President Ollanta Humala of Peru greeted Christiana Figueres, a United Nations official, on the eve of climate change talks.CreditAgence France-Presse — Getty Images
EJIDO RANCHO OJO LAGUNA, Mexico — For six years, while drought ravaged Chihuahua State, Mario Ruiz clung to his small herd of cattle.
The pasture where his cattle graze, about 45 miles north of the city of Chihuahua, turned bare. Many of his cows starved. Others he sold to buy fodder for those worth saving. Of 130 cows, just 30 are left.
Now that the rains have returned, turning the dusty steppe a rich green, farmers like Mr. Ruiz, 41, are struggling to restock their herds and dig themselves out of debt. They fret that the drought, which devastated crops and killed 400,000 head of cattle in Chihuahua State, just south of the United States border, could become a familiar enemy.
“If it rains, we’ll survive,” Mr. Ruiz said. “But it seems like it rains less and it rains later.”
Faced with the growing threat of extreme weather — droughts, hurricanes and rising coastal waters — Mexico has positioned itself as a leader in the fight against climate change. It pledges to curb the rise in emissions significantly by 2020 and to produce one-third of its energy from clean sources by 2024.
Mexico, the world’s 13th-biggest emitter of carbon dioxide, has passed a stack of federal and state laws that regulate emissions, promote sustainable forest management and establish funds for renewable energy and energy efficiency. In 2012, it became one of the first countries in the world to pass a climate change law.
But as world leaders meet in Lima, Peru, this week to lay the groundwork for a new agreement under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, some analysts doubt that Mexico can meet its much-lauded targets.
“Mexico put on the climate change T-shirt because it was in vogue,” said Carlos undersecretary, a public policy analyst at the Mexican Center for Environmental Law, known as Cemda, an environmental advocacy and research organization. “We are the champions of the climate change fight — the good boy who does his homework — but the resources dedicated to climate change are few.”
The government introduced a carbon tax in January that levies an average of $3 per ton of carbon, and Mexico’s stock exchange started a platform to trade carbon credits last year.
Mexico has also been among the most diligent of developing nations in submitting its inventory of greenhouse gas emissions under the United Nations convention, according to Globe International, an organization that promotes sustainable development laws.
But there are no penalties for missing emissions targets, and environmental experts say current initiatives are falling short.
While there is a detailed plan for federal entities to reduce emissions — aiming to cut 83 million tons of carbon dioxide between 2014 and 2018 — there is no equivalent, experts say, for reductions by the private sector, or by state and municipal institutions. And a fund established in 2012 to finance climate initiatives was given $78,000 to start, they say, but has yet to receive any other money.
Rodolfo Lacy Tamayo, under secretary for planning and environment policy, said the government would pursue a series of initiatives, including cutting pollutants like methane, shifting from diesel and gasoline to natural gas in cars and public transportation, and developing climate change programs with state governments.
“We set an objective,” he said, “and we are getting sectors on board: states, municipalities, the paper industry, the timber industry, the farmers, the auto sector. We are lining up all the policy instruments to meet our objective.”
Experts say those plans should include significantly expanding renewable energy sources. More than 80 percent of current consumption comes from fossil fuels.
But measures passed in August, which opened Mexico’s oil and gas reserves to foreign investors, reduce incentives for renewable energy, critics argue.
“There is a very strong perception that oil is part of our culture, and that renewables aren’t viable,” said Miguel Soto, spokesman for Greenpeace Mexico’s renewable energy program.
He and other experts blame government inefficiency and the power of entrenched interests for a lack of progress toward the country’s lofty climate goals.
“There is no doubt among the ruling class that climate change exists,” said Mr. Tornel, the analyst. “But there is a lack of political will, and a lack of institutional coordination at the state and municipal levels to design initiatives and take action.”
Harsh climate is a growing burden. The government estimated that the annual average cost of disasters was $2.1 billion between 2000 and 2013, about three times the annual average registered between 1980 and 1999.
In September, Hurricane Odile hit the western, coastal state of Baja California with 115-mile-an-hour winds and torrential rains, destroying houses and leaving 200,000 people without electricity. In October, flooding and mudslides caused by Tropical Storm Trudy killed six people in Guerrero State, a year after storms caused a landslide in La Pintada, Guerrero, that buried about half the village and killed 71 people.
The drought that devastated northern Mexico in recent years has eased in many areas, but the country has lost about 30 percent of its cattle.
In Chihuahua, where wide fields of corn, alfalfa, oats, and beans abut neat orchards of pecan, apple and peach trees, drought and the expansion of farmland have produced a fierce contest for water.
The crisis has led to tension with Texas water officials, who say that Mexico has failed to deliver its quota of water from the Rio Grande under a 1944 treaty with the United States.
Some farmers said drought had been a cyclical problem in the region for centuries, although others said the rains had become shorter and patchier. They say they have to dig deeper to reach the water; they blame both a lack of rain and big farms that overuse aquifers.
“They are devastating the local flora and fauna,” said Enrique Ochoa, who grows alfalfa and grazes sheep and Jersey cows on 125 acres about 30 miles north of the city of Chihuahua.
When his well, dug 150 feet deep in 1970, dried up a few years ago, his beans and sorghum withered and his 500 sheep grew thin. He sold most of the sheep and planted no crops for three years, he said, because he could not water them.
“I lived on beans and dry bread,” Mr. Ochoa said. With the help of a government grant, he has just dug another well — 1,000 feet deep.
Mr. Ruiz, who has no permit to dig a well and cannot afford one anyway, said he had little choice but to watch the clouds and pray. He stopped sowing beans and corn on the communal land near his house 15 years ago, he said, because the rains came too late in the season.
He is not sure he will make it if the drought returns next year. He cannot afford to buy new cows because the price has shot up to about $1,000 a head. He said many of his neighbors had given up and migrated to the United States or to the state capital.
“If you can’t sow your land, if you can’t keep your cows, what do you do?” he said. “You sell up. You migrate to the city.”
[readon1 url="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/30/world/americas/as-mexico-addresses-climate-change-critics-point-to-shortcomings-.html?_r=0"]Source:www.nytimes.com[/readon1]
