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fork(2) [soylentnews.org] writes:

      Writing in Science, Lizzie Wade [sciencemag.org] says:

There's a big geopolitical imbalance in the new clean energy agreement reached this week by the presidents of the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Although Canada already far exceeds the trilateral pledge to generate half of North America's electricity from non-carbon-based sources by 2025 and the United States has a clear path forward, Mexico faces major hurdles.

      [...]

        [The] new continent-wide commitment comes shortly after the Mexican government completed a controversial energy reform that opened up the nationalized oil industry to foreign investments. The reform will make regulating the energy sector more complex.

        [...]

        Hydropower now makes up 70% of renewable energy in Mexico, with wind at only 15%. But last year the government committed to tripling the country's wind energy capacity to 9.8 gigawatts by 2018. The Isthmus of Tehuantepec in the state of Oaxaca in Mexico -- the thin strip of land between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans -- is one of the windiest places in the world and already hosts about 1600 turbines, generating 90% of the country's output. The majority of future wind development is planned for this region, but several ambitious projects there have been delayed or canceled by conflicts with indigenous communities over land rights.

      "The problem isn't that they don't want wind power. The problem is that they are not consulted," says [Gustavo] Alanis-Ortega, [president of the Mexican Center for Environmental Rights] whose organization has supported the communities' challenges. "They feel invaded, marginalized, and exploited. No one is taking them into account."

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