Mexican policies on climate change are reinforced internally by the General Law on Climate Change and its instruments such as the Special Climate Change Program. The first report of the latter reveals the challenges facing the country at the level of federal public administration and the progress of its climate targets.
The priorities and progress in the field of climate change adaptation and mitigation can be analyzed through the Special Climate Change Program (as per the Spanish acronym PECC) and its results. Its relevance lies in the fact that the program formulates climate change targets and establishes responsibilities, execution times, coordination of actions and implementation cost estimates. According to the report, in the period 2014-2016, only 43% of the lines of action that feed the indicators have made progress as planned (related to the target to be met in 2018).
In the area of adaptation, the two PECC indicators progressed more than 50%. In the area of mitigation, only one of the four indicators had a significant progress of 35%, reducing approximately 31 million tons of CO2 annually. Finally, the indicators on the instruments that contribute to the National Climate Change Policy, for instance the Climate Change Information System and the National Register of Emissions, reported a progress of 90% and 60%, respectively.
In contrast, the indicators that lag behind in their targets focus on the development of instruments that contribute to the reduction of vulnerability of the population and the productive sectors of the country; mitigation of emissions of methane and black carbon; and the number of agreements entered into to support the fulfillment of climate change targets.
Funding sources for the implementation of the lines of action have mainly come from the budget program of the 2014 Federal Expenditure Budget and other public resources, representing together almost 70 per cent. Other sources, such as international resources, contributed with 9.01 per cent of the total funding.
PECC is a six-year planning tool used by the federal government of Mexico to establish cross-cutting objectives, strategies, lines of action and climate change mitigation and adaptation targets. Since 2014, progress must be reported every two years, with this report being the first exercise performed.