Claudia Sheinbaum can decarbonize Mexico’s economy and make it sustainable
When Dr. Claudia Sheinbaum was running for office in Mexico, I read some of her academic papers and was impressed by her deep commitment to decarbonize entire sectors of the Mexican economy.
An environmental engineer by training, Dr. Sheinbaum was affiliated with National Autonomous University of Mexico’s Faculty of Engineering.
Dr. Sheinbaum spent four years (1991–1994) at the Berkeley Lab in California analyzing energy consumption in Mexico and other industrialized countries.
She and Berkeley Lab scientist Lynn Price were lead authors of the Industry Chapter of Working Group III (Mitigation)’s contribution to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth and Fifth Assessment Reports.
In this 2017 paper (see below) coauthored with UNAM (then) doctoral student Juan José Vidal Amaro, Dr. Sheinbaum explores the decarbonization pathways for the Mexican electricity system using renewable energy sources.
Read here other academic papers coauthored by Dr. Sheinbaum on how to decarbonize critical sectors like transport, steel, housing, etc. in both urban and rural settings in Mexico.
Some worry about the Mexican government’s growing consolidation of the science, as explained in this Nature article.
But I hope that under Dr. Sheinbaum’s able leadership, Mexico will harness frugal innovation to do “más con menos” (more with less), that is create more inclusive economic growth using fewer resources and emissions.
Read the Mexican edition of our book on frugal innovation “Haz más con menos” coauthored with Felipe Symmes and Cristian Granados.
