We need to talk about reducing consumption in the energy transition debate: Rojas

The 26th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP) in the United Kingdom looked back at Mexico's progress in its climate commitments.

In the midst of a global race to install capacity to generate clean energy, Dolores Rojas, program coordinator at the Heinrich Böll Foundation, highlights the need to hold developed countries responsible for their consumption of certain goods generated with fossil fuels, many of them from developing countries.

The discussions at COP 26 continue to revolve around maintaining levels of consumption that are not necessarily compatible with the goals of combating climate change, Rojas explained in an interview with Causa Natura.

Without being a developed country, Mexico is one of the 20 countries with the highest greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

Previously, the country committed itself in the Paris agreement to increase energy generation based on clean technologies to 35% by 2024, while maintaining its promise to reduce GHG emissions by 22% by 2030.

In this interview, Rojas warns of certain gaps in climate discussions and in Mexico's actions in the face of meeting its commitments.

— We see which countries like Germany closed the last coal mine in 2018 and there is a law to end generation with this type of fossil fuel by 2038. What do you think European countries have done well to make progress in getting rid of these polluting energies? What is the key to that success?

You can't see the transition in the abstract, it has to do with energy uses, with a consumption pattern. So, often in fact, maybe energy is not produced with coal, but they are importing consumer goods from China or the global south. And in those countries, coal is being used for processing, meaning where you require large amounts of heat and energy that coal gives you.

So I think that what we have to do is just look wider and see the whole chain, see where the things that I am consuming are being produced and then know what my responsibility is in this production of dirty energy.

It's very easy to say that I no longer produce energy with coal and we have clean energy and we are all super sustainable, and (others) are the backwater, but they are the ones who are providing consumer goods. So there's a trap there and we have to open our eyes.

— Is this talked about at the COP?

The COP is a good example, because we are talking about energy transition, and so instead of talking about stopping extracting hydrocarbons, instead of stopping consuming fossils, and making decisions at the root, they are promoting electric cars, and there is a whole campaign of various companies in the production of electric cars.

That's what they call transition, but sorry that's not going anywhere, that's following the same paradigm of development and consumption, and then now you have the discussion in other countries like Mexico about lithium, because that demand is coming.

So, I think that what really needs to be done in this transition is to bring up the issue of reducing energy consumption, because there has been no real transition in global terms, because although there has been an increase in the production of renewable energies, there has been no decrease in the production of fossil energies, renewables have been added to the energy matrix and then energy consumption has continued to increase.

— In terms of what has been in Mexico since the energy reform, how much progress has Mexico made?

We were critical of the energy reform, because the reform didn't talk about energy transition, that had to be a stronger push, and it was horrible, because it finally remained in the transition as the only country that has the combined cycle as clean energy. In other words, that is the energy reform as well and sometimes it seems that we forget.

So let's say that reform as it is was not a big deal in terms of sustainability. And when we talk about sustainability, it's not only environmental but social, this issue of renewable megaprojects, because we've also been very critical.

Of course, we support the resistance of megaprojects, for example, in Yucatán, photovoltaic projects because it was going to remove jungle to install a kilometer of solar panels, with the local impacts of rising temperatures. Anyway. Then it's not that it was being done very well, and now very badly, there's no such thing.

Let's say that we question renewable megaprojects, because as megaprojects they brought all the vices of megaprojects, dispossession, zero consultation with communities, and so on. So, well, that has stopped and let's just say that, in my view, the opportunity has not been taken to rethink and give a good push, for example, yes to decentralized energy generation.

Photo: Carlos Salinas/ Cuartoscuro

— Is it possible to carry out the energy transition in Mexico?

When we talk about transition that implies a path to get to the other side, I don't think there has been a transition either before or now. And that's just what we have to do, traffic, how do I build capacity for workers who were previously in the coal mining area in Coahuila, how do I give them other skills, so I don't know, if they can build solar panels or what do I know for that coal zone and change the vocation of the area. The same is true for oil workers. I'm not saying that it will make it possible to stop extracting oil overnight, but you do have to consider it.

— Within the framework of COP 26 there are several discussions, in the case of Mexico there is the goal of reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 22% compared to a baseline by 2030. Do you think Mexico is on track to achieve this? Are we right now at the point where we should be to meet the goal in 2030?

We know that it is not. There is a vision that is critical to development, or to the development model, which should be an advantage, but not necessarily the vision that one has looks at the human being as part of nature.

It seems to me that there is a critical vision that is very good, but the vision proposed to us is in any way disconnected from this relationship with our environment, with the environment, with planetary boundaries and being responsible for them. I think that the political animal earns more than the ecological animal, to put it in some way.

— Are you referring to the current administration?

Yes, to speak of those who make the decisions, the government, the presidency, the orientation of even emblematic programs, it is part of a critical vision of elite privileges, which we cannot say was not the case.

I'm not saying that the diagnosis is correct or incorrect, but people are only being considered as individuals and not in their relational part with their environment. And this gives you a view that is too limited and biased. Maybe electorally effective, I don't know, we'll see, but for the long term and as a response to global crises that we can't deny and that Mexico is suffering brutal impacts from those environmental, climate and health crises, and so on, because it's not seeing it that way. It is best seen in a very immediate way, limited in time and scope and with disconnection with everything.