- Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum took office last year touting her climate science background, yet continues to neglect renewable energy and conservation while subsidizing state-owned oil company Pemex.
- Funds her government earmarked for climate change and a renewable energy transition are actually going to infrastructure, oil and gas, and other projects unrelated to the environment, a review of the 2026 budget shows.
- In one case, more than $40 million for a train line is counted twice but only spent once, misrepresenting how much money the government is dedicating to the environment.
MEXICO CITY — In its fiscal budget for 2026, passed in November, the Mexican government promised funds for renewable energy, protected areas and other environmental concerns. But much of what’s labeled as climate spending actually has nothing to do with the environment, and may even exaggerate how much is being spent, a review of the budget shows.
Line items in the government budget reveal that funds earmarked for the clean energy transition and combatting climate change are instead going to infrastructure, oil and gas, and other projects largely unrelated to the environment.
“Climate action hasn’t been prioritized in the budget,” said Anaid Velasco Ramírez, public policy and legal research manager at the Mexican Center for Environmental Law (CEMDA). “In fact, much of the public budget is allocated to projects that generate large emissions, starting with the energy sector.”
President Claudia Sheinbaum, who took office last year touting her climate science background, said she wanted to address energy demands with renewable sources. But her government is also worried about the country’s dwindling proven oil reserves, leading it to invest in new oil exploration at the same time that it’s promising an ambitious clean energy transition.
The government is spending 17.9 billion pesos ($983 million) next year on its Energy Transition National Strategy, up nearly 55% from the previous year. It’s also spending 212.6 billion pesos ($11.7 billion) on “resources for the adaptation and mitigation of the effects of climate change.” But those figures don’t come close to what’s allocated for the state-owned oil company, Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex), at around 517.4 billion pesos ($28.4 billion).
Critics say many of the initiatives included in climate change and energy transition spending have nothing to do with the environment or are only loosely related.
For climate change, the budget lists 44.7 billion pesos ($2.48 billion) for “protection of the nation’s territorial integrity, independence, and sovereignty” and 46 billion pesos ($2.53 billion) for “infrastructure for railway transport of freight and passengers.”
It also includes a separate 40 million pesos ($2.2 million) for “infrastructure for national defense” and more than 744 million pesos ($40.9 million) for “public mass transport services for people and freight” on Tren Maya, the controversial train line that destroyed rainforests and displaced Indigenous communities in the Yucatán Peninsula.
Another climate change listing allocates more than 26.3 billion pesos ($1.44 billion) for “coordination of hydrocarbon policy,” a mandate largely concerned with fossil fuel production.
The Energy Transition National Strategy has similar listings that appear to be out of the scope of clean energy, including more than 1.3 billion pesos ($71.4 million) for “hydrocarbon economic infrastructure” for Pemex and another 1.3 billion pesos for hydrocarbon policy for the Ministry of Energy.
It also includes 8.7 billion pesos ($478 million) for “railway infrastructure for cargo and passenger transport” and more than 86,000 pesos ($4,700) for the “operation services of railway infrastructure” by the Navy. While rail development is often considered a decarbonization strategy, many of Mexico’s passenger and freight trains continue to run on diesel, according to government reports.
“You’re allocating this amount under climate change, but you’re not necessarily funding concrete actions for mitigation, adaptation or resilience,” said Charlie Canek Punzo, a researcher with the Territory, Rights and Development program at Fundar, a Mexican NGO focused on budget transparency in the oil and gas sector.
“For me, from the outset, it’s already very troubling that oil and gas appears [under climate change and renewable energy],” he told Mongabay over the phone.
In one instance, the 744.1 million pesos ($40.9 million) for Tren Maya is double-listed across different budget totals: in climate change mitigation and then again in the Energy Transition National Strategy. That means it’s being counted twice but only spent once, misrepresenting how much money the government has dedicated to the environment.
“They were not very transparent,” Canek Punzo said of the way the budget was designed.
The Ministry of Finance and Public Credit, which oversees the budget, couldn’t be reached for comment for this story.
In total, around 50 billion of the 212.6 billion pesos ($2.75 billion out of $11.7 billion) for climate change spending are actually going to projects that are plausibly climate-related, and around 5.5 billion pesos of the 17.9 billion pesos ($302 million out of $983 million) for the Energy Transition National Strategy are going to projects that are plausibly related to renewable energy.
“Mexico has undertaken a profound transformation in its energy policy,” a year-one progress report published by the Sheinbaum government said. “The model that profited from the nation’s strategic resources has been left behind to give way to a sovereign, fair vision of universal access to energy: a public good indispensable for guaranteeing security, development and national well-being.”
A lot of Sheinbaum’s climate and energy policy platform was shaped by her predecessor, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), who limited private investment to protect the public oil sector from outside competition. It hindered renewable energy development while prioritizing oil and gas, critics argued.
Before AMLO took office in 2018, around 15% of the country’s energy came from renewables, and there were ambitious plans to expand solar farms, according to the Ministry of Energy. Now, only around 11% of the national demand is met by renewables, according to the year-one report.
Critics argue the Sheinbaum government should prioritize renewables over oil as the long-term solution to the country’s energy needs. To generate 45% clean energy by 2030, the government needs to roughly double its current investment, according to estimates from the Mexican Institute for Competitiveness. And to avoid a major energy deficit, that investment would have to have started this year.
“It’s basically empty words,” Velasco from the environmental law center said of the government’s promise to invest in renewable energy and climate change mitigation. “What will actually happen is that the planet will keep warming due to these emissions, especially from the fossil fuel sector. And at the same time, the human rights of communities, as well as nature itself, is going to be put at risk.”
Banner image: A solar panel company worker in Mexico City. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)
Citations:
Vivoda, V., Krame, G., & Spraggon, M. (2023). Oil theft, energy security and energy transition in Mexico. Resources, 12(2), 30. doi:10.3390/resources12020030
Martínez, N. (2025). AMLO’s dilemma: Balancing energy sovereignty and climate action. Foro