Under the crystalline waters off southeast Mexico, workers are laying a pipeline that President Claudia Sheinbaum is counting on to underpin an economic boom and lift millions from poverty.
The US$4.5 billion Southeast Gateway Project will deliver up to 1.3 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day from Texas to the Yucatan Peninsula when it’s completed next year, fueling power plants and a proposed trans-continental rail corridor intended to rival the Panama Canal.
But the project Sheinbaum inherited from her predecessor, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, also threatens to undercut one of her other key goals: cutting Mexico’s greenhouse gas emissions.
The 715-kilometer (444-mile) pipeline being developed by TC Energy Corp. of Canada along with Mexico’s state utility is the lynchpin of Sheinbaum’s ambitious plan to diversify the Yucatan’s economy. While powdery white beaches and the luxury resorts of Cancun and Playa del Carmen draw wealthy tourists, more than half the residents in the rest of the region live on less than about US$16 a day.
The conduit, which runs near a fragile coral reef zone and will also feed both an oil refinery and Lopez Obrador’s Maya Train Project, will make the country reliant on fossil fuels for years to come. That challenges Mexico’s commitment under the Paris Agreement to slash carbon emissions by 35% before 2030 and its goal under the Global Methane Pledge to cut methane emissions by 30% over the same period.
It’s a tension at the heart of Sheinbaum’s vision for Mexico — and indeed, for any country looking to grow economically while also reducing its carbon footprint.
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Source: Bloomberg
