122 kilometers northeast of Guadalajara.
The truck, which was transporting bicycles, sustained a mechanical fault, according to one report.
The driver lost control and the truck tipped over, killing the two men traveling inside, and severely injuring another.
Two children, two men and a woman traveling in the pickup were crushed by the falling truck and two other people in the pickup were injured.
A video uploaded to social media showed that both vehicles were destroyed in the collision. The pickup also caught fire, Jalisco Civil Protection said.
Civil Protection officers, firefighters, Red Cross paramedics, National Guard personnel and investigators attended the accident. Officials from the Jalisco Institute for Forensic Science (IJCF) recovered the bodies.
Alexis Sánchez acted soon after 5:30 p.m. Saturday to avoid an explosion in a restaurant in Benito Juárez, southwest of the historic center, in what the media outlet Telediario compared to a scene from a Hollywood film.
Sánchez explained how the event unfolded:“We were trying to turn off the tank, but would not turn off because the valve was broken, so at the instruction of our superiors, it was ordered removed,” he said.
He added that he was the right person to be called upon. “We are a team of six to seven people, but I believe that it was my courage, the energy inside of me, that allowed me to remove the 45-kilogram cylinder,” he said.
The moment in which Sánchez fled the restaurant with the tank was caught on video and went viral online.
Once he placed the tank upright on the street outside, his colleagues attempted to spray the flames to extinguish them, but it wasn’t until one of the firefighters approached the tank to close the valve that the blaze was brought under control.
No reports of injury or material damage have been recorded, Telediario reported.
The manager of the restaurant, Arturo Quiroz, praised the firefighters. “For me, they are heroes — how they resolved the situation. The courage of this firefighter to take the flaming tank, to remove it and to try to avoid the greatest possible risk in the facilities, I am very grateful to the firefighters; the truth is they acted incredibly. I am still a little emotional about the situation: the truth is that we must all support the firefighters for these kinds of actions,” he said.
Twitter users were equal in their praise. “The firefighter who carried the burning gas tank on his shoulder. Medal winning … far surpasses any Marvel character!” wrote one Twitter user, comparing the Sánchez to a superhero from the Marvel movie franchise.
Another of the firefighters, Adrián Santana, explained the versatility demanded of him and his colleagues.
“What we usually attend to most are gas leaks. Anything that could be an emergency, but normally it is gas leaks, fallen trees and, yes, we attend fires … [but] a lot of people confuse us with only that,” he said.
A still from 7 Million and Rising, a INUTW film about the Latin American indigenous group Guardians of the Forest's participation in the 2019 Global Climate Strike in the US. INUTW
“We are our own stories,” says Lupe Puc, a Maya elder. “And the medium is not important; it’s the sharing of who we are that makes us.”
For the indigenous communities of Mexico, storytelling is the most crucial means available for exchanging knowledge, and now — with the help of filmmaking technology — for sharing their stories more widely.
Since 2014, the innovative and groundbreaking film production company If Not Us Then Who (INUTW) has been producing films that identify and empower individuals the world over — including in Puebla — enabling voices that highlight the role of indigenous communities as stewards of their lands and raising awareness for their political plight.
“As the climate crisis hurtles towards disaster,” explains Puc, “and the rights of rural communities are being bulldozed by government corporations intent on expansion at any cost, it is vital that communities are able to represent their own perspectives, and INUTW is helping to achieve that.”
If Not Us Then Who began as a production company known as Handcrafted Films, run by British filmmakers Paul Redman and Tim Lewis. Lewis now works as the organization’s general director.
If Not Us Then Who not only funds and trains indigenous people to make documentaries about their situations, it organizes screenings around the world. INUTW
In the beginning, Redman and Lewis were idealistic travelers dreaming of using documentary filmmaking as a forum to raise the voices of the communities they visited when they reached the Philippines: there they had seen firsthand the widespread deforestation caused by palm oil plantations.
