Stories written by Emilio Godoy
Emilio Godoy is a Mexico-based correspondent who covers the environment, human rights and sustainable development. He has been a journalist since 1996 and has written for various media outlets in Mexico, Central America and Spain.
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Hit by the pandemic's socioeconomic and health impacts, Latin America is facing the challenge of financing an economic recovery based on a sustainable energy sector and a transition to clean sources of energy.
The situation of the energy transition in Central America and the Caribbean was the main issue debated this Friday 21st in the sessions at the XXX La Jolla Energy Conference, which is attended virtually by high officials, business delegates and analysts from the region.
The gas producing countries of South America are debating on how to make better use of the resource and how to integrate the sector, amid geographical and infrastructural barriers.
Several Latin American countries are stepping up the pace to generate hydrogen for various uses in transportation and industry, but they must first resolve several questions.
In neighbourhoods like Tehuixtitla in southern Mexico City, rain brings joy, because it provides water for showering, washing dishes and clothes, and cooking, by means of rainwater harvesting systems (RHS).
Indigenous farmers on communally owned lands have blocked since 2016 a private solar farm in the southeastern Mexican state of Yucatan by means of legal action, due to the company’s failure to hold consultations with local native communities and the risk of environmental damage.
Mexico is seeking to mitigate water shortages in part of its extensive territory by resorting to seawater, through the expansion of desalination plants. But this solution has exorbitant costs and significant environmental impacts.
In his community of small farmers and ranchers in northern Mexico, Aristeo Benavides has witnessed the damage caused by the natural gas industry, which has penetrated collectively owned landholdings, altering local communities' way of life and forms of production.
Greatly affected by the coronavirus pandemic, international trade can play a key role in the economic recovery, but it must overcome obstacles, such as protectionism and commercial disputes, especially between the United States and China.
While struggling to increase the generation and consumption of renewable energy, Latin America is beginning to see the rise of new technologies, such as the capture and storage of carbon and hydrogen from fossil fuels or wind and solar energy.
The way forward for energy transition and its link to an economic recovery after the depression caused by the covid-19 pandemic is focusing attention in Latin America and Europe, according to the 2nd Madrid Energy Conference (MEC), which concluded this Friday 2.
The economic recovery after the covid-19 pandemic, renewable energy, the gas situation, regulations and investment; mobility and transport, as well as new technologies and the progress of the Paris Agreement will be discussed at the Madrid Energy Conference from 28 September to 2 October.
A Mexican solar energy cooperative, Onergia, seeks to promote decent employment, apply technological knowledge and promote alternatives that are less polluting than fossil fuels, in one of the alternative initiatives with which Mexico is seeking to move towards an energy transition.
Mayan anthropologist Ezer May fears that the tourism development and real estate construction boom that will be unleashed by the Mayan Train, the main infrastructure project of Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, will disrupt his community.
While it attempts to cushion the effects of the coronavirus pandemic, the Latin American and Caribbean region also faces concerns about the future of the energy transition and state-owned oil companies.
Since 2012, Teresa Castellanos has fought the construction of a gas-fired power plant in Huexca, in the central Mexican state of Morelos, adjacent to the country's capital.
As the high season for agricultural labour in the United States approaches, tens of thousands of migrant workers from Mexico are getting ready to head to the fields in their northern neighbour to carry out the work that ensures that food makes it to people's tables.
Water security and profitability are the Achilles heels of the plan to modernise 60 hydroelectric plants in Mexico, drawn up by the administration of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
As the COP25 deliberations enter the decisive final week, representatives of environmental and social organisations gathered in a parallel summit are pressing the governments to adopt stronger commitments in the face of a worsening climate emergency.
Tens of thousands of delegates from state parties began working Monday Dec. 2 in the Spanish capital to pave the way to comply with the Paris Agreement on climate change, while at a parallel summit, representatives of civil society demanded that the international community go further.