Breathe
By Rosanety Barrios
We arrive at the beginning of 2024 and, as every year, we tend to feel renewed and with new energy to receive, with open arms, the promises that uncertainty and hope bring to the table.
We end the year that broke all temperature records in the boreal summer and in which the Earth Observation Program of the European Union (Copernicus) concludes that it would take only 7 more years for the planet to break the limit of 1.5 degrees Celsius of temperature increase compared to the pre-industrial era, which shows that the rate of warming has accelerated.
This risk, the most serious threat to the planet according to the World Economic Forum, fortunately has a solution. It is not easy or immediate, but it is possible to achieve it if all countries and all people do what we have to do: change our consumption habits, reduce energy consumption and replace the use of fossil fuels with clean electricity as quickly as possible.
It is clear that we cannot stop using oil to move the economy in the short term. But there are ways to reduce its use: developing electric transportation, renewable electricity generation and the adoption of technology that will make us much more efficient in our energy consumption. We can also establish clear rules so that the production of hydrocarbons and all activities related to their industrial processing, transportation, storage and sale are carried out under strict regulations that require us to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
That is, we know what to do to avoid catastrophe. So why is the threat still alive? There is no single answer. It has a lot to do with inertial behaviors, with the existence of subsidies that are difficult to remove and also with a lack of political will.
And it is precisely the political will to correct the course that I want to put at number 1 on my 2024 wish list. I hope with all my being that the mechanism of discussion and proposals that will accompany the electoral process will be built with the best spirit of raising the level of discussion, leaving behind accusations without evidence, personal disqualifications and finally making use of hard and verifiable data to contrast proposals.
I would start by hoping that, when talking about Petróleos Mexicanos, lies and false data are left behind and reality is faced: Pemex's crude oil production has not stopped falling, it burns methane without control in the south of the country, its six refineries lose money every day since they produce 30 times more fuel oil than a refinery located in Houston and the huge discounts it grants when selling gasoline to retain customers are a mistake that has it positioned in the worst crisis in its history, unable to pay suppliers or financial creditors and therefore, out of the debt market, which forces us all to maintain indefinitely, direct transfers to avoid catastrophe.
Within my wish list, I would like to include that when talking about electricity, it should be openly and transparently commented that in the last five years there has been no investment in transmission lines (the great roads of electrons), that the project to have an intelligent electricity distribution service has been abandoned and that there are no new generation plants to boast about, that the CFE continues to increase its operating costs and that its losses between January 2019 and September 2023 reached 96 billion pesos, despite the fact that the direct subsidies paid by all Mexicans with our taxes amount to more than 366 billion pesos.
I also hope that it will be acknowledged that 75% of Mexico's electricity generation is fossil fuel based, that the fuel oil plants that should have been decommissioned are still operating, and that it is impossible to know what CFE's true debt is, since there is a portion of off-balance sheet debt whose amount is not disclosed anywhere.
I note in my list that it should be taken into account that this summer the temperature is expected to break records again, so that the expectation of new outages is the safest scenario. Lest, during the elections, the electrical system should go down.
My greatest wish is that Mexican society demands that during the campaign the truth be spoken and the proposals that allow us to identify who has the political will to put an end, once and for all, to an energy sector trapped in the 20th century and lead us towards the modern and clean future that we deserve.
The opinions expressed are the responsibility of the authors and are absolutely independent of the position and editorial line of the company. Opinion 51.
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