They began documenting the impact on the people there. But, despite their best efforts, they found that there was something missing.
INUTW’s regional coordinator Thalía Castillo explains that it came down to who was telling the stories.
“They were trying to be as faithful as they could to the authentic point of view of the communities, but as a filmmaker you can never step out of your own perspective. So the goal changed; it became about teaching people in communities to be communicators and to make the films themselves so that they could spread their voices globally.”
And so began, slowly, the process of training people to create their own documentaries.
Initially, training was informal, but when, years later, the young people they had worked with began to produce short films, it became clear that there was scope for a new dream.
Paul Redman, one of the founders of If Not Us Then Who, was inspired by Filipino climate activist Yeb Saño’s speech at the UN in 2013. Twitter
Thus was born the Emerging Filmmakers Professional Development Programme, which uses master classes and workshops to support indigenous storytellers and grassroots collectives in their resistance to land dispossession and climate threats. The films allow remote indigenous communities in many parts of the globe to open a dialogue between land and environmental defenders — who are the frontline against the impacts of climate breakdown — and policy makers.
INUTW is currently mentoring 20 people from Central America, Brazil, and the Philippines. In addition, there is a program operating in the Cruz de Ocote ejido (communally owned land) in Ixtacamaxtitlán, Puebla, where activists are campaigning against the immense destruction to community-managed forests posed by a mining concession.
In partnership with the Mexican NGO, the Project on Organization, Development, Education and Research (PODER), INUTW provides the trainees in Puebla with equipment to film. It is then the people on the ground who formulate questions, conduct interviews and shoot footage.
This campaign is largely designed to reach the Mexican government, as well as to raise the voices of the communities in Puebla in international forums and with leaders who might otherwise never learn of their realities.
After the pandemic last year forced the world to retreat inside, the importance of storytelling has never been more apparent, or more pressing. For INUTW, 2020 proved remarkably fruitful: the switch to online mentoring and distribution brought about a surprising level of expansion.
Undoubtedly, COVID-19 significantly worsened many of the environmental and land-rights issues threatening rural indigenous communities and led to the immediate losses of community members to the virus. However, having to innovate ways of coping with being unable to interact face-to-face allowed filmmakers and organizations alike to evolve and to test the horizons against which they set their goals.
Ejidos - Successful Community Managed Forests in Mexico - Mexico
A INUTW participatory film on successful forest management on ejidos, or communally held land, by indigenous members of the community.
“From what I can see,” says Castillo, “the internet allowed us to expand more widely in a way we didn’t think was possible before. We had a dream to train people from communities, and we’ve been evolving. But with COVID, we couldn’t go to the communities.
“Yet the lockdown gave aspiring filmmakers time to create, and the digital age allowed us to spread their stories. I’m not saying that virtual is better — of course, it can’t replace person-to-person interaction — but it has been valuable.”
Castillo reflects that film is uniquely situated as a medium for indigenous stories to be told in a time when people are struggling to reach each other face-to-face, as well as to express the diversity of the indigenous cultures in Mexico.
“There is no one indigenous culture,” she said. “We’ve always known that there are different stories to be told.”
Perhaps most valuably, then, the work done by If Not Us Then Who highlights that the world needs resilient storytelling. At heart, INUTW is a team of driven people who want to do good things and who believe in the power of storytelling as the most important tool we have to raise the voices of indigenous communities across the globe.
“It is a breakthrough to be able to work directly with such inspiring people on the ground — where things are actually happening,” says Castillo, “and to be able to watch the change that it creates.”
Shannon Collins is an environment correspondent at Ninth Wave Global, an environmental organization and think tank. She writes from Campeche.
Private donations fund initiatives such as this: money to help cover shortages of cancer medications at a hospital in San Luis Potosí.
Representatives of civil society organizations have denounced a proposed tax reform that was approved in general terms by the lower house of Congress on Monday, warning that they will receive fewer donations if it becomes law.
