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The Mexico GHG Program officially transitioned from a pilot project to a permanent program on October 2, marking a significant milestone for the program partners and 30 participating businesses. The transition was ushered in through a signing of a permanent-status Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), which replaced the pilot-phase MOU that was set to expire in November.
“Mexican government and business leaders were among the first to recognize the value of measuring and managing GHG emissions. The GHG Protocol team and WRI are proud to have worked with our partners in Mexico to take this idea through a successful pilot phase and into a permanent institution,” said Paul Faeth, Executive Vice President of WRI, who attended the event.
The program will be headquartered at the Ministry of the Environment and National Resources of the United Mexican States (SEMARNAT) in Monterrey. WRI and WBCSD have worked with SEMARNAT, along with the Business Commission for Sustainable Development of the Business Coordinator Council (CCE-CESPEDES), in developing the Mexico GHG Program.
These achievements include a 100 percent retention rate of the 15 businesses submitting GHG inventories in the pilot phase, with an additional 15 new business entities participating this year.
In addition to the increase in the number of GHG inventories, the percentage of national emissions covered by the program has also increased from 25 to 35.8 percent, which represents an almost 11 percent of reported emissions from stationary combustion and industrial processes.
And the Mexican government does not plan to stop there - in its draft national climate change strategy, the national government proposes a goal of increasing this coverage to 80 percent by the year 2008. A series of training workshops from May through September of this year on corporate GHG inventories for pilot groups located in Monterrey and Guadalajara preceded the program’s transition.