Mexican voters go to the polls Sunday to elect a leader to replace the term-limited President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Sitting atop the polls is a scientist with serious climate policy credentials. Claudia Sheinbaum, the former head of government in Mexico City, has advised the United Nations on climate science and has long supported measures to diversify a national economy dominated by oil. A win by Sheinbaum, who leads the closest opposition candidate by a 10- to 20-point margin in all recent major polls, could catapult one of North America’s largest oil producers into a new era of clean energy development, writes Jack Quinn. Pemex, the country’s state-owned oil and gas company, “has to face climate change head on and enter other markets,” Sheinbaum said at an event last month in Mexico City. The company’s future, she said, lies “not just in oil and gas, which are indispensable, but also in permitting entry into renewable energy sources.” But analysts say it matters that Sheinbaum is López Obrador’s successor under the Morena (or National Regeneration Movement) coalition party. After six years, he’ll leave office with a 60 percent approval rating. Under López Obrador, Mexico has joined Brazil in reaffirming its support for the Paris climate agreement. But the outgoing president has also made a priority of fossil fuel development. Pemex’s heft and influence have left the government grappling for a coherent approach to global warming. Sheinbaum has pledged to invest billions of dollars in renewable energy. But she also wants to cap private-sector investment in the electricity market. The combination could enshrine the dominance of the Mexican government in the country’s energy sector, closing off avenues for U.S. companies to invest in Mexico’s clean energy transition. That could hinder Sheinbaum’s plans to boost solar and wind projects, experts say, and further embed planet-warming fossil fuels in Mexico’s economy. Sheinbaum has placed Pemex at the center of her energy platform. She wants the company to boost its refining capacity in an effort to cut down on gasoline imports from the U.S. and lead a $13.6 billion program to jump-start Mexico’s renewable energy sector. “We expect her to continue [López Obrador’s] policy that places state-owned companies largely in control of the market’s energy sector,” said Chris Colacello, a power and renewables analyst at BMI Country Risk & Industry Research, “making her climate and overall energy sector expansion goals difficult to achieve.”
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