The ruling Morena party is seeking to reduce the percentage of income a worker can claim in deductions.
An individual can currently claim deductions for an amount equivalent to up to 32% of their income but if the proposed reform passes Congress the figure will decline to just 15% in January. The 32% figure includes claimable deductions of up to 15% of one’s income for expenses such as medical, education and transport costs, 10% for retirement fund contributions and 7% for donations made to civil society organizations.
But under the proposed reform – whose objective is to collect more tax revenue to increase funding for government social programs – there will be no specific quota for tax-deductible donations. Instead, the makeup of the 15% maximum deduction will be at the discretion of the individual taxpayer.
Representatives of several organizations say the proposed reform will take away the incentive for citizens to make donations.
“People don’t donate to deduct taxes … but rather out of conviction, [because they want] to support causes and help the neediest people. But the act of removing these kinds of tax incentives doesn’t contribute to the strengthening of a philanthropic culture that is sorely needed in Mexico, especially in a context of pandemic, violence and economic crisis,” Dominique Amezcua of the organization Alternativas y Capacidades told the news website Animal Político.
Abril Rocabert of the same organization – which aims to strengthen the “ecosystem” in which Mexican civil society organizations operate – said the removal of the tax incentive for donations would affect more than 5,000 civil society organizations.
“In many cases donations allow civil society organizations to pay for their entire operations so losing them or seeing them seriously reduced could compromise thousands of social assistance services,” she said, noting that more than 700,000 people are employed by such organizations.
Among the groups that would be affected are those that support cancer victims, assist migrants, provide free legal help to low-income people, run shelters for victims of domestic violence, defend human rights and protect the environment.
The director of the Network for Children’s Rights in Mexico told the newspaper Reforma that the tax bill is a “disproportionate measure.”
Tania Ramírez said the extra revenue the government would take in as a result of the reform would not be significant in terms of overall tax collection. However, the amount of money civil society organizations receive in donations – some 8 billion pesos (US $395.1 million) annually – is very significant for them, she said.
Ramírez said it was regrettable that the parliamentary majority led by Morena has not listened to the concerns of civil society.
Edith Olivares, executive secretary of Amnesty International in Mexico, said the survival of thousands of organizations will be threatened if the proposal passes Congress.
“Many civil society organizations live off small donations from private citizens,” she said, adding that the money, in Amnesty International’s case, is used to denounce human rights violations.
“We think that a measure of this kind adds to the constant federal government narrative of insulting the work of civil society organizations; we can’t see it outside this context and that’s why we’re so worried,” Olivares said.
President López Obrador has railed against civil society organizations he sees as opponents of his government, such as Mexicans Against Corruption and Impunity and press-freedom group Article 19, and even sent a diplomatic note to the United States government asking it to explain why it funds such groups.
José Mario de la Garza, a lawyer and president of an organization that provides free legal advice to low-income people, said that “reading between the lines” one could reach the conclusion that the federal government’s objective with the tax reform is to weaken civil society organizations, especially the ones that are most critical of the government.
“… [The text] of the proposed reform doesn’t say it but in practice it would seem that the interest of the government is to limit the resources organizations receive so that their participation [in Mexican society] is greatly reduced and counterbalances are avoided,” he said.
“In other words what this reform is seeking to do is to weaken the system of checks and balances on government by limiting the funding possibilities of civil society organizations that depend on donations.”
David Pérez Rulfo of the Jalisco-based community organization Corporativa de Fundaciones noted that only 35% of donated amounts are tax-deductible and therefore less than 3 billion pesos out of the approximately 8 billion pesos donated annually can be deducted from people’s tax obligations.
The amount tax authorities are currently missing out on due to tax deductions is minimal when compared to the size of the federal budget, he said.
If, as expected, the reform passes both houses of Congress and becomes law, Mexico runs the risk of being left without a range of services that vulnerable people depend on, according to Ricardo Bucio, president of the Mexican Center for Philanthropy.
