Mexico has pledged to more than double its clean energy output by 2030, investing in solar and wind power while transitioning away from fossil fuels. Yet the country continues to lag behind on its renewable energy targets, producing just 12% of its power from clean sources last year, watchdogs have found. At the same time, the country continues to subsidize the struggling state-owned oil company Pemex while beefing up its oil and natural gas infrastructure with new refineries and massive, transnational pipelines. The projects worry environmentalists not only because of climate change impacts caused by carbon emissions, but because they can pollute marine ecosystems and encroach on local and Indigenous communities. Pipelines currently under construction in southern Mexico have proven especially controversial, with residents saying they were never consulted about the projects and that they could compromise their way of life, which includes coastal tourism and fishing. Conservationists also say adequate environmental impact studies were never carried out. “We’re dealing with the issue of climate change, and that’s an issue that’s already very, very evident,” Ramón García Sánchez, an attorney with the Mexican Alliance against Fracking, said. “It’s increasingly necessary, and logical, that this type of infrastructure and development in these industries needs to stop.” One of the projects, the $4.5-billion Southeast Gateway Gas pipeline, is scheduled to start operating next year. It will expand the Sur de Texas-Tuxpan natural gas pipeline that runs 800 km (497 miles) under the Gulf of Mexico, supplying powerplants in the states of Veracruz…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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