Sheinbaum’s contributions had been “an added worth for the group,” mentioned Manfred Fischedick, a professor in Germany who labored on the report. “And — I wish to stress that side particularly — she by no means got here throughout as a politician.”
Now, Sheinbaum is about to develop into Mexico’s president.
Her election has given hope to environmentalists and diplomats who’ve despaired as Mexico has gone from a world chief on local weather change to a laggard.
But Sheinbaum has an advanced file. She’s the protégé of outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, often called AMLO, who sidelined green-energy tasks and prioritized tapping petroleum fields. In her latest stint as Mexico Metropolis mayor, Sheinbaum loyally defended his insurance policies — at the same time as she launched electrical buses and coated the capital’s large meals market with photo voltaic panels.
“Like a political chameleon, she adapts to the state of affairs she’s in,” mentioned Antonio Mediavilla, an environmental scientist who has labored on tasks together with her administration. “However now, she would be the boss.”
What course will she take? The reply may have implications far past Mexico’s borders. The nation is the world’s Eleventh-biggest oil producer, and the second-biggest emitter of greenhouse gases in Latin America. A lot of that’s derived from vitality — automotive exhaust, methane emissions from fuel and oil infrastructure, planet-warming gases drifting from fossil fuel-burning electrical energy vegetation.
Sheinbaum, 62, has outlined a $14 billion plan for brand new vitality technology, specializing in wind, photo voltaic and hydropower. “Now we have to hurry up the promotion of renewable energies,” she advised enterprise executives whereas campaigning in April. Her platform is an environmentalist’s want listing: extra electric-powered public transit, higher vitality effectivity, a program to take pollution-belching outdated automobiles and vehicles off the street.
“Ninety p.c of the proposals in her platform are issues we have to do,” mentioned Adrián Fernández, the director of Local weather Initiative of Mexico, a nonprofit group that labored with Sheinbaum on tasks when she was mayor. However these plans are incompatible together with her guarantees to proceed a lot of López Obrador’s vitality insurance policies, he mentioned — like strengthening the nationwide oil and electrical energy corporations.
“What’s going to occur? That’s the massive query for the nation,” he mentioned.
Sheinbaum grew up in a scientific family
Sheinbaum comes from a household of scientists deeply concerned in leftist causes. Whilst an undergraduate, she was tinkering with environmental issues, designing extra environment friendly wood-burning stoves for rural Indigenous girls. “It was fairly troublesome,” recalled Victor Alejandro Salcido, her thesis adviser — a undertaking involving pc modeling and problems with combustion, fluid mechanics and effectivity.
Whereas doing graduate work within the Nineteen Nineties at Lawrence Berkeley Nationwide Laboratory — a part of the U.S. Division of Power lab community — Sheinbaum acquired below the hood of a lot greater programs. She analyzed vitality use in a few of Mexico’s largest contributors to local weather change, together with its transportation, constructing and metal sectors.
Reducing greenhouse fuel emissions in difficult-to-decarbonize industrial sectors, reminiscent of steelmaking, is among the hardest, most data-intensive challenges in local weather science. Sheinbaum excelled, incomes a doctorate in vitality engineering from Mexico’s flagship Nationwide Autonomous College.
Twenty years later, she turned one of many lead authors for the business chapter of the U.N. panel’s report.
Joyashree Roy, an economist who additionally labored on the 2014 report, mentioned Sheinbaum was a affected person listener who knew find out how to command a room. Roy remembered a gathering in South Korea the place Sheinbaum went to the board and labored on an equation for the group.
“She knew her stuff very properly.”
Roy was conscious that the Mexican scientist was concerned in politics however by no means suspected she would develop into head of state. “On the time, none of us might think about this could occur,” she mentioned.
Sheinbaum acquired her first high-level authorities job in 2000. López Obrador, a longtime leftist, had been elected mayor of Mexico Metropolis, and requested her to be his setting secretary. However he additionally put her in command of considered one of his signature tasks, constructing a “second ground” on the ring street round Mexico Metropolis. Many environmentalists had been appalled, believing the brand new freeway would solely encourage extra automobiles, extra exhaust.
Whilst she oversaw its building, nonetheless, Sheinbaum launched the Metrobús — a fast transit hall with environment friendly, diesel-fueled buses. That system, which has grown to seven strains, saves round 70,000 tons of carbon-dioxide emissions per yr. After she turned mayor herself in 2018, Sheinbaum started changing the buses to electrical energy.
“She has needed to put her political loyalty to López Obrador within the forefront, even in conditions the place she most likely isn’t in settlement,” mentioned Fernández.
Now she may have the possibility to completely outline her personal insurance policies. Or so environmentalists hope.
“What we first want,” Fernández mentioned, “is for López Obrador to go residence and go away the president-elect alone.”
López Obrador’s affect over Sheinbaum
That could be extra sophisticated than it sounds.