“The government is seeking to attend to needy people with its [social] programs and that’s good,” he said.
“But civil society organizations provide services to needy and vulnerably people that the state – the three levels of government in other words – doesn’t have the capacity to look after. For example, a child with a disability is not taken care of with a bimonthly scholarship of 2,700 pesos [US $133] nor do you improve the life of a female victim of violence with a monetary transfer,” Bucio said.
“That’s why the permanent presence [of civil society organizations] is needed, … their participation [in society] is essential,” he said.
Ovidio Guzmán, the Sinaloa Cartel boss who was released after security forces found themselves outgunned.
Two years since “black Thursday” – the day Culiacán, Sinaloa, became a battleground – a documentary has been released recounting the events.
On October 17, 2019, the armed forces undertook an operation to capture jailed cartel boss Joaquín El Chapo Guzmán’s son, Ovidio Guzmán. Culiacán was briefly turned into a battlefield with blocked avenues, burning vehicles, convoys of armed vehicles and heavily armed men. Amid the threat of civilian turmoil, Ovidio was released.
The 34-minute The Day We Lost the City (El día que perdimos la ciudad), available on YouTube, shows how the Sinaloa Cartel imposed its power on state security, and forced the criminal protégé’s release.
The documentary was produced by the civic organization Iniciativa Sinaloa AC with the support of the Resilience Fund, a program of The Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime. The journalists Marcos Vizcarra, Luis Brito created the documentary, while journalist Silber Meza acted as a collaborator.
Meza posted on Twitter to explain their motivations. “Today marks two years since the painful black Thursday … To preserve the memory of what happened, we made a documentary that is being broadcast on social networks for the first time. Two years of deep sadness for the culichis [residents of Culiacán] who aspire to have a city in peace,” he said.
El día que perdimos la ciudad #JuevesNegro #Culiacanazo
He added that it was important to dispel myths about the actions of the cartel. “There was a social denial that the Sinaloa Cartel decided to act against its own people, the public, in order to save one of its leaders,” he said.
Experts consulted by the newspaper El Universal said there was no clarity about the security measures which had been taken to avoid a repeat of the events. They described the ongoing shock of society left fragile by the day known locally as the culiacanazo.
A former Mexico City government official who was in charge of the project to build Line 12 of the capital’s Metro system is among 10 ex-functionaries who will face homicide charges in connection with the May 3 overpass collapse that killed 26 train passengers and injured 98 others.
The Mexico City Attorney General’s Office (FGJ) has not publicly named the ex-officials who will also face injury and property damage charges but part of its file on the case was leaked Monday.
Enrique Horcasitas, former director of Proyecto Metro, the agency responsible for managing construction of Line 12 during the 2006-12 Mexico City government led by current Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard, is the most prominent figure accused of homicide by the FGJ, which first announced it was pursuing charges last week.
Gabriel Regino, a lawyer for five of the accused, including Horcasitas, claimed Monday that the case against his clients amounted to political persecution, an accusation rejected by the FGR.
“This prosecutor’s office has conducted a robust, transparent investigation in accordance with the law and based on evidence. In no way does it obey political orders nor does it seek the … protection of culprits,” said FGJ spokesman Ulises Lara.
He also said the accused will have full access to the FGJ’s file against them once they have been summoned to appear in court. An initial hearing is scheduled to take place next Monday.
Speaking at a press conference, Regino rejected the FGJ’s finding that shoddy construction, including poorly placed metal studs in the overpass and deficient welding, was the main cause of the disaster.
The lawyer said that negligence in the maintenance of the collapsed structure and claims that the line was overburdened with ballast during the government of former Mexico City mayor Miguel Ángel Mancera (2012-18) must be investigated further.
Regino said he will file criminal complaints against Mancera and former Metro chiefs Jorge Gaviño and Jorge Jiménez Alcaraz for their alleged culpability for the accident.
