United States, Mexico to Strive for Clean Energy Economies

President Obama, left, and Mexican President Felipe Calderón April 16 in Mexico City.

By Merle David Kellerhals Jr.
Staff Writer

Washington — The United States and Mexico have formed a partnership to create clean energy economies and reduce the effects of global warming.

“Together, we’re establishing a new bilateral framework on clean energy and climate change that will focus on creating green jobs, promoting renewable energy, and enhancing energy efficiency,” President Obama said at a joint press conference April 16 with Mexican President Felipe Calderón in Mexico City.

A White House fact sheet on the new energy-security framework said it will focus on: renewable energy, energy efficiency, adaptation, market mechanisms, forestry and land use, green jobs, low-carbon energy technology development and capacity building. It is also being designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that contribute directly to global warming, and to strengthen the reliability and flow of cross-border electricity that lessens the impact on climate.

“This is a priority for the United States. I know it’s a priority for President Calderón,” Obama said.

Calderón said the initiative means the two nations will work together to guarantee better certainty and transparency in energy security and reduce global warming by making better use of cross-border resources such as natural gas and energy.

“I have given to President Obama concrete proposals on climate change,” he said through an interpreter at the press conference. “One of them has to do with the integration of a bilateral market of carbon emissions, which coincides a lot with proposals that he has made to the U.S. audience, and other … ways of cooperation in climate change, such as something that Mexico has proposed called the Green Fund.”

Over the coming weeks, senior U.S. and Mexican officials will work to provide details of the joint effort, including:

• Collaborating on training and information exchanges for government officials to explore cooperation on greenhouse gas inventories, reduction methods and market mechanisms.

• Working with border states to provide an information exchange and joint work on renewable energy, such as wind and solar power.

• Expanding extensive bilateral collaboration on clean energy technology to encourage renewable energy development and reducing obstacles to energy transmission and distribution between the countries.

• Promoting academic and scientific exchanges on renewable energy.

• Pursuing projects on adapting to climate change.

• Working with other nations to take advantage of growing Mexican expertise in greenhouse gas inventories, adaptation and project planning.

Mexico and the United States will develop a financial architecture that mobilizes investment in climate-friendly technology.

Obama and Calderón left Mexico City for Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, to attend the fifth Summit of the Americas being held April 17–19. Energy security and climate change are essential issues that will be discussed during the three-day meeting of leaders from the 34 democratic nations of the Western Hemisphere.