From Copenhagen to Mexico City to Cambridge, Massachusetts, Mexican environmental initiatives won high-profile attention this month, though not in all cases applause. On the positive side of the ledger, the federal government won plaudits as it lobbied before United Nations climate conferees this month on behalf of its proposed Green Fund to fight global warming. Meanwhile, Harvard University bestowed a major award on Mexico City’s Metrobús rapid-transit system, citing the use of innovative technology to reduce carbon emissions. But in Mexico City, Mexican legislators voted to slash funding for the national forest conservation program, citing widespread fraud and incompetence. Mexico presented a revised version of its Green Fund in Copenhagen during the UN Climate Change Conference, which concluded Dec. 18. The proposal, first...
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As 2009 comes to a close, Chile’s Congress has approved historic legislation establishing several new governmental environmental institutions, including the country’s first environment ministry. Meanwhile, after a hotly contested Dec. 13 election resulted in none of the four candidates capturing more than 50% of the votes, Chileans must now decide their next president in a Jan. 17 runoff between former Chilean President Eduardo Frei and conservative billionaire businessman Sebastian Piñera. The creation of various new environmental institutions has most green groups congratulating the center-left Michelle Bachelet government, which yields power in March 2010. “With the passage of this legislation, President Bachelet has complied with her most important environmental promise to us as a candidate four years ago in the agreement she made with Chilean...
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Since the conclusion in mid-2007 of a three-year, R$394-million (US$136-million at the time) Amazon anti-deforestation plan, the Brazilian government has responded to subsequent illegal cutting with emergency crackdowns. Now, however, the government is preparing to launch another sustained anti-deforestation effort—a three-year, R$1.2-billion (US$685-million) extension and expansion of the earlier program. “The program, which will end in December 2011, injects more resources into our Amazon anti-deforestation efforts and gives the new president who takes office in January 2011 one year of funding before he or she must extend it again or develop a new program,” says Mauro Pires, head of the environment ministry’s anti-deforestation department. The new program has the...
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