Claudia Sheinbaum visits a solar plant built atop a public wholesale market, Mexico City’s Central de Abasto. The solar plant in its first phase will have an installed capacity of 18 megawatts and will be capable of generating up to 25 gigawatt hours per year. (Photo courtesy of Government of Mexico City)
Just hours after winning Mexico’s presidential election on June 2, Claudia Sheinbaum promised to continue the work of her mentor, outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. But in her victory speech, the former Mexico City mayor highlighted one critical difference between the two: her commitment to renewable energy. López Obrador disdained clean energy throughout his six-year presidency. Sheinbaum, a climate scientist with a doctorate in energy engineering, has instead promised to put renewables at the center of her energy policy when she takes office on Oct. 1. She has promised that Mexico will meet its emissions-reduction commitments under the Paris Agreement despite years of inaction under López Obrador. Her platform also makes returning Mexico to international climate change negotiations a top foreign policy priority. “Claudia Sheinbaum is one of the pioneers in [climate change] mitigation” in Mexico, says Xochitl Cruz Núñez, an atmospheric scientist at the Autonomous National... [Log in to read more]