López Obrador is the founding father of Mexico’s dominant Morena get together, a charismatic populist who has elevated spending on social packages for the poor. Sheinbaum, his handpicked successor, rode his coattails to a landslide victory.
Whereas López Obrador has promised he’ll retire when his time period ends in September, many Mexicans are uncertain.
“It’s within the DNA of AMLO to proceed to be the middle of energy,” mentioned Carlos Heredia, an economist who served as an adviser to López Obrador when he was mayor.
Beneath López Obrador, a local of Tabasco state, in Mexico’s oil patch, environmental insurance policies modified dramatically. He’d lengthy seen Pemex as an emblem of nationwide sovereignty, and believed Mexico ought to be impartial in vitality.
He spent billions of {dollars} on new oil refineries, and tried to undo a sweeping 2013 vitality reform, which had opened the state-dominated oil, fuel and electrical energy sectors to personal corporations. The president couldn’t muster the votes to scrap these legal guidelines, however he withheld permits to international companies growing photo voltaic and wind-driven energy, giving a much bigger function to the nationwide electrical energy firm, which usually burned dirtier fuels.
In 2022, Local weather Motion Tracker, an impartial group that displays nations’ local weather motion, downgraded Mexico’s insurance policies to “critically inadequate,” its worst ranking.
Sheinbaum has vowed to take care of López Obrador’s coverage guaranteeing state-run corporations greater than half the vitality market. However she’s additionally promised she’ll subject “clear guidelines” for personal buyers to take part.
“It’s a must to see her as a girl of the left, who believes rather a lot in state intervention, who believes in state-run companies,” mentioned Jesús Carrillo, financial director on the analysis group Mexican Institute for Competitiveness, recognized by its Spanish initials, IMCO.
Requested for remark, Sheinbaum’s marketing campaign group referred The Washington Submit to Marina Robles, who served as her setting secretary in recent times.
Robles denied any contradiction in Sheinbaum’s embrace of each authorities vitality corporations and renewables.
“Claudia has at all times defended clear vitality, however she has additionally defended our sovereignty and defended the pure sources of our nation,” she mentioned.
Mexico’s overwhelmed vitality system
Sheinbaum shall be constrained not simply by politics, however by economics.
At this time, Mexico’s energy grid is determined by low cost pure fuel from Texas to maintain the lights on. Pemex has develop into the world’s most indebted vitality firm. It has been unable to spend money on capturing methane, a potent greenhouse fuel, from its infrastructure, in line with Diego Rivera Rivota, a senior analysis affiliate at Columbia College’s Middle on World Power Coverage.
“What we’ve got at this time is a really difficult state of affairs,” he mentioned.
One in every of López Obrador’s most essential renewable vitality investments is Plan Sonora, a $1.6 billion photo voltaic megaproject in northern Mexico constructed by the federal electrical energy firm. However for years, that firm has skimped on investing in transmission strains that would join properties and companies to solar- or wind-powered electrical energy farms. With out such a community, “there’s no method we will use that electrical energy,” mentioned Isabel Studer, director of the Mexican nonprofit group World Sustainability.
Mexico’s financial development has been slowing, and Sheinbaum has promised to chop the federal deficit, now 6 p.c of GDP, the best in many years. Given such monetary constraints, she’ll want to draw non-public buyers to hold out her formidable plans for extra renewable vitality, analysts say. However she needs to cap their output at lower than half of Mexico’s electrical energy manufacturing, following López Obrador’s lead.
Buyers may additionally be discouraged by a sweeping plan being pushed by the outgoing president to determine the direct election of judges. Whereas that’s in a roundabout way associated to the setting, companies concern it might weaken judicial independence and erode authorized ensures. The thought has spooked monetary markets, inflicting the Mexican peso to droop in latest weeks.
“It’s a must to present certainty,” mentioned Odón de Buen, former director of the Nationwide Fee for the Environment friendly Use of Power. “If I’m trying to make investments $10 billion in one thing and recoup my funding over 30 years, however I notice the foundations of the sport might change in three years, I received’t take the danger.”
Sheinbaum has proven political ability in attracting worldwide funding with out tarnishing her nationalist credentials, in line with individuals who have labored together with her. As mayor, she participated in a number of main vitality and setting tasks with the U.S. Company for Worldwide Improvement, whereas not often highlighting that partnership.
However she additionally has tried to stability her environmental program together with her efforts to assist lower-income neighborhoods. She constructed electric-powered aerial cable-cars in hillside slums, and carved out parks within the capital’s poorer east aspect.
“Environmental enhancements should be accompanied by social justice,” mentioned Robles, describing Sheinbaum’s philosophy.
Even when Sheinbaum maintains a few of López Obrador’s insurance policies, many scientists consider her six-year time period shall be completely different. “The environmental theme isn’t secondary for her,” mentioned Alberto Rojas, who studied together with her in a program for environmental leaders on the Faculty of Mexico. “It’s her theme.”
Grandoni reported from Washington; Ríos reported from Monterrey.