“… We’re not going to allow arbitrariness, we’re not going to allow the continued use of scapegoats in Mexico City,” he said.
The FGJ is seeking to prosecute former public servants who have no connection to the events of May 3, Regino said.
“Our clients from Proyecto Metro were not responsible, neither administratively nor legally … for the construction of the project because companies that are perfectly identified were hired for that,” he said, referring to a consortium of firms that included Mexican firm Ingenieros Civiles Asociados, Carlos Slim’s Carso Infrastructure and Construction and French rail company Alstom.
Ebrard, who has denied any wrongdoing and suggested the overpass collapse could be linked to insufficient maintenance after a powerful earthquake in 2017, defended himself once again on Tuesday.
“It is very difficult for the mayor to supervise … a consortium with many companies participating. I did what I had to do, otherwise I would not be here, I could not show my face,” he told President López Obrador’s regular news conference.
A Mexican soldier holding a FX05 Xiuhcóatl. Sedena
The Mexican military-industrial complex likes to keep things homemade: the army’s principal rifle, which comes in both assault and carbine form, is produced by the army for the army.
In a factory in Naucalpan de Juárez, México state, 402 soldiers are in charge of the construction and assembly of almost all of the weapon’s 112 components, and the production of up to 30,000 units a year.
When it began to be made in 2005, the FX05 Xiuhcóatl rifle — taking its name from the Náhuatl word for “fire serpent” — replaced the German-made G3 rifle.
The Xiuhcóatl has a rate of fire of 700 to 800 rounds per minute. Its effective range is 200 to 800 meters with the use of sight marks, and it has mechanical, telescopic and red-dot sights, according to Iraq veteran and blogger Allan Wall writing on Banderas News in 2007.
Colonel Rafael Correa, the factory’s director, explained how the rifle took prominence.
The FX05 Xiuhcóatl rifle on display at a 2013 event celebrating 100 years of the Mexican army. ProtoplasmaKid/Creative Commons
“In 2005, a group of fellow military engineers carried out the research …. before they designed and managed to manufacture the FX05 snake Xiuhcóatl rifle … This rifle was put to the test for several years in mud and in water in order for it to work correctly and to be sure of its correct operation — and that its design would allow the soldier to be safe in his different operations,” he said.
“For the design of this rifle, the military engineers who developed it took into consideration all the ergonomics of the Mexican soldier … It allows the soldier better accommodation for when he performs his duties,” Correa added.
Wall wrote that the weapon was well-suited to combat in urban areas: “Switching from the G-3 rifle to the FX-05 means that the Mexican army is changing from a 7.62 mm to a 5.56 mm round for its main assault rifle. The 7.62 mm round is right for an open battlefield situation, while the 5.56 mm is more suitable to close-quarters urban combat, plus it weighs less, so more rounds can be carried,” he wrote.
The production of the Xiuhcóatl was at one point, however, at the center of controversy, when Mexico switched away from the G3 in 2005.
“The German government and [G3 manufacturer] Heckler and Koch (HK) have accused Mexico of copying the G36V design for the FX-05 [Xiuhcóatl]. In fact, they threatened to take the case to international tribunals, and demanded that Mexico destroy the FX-05 and pay damages to HK,” Wall said. “As a result of the German threat, in November of 2006, Mexico stopped manufacturing the new rifles,” he said.
However, he added that HK representatives dropped the dispute after an “inspection and exhibition of the weaponry” in 2007.
The factory in Naucalpan de Juárez has production planned until 2023, when it will move to the Oriental military camp in Puebla as part of the government’s plan to modernize Mexico’s military industry.
Candidates for testing await their turn at a mobile testing unit in Michoacán.
The administration of former Michoacán governor Silvano Aureoles threw millions of pesos at a campaign to improve breast cancer diagnoses, but the results were less than stellar.
In fact, only two of every 10 women diagnosed with breast cancer survive in the state.
