In this sweaty Gulf of Mexico fishing village, poor families in dirt-floor homes dream, like millions of people around the world, of owning air-conditioned cars and refrigerators.
ALVARADO, Mexico — In this sweaty Gulf of Mexico fishing village, poor families in dirt-floor homes dream, like millions of people around the world, of owning air-conditioned cars and refrigerators.
Scraping out a living by fishing, and preoccupied by the constant threat of water contamination from factory waste and leaky oil pipelines, fishermen here have never heard of global warming.
Yet their proximity to the sea, with waves lapping just footsteps from their doorways, means they are likely to be among the first victims of climate change in Mexico, their homes underwater by the time their grandchildren are old.
And while the main culprits for the blanket of greenhouse gases heating up the Earth are the United States and other developed countries, carbon emissions are set to keep rising as developing nations grow richer.
"I would love to have a car," said fisherman Luis Tibursio, 45, whose house already floods in the rainy season.
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"These machines are good and bad at the same time. But we can't fight what's happening because we all want a better life," he said in a coastal community by the town of Alvarado, where the well-off families are the ones with donkeys and pigs tethered outside their homes.
Experts say the lowest-lying villages along the southern Gulf of Mexico coast will be hit first in Mexico as the fog of gas belched out by rich countries sends weather patterns haywire. They predict melting glaciers will swell global sea levels by up to 3 feet by 2100.
"Global warming is here and it's already affecting us. Our coasts are at risk from rising seas and hurricanes. We'll see droughts in the North and floods in the South," said Fernando Tudela, an environment ministry undersecretary who represented Mexico in global climate change talks.
"The process is slow but inexorable. There's no way to stop it. All we can do is take action to limit it," he said.
Green Potential
One of the first Latin American countries to sign the 141-nation Kyoto Protocol, an emissions-cutting pact in force since Feb. 16, Mexico is exempt, as a less-developed country, from the first round of cuts.
And yet, despite the barriers of a closed electricity sector, some companies are already starting to cut emissions with energy efficiency programs and renewable power projects.
With a population of 106 million including many too poor to use much fuel or electricity, Mexico is behind 2 percent of global emissions. It emits about 3.7 tonnes of carbon dioxide per person per year, slightly below the global average.
Yet with an economy dependent on oil, Mexico is Latin America's worst polluter in terms of burning fossil fuels.
State oil monopoly Pemex, behind a tenth of Mexico's carbon gases, began a program in 2001 to curb emissions. And 21 smaller companies, including cement and building firms, have joined forces to try and cut emissions from this year.
The northern business city of Monterrey is using methane from household waste to power its street lamps, one of a handful of similar projects in the works, and a batch of wind farms should open this year in the southern state of Oaxaca.
"We've started a number of renewable energy projects in the past year or so to reduce harmful emissions," said Ubaldo Inclan, climate change director at the Energy Ministry.
Mexico, which already generates nearly a quarter of its power from emissions-free hydroelectric plants, is also switching fossil fuel power plants to cleaner natural gas.
But ecologists say progress has been too slow.
Consumption to Soar
"Mexico has massive potential for wind, solar and sea energy projects but we are not taking full advantage of it," said conservationist Alfonso Aguirre, who fears warmer sea temperatures could dent fish stocks within 30 years.
Inclan blamed rigid energy laws which are a barrier to private generators, and the fact renewable power is expensive.
"Our legislation doesn't make it easy for renewable projects. It was designed for conventional energy," he said.
Mexico will likely participate in a second round of Kyoto Protocol emissions cuts after 2012.
Its challenge will be to prevent its efforts being overshadowed by the inevitable surge in emissions as the country gets richer and more families can afford cars, refrigerators and air conditioning.
"We can't halt the economy so our best contribution is to keep down energy consumption," said Tudela.
Those Mexicans who can afford to worry about the planet could join the global race to protect it, optimists say.
"Mexicans are a lot more open to this than one would think. They understand something has to be done, they just don't know what they can do," said ecologist Zak Zaidman, who recently drove a bus through Central America fueled with waste cooking oil to promote the use of biofuels.
He hopes biodiesel will take off as a green fuel that emits less carbon gases than gasoline.
"People don't know how to relate to policies like Kyoto, but they can get excited about practical solutions," he said.
Source: Reuters