The firm Movimedical received 332.9 million pesos (about US $17.3 million in 2018) from the state government to operate mobile testing units. But during Aureoles’ term from 2015 to 2021, 1,758 positive breast cancer cases resulted in 1,448 deaths, 82.3% of the total, the newspaper Milenio reported.
Movimedical failed to meet its contractual targets, to provide the stipulated services, and vitally, to deliver diagnoses promptly. The eight contracts signed between state and provider from 2015 to 2021 required Movimedical to perform mammograms, breast ultrasounds and, in positive cases, breast biopsies. But the work was limited to mammograms, and on some occasions the company failed to provide even that, according to the report by Milenio.
In 2016 the company performed 5,060 mammograms fewer than those agreed upon; in 2017 it fell short by 2,085. In 2020, the year in which the COVID-19 pandemic began, the number of mammograms performed nosedived, but Movimedical was still paid 91.9 million pesos.
In at least one case, the company delivered mammogram results eight months late. Martina Anguiano only knew her results were cause for concern when she was told “you have to do more studies” eight months after being examined. By contract, Movimedical was supposed to deliver the results within 15 business days. In Martina’s case and many others, positive results were communicated late, by which point the cancers had spread.
Failures in state health policy have led activists to describe the avoidable deaths as “institutional femicides.”
“The victims are hundreds of women who, year after year, die from poor care due to omissions, negligence and corruption,” said Circe López Riofrío, head of Michoacán feminist organization Humans Without Violence.
“We see how corruption kills … they are mechanisms that are institutionalized,” she added.
The transition to a new administration in Michoacán has caused complaints that access to services has become even worse. When challenged on access to care, the new minister of health, Elías Ibarra Torres, offered a response low in urgency. “We are just in the process of reviewing how the programs operated and what we were left with … we are learning how the situation is in each area,” he said.
Health authorities have so far only inoculated minors who obtained injunctions ordering their vaccination while the government announced last month it would offer vaccines to more than 1 million children with health conditions that make them vulnerable to serious illness.
Responding to the court order last Thursday, President López Obrador said the ruling was that of a single judge and “not definitive.”
“It will be respected legally but at the same time we’ll go to the relevant authority to clarify it,” he said, referring to a legal challenge.
Health Minister Jorge Alcocer says vaccinating children could have a ‘limiting’ effect on the development of their immune systems.
The federal judge, whose blanket ruling came in response to an injunction request filed by the family of a 15-year-old girl seeking her vaccination, gave the government until last Thursday to comply with her order.
But the government’s consideration of it was reportedly hindered by the closure last week of offices within the Health Ministry due to a coronavirus outbreak.
“The ministry instructed its offices to ‘abstain from receiving complaints, injunctions, summons … and any other notification from jurisdictional authorities.’ This measure has left the order issued in México state in an impasse because [health authorities] haven’t been notified,” the newspaper El País reported.
Before the court order was issued, López Obrador said the government would only offer vaccines to children without underlying health issues when “the world’s health organizations” authorize their inoculation. Health Minister Jorge Alcocer said last Friday that vaccinating children could have a “limiting” effect on the development of their immune systems.
But Andreu Comas, a virologist and researcher at the Autonomous University of San Luis Potosí, told El País there is no evidence that COVID-19 vaccines can damage minors’ immune systems.
“There is not a single piece of scientific evidence saying that the COVID vaccine, or any other vaccine, will weaken the immune system,” he said.
Indeed, many countries, including the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and numerous European nations, are already vaccinating children aged 12 and above – mainly with the Pfizer shot, which has been approved for use on minors in Mexico.
“Only by immunizing children will we be able to reach true herd immunity that will allow us to stop using face masks,” Comas said.
Although its Strategic Advisory Group of Experts has concluded that the Pfizer vaccine is suitable for use by minors aged 12 years and above, the World Health Organization has not advocated forcefully for the vaccination of healthy children and adolescents on the grounds they tend to suffer only mild disease if infected with the coronavirus.
In contrast, the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends everyone 12 years and older should get a COVID-19 vaccination to help protect against the virus.
Alma Franco, a lawyer in Oaxaca who has filed injunction requests on behalf of approximately 70 families seeking inoculation of minors, wishes the Mexican government would just get on with rolling the vaccine out to all children, regardless of whether they are more vulnerable to serious disease or not.
“The federal authorities are …. [saying] the vaccine policy can’t be changed; meanwhile, children are suffering a decline not just in their physical health but also in their psycho-emotional health,” she said.
The president waves to onlookers during a visit to Chiapas Monday with John Kerry, far left.
Mexico is an ally of the United States in the fight against climate change, President López Obrador declared Monday before U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry.
“President Biden has an ally in the defense of climate policy to confront climate change and to guarantee life, the survival of all human beings,” López Obrador said during a ceremony in Palenque, Chiapas, after accompanying Kerry on a visit to a parcel of community land where the federal government’s tree-planting employment program, Sembrando Vida (Sowing Life), is operating.
“We’re your allies in the defense of the environment and in a very special way an ally of you, Mr. John Kerry,” he said.
“We’re going to support the approach John Kerry is leading … to improve the environment, … [and] to confront climate change [and] global warming,” said López Obrador, who has been criticized for his own efforts in the area.
“And as he has said, planting [trees] – reforestation, is fundamental. In this region, just in Chiapas, trees are being planted on 200,000 hectares and work is provided for 80,000 farmers. We can do this in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador; … we’re willing to help and the United States government also has the will for programs like this to expand and to confront the migratory phenomenon in this way.”
López Obrador also touted other government efforts to combat climate change, including plans to boost the production of hydroelectricity and not increase oil production beyond 2 million barrels per day.
In his official remarks, Kerry heaped praise on the Sembrando Vida program – despite claims it is in fact causing deforestation, and avoided criticism of López Obrador’s predilection for fossil fuels and his proposed electricity reform which, if passed, would adversely affect privately owned renewable energy projects.
Reaching net zero emissions by 2050 “cannot be achieved without reforestation and dealing with deforestation,” he said.
“Whenever I talk about the challenge of the climate crisis, yes I talk about energy and energy choices but I always talk about nature based solutions. Almost a third of Mexico is covered by forest and President López Obrador is appropriately focused on how Mexico is going to make its contribution by paying attention to that. Success in this area of reforestation could contribute as much as one-third of global mitigation [of emissions] by 2030 and even more in the decades after that,” Kerry said.
“… All of us in the world need to focus on what President López Obrador is doing, and trying to do, and fighting to do,” the special envoy said.
“And it’s not just the reforestation, … [Sembrando Vida is] a program that’s focused on people, on people’s lives, on work, on the ability to be able to stay where you live, and the ability to stay connected to the land,” Kerry said.
“… We recognize that halting deforestation and restoring ecosystems is critical for reasons that go far beyond the climate – the livelihoods of people who depend on the forests, the sustainability of their lives and that dependency, the wellbeing of indigenous peoples who steward the lands, the biodiversity and the water on which we all depend.”
Kerry, who also toured the Palenque archaeological site with López Obrador, said that Mexico has already shown itself to be a leader on climate issues, noting that it was the first developing country to produce a climate action law and the first developing country to come up with nationally determined contributions – efforts by individual countries to reduce national emissions and adapt to the impacts of climate change.
He also said that in President Biden’s vision there is a possibility of much greater effort and cooperation between Mexico, Canada and the United States on climate issues.
“Transitioning to a net zero economy is the greatest economic opportunity of our lives,” Kerry said before asserting that “Mexico’s industrial base … absolutely stands to benefit from the energy transition.”
“For example, when we switch from gasoline to electrified vehicles, there are going to be a lot of good paying jobs here in Mexico because of the connection already of the automobile industry and our two countries,” he said.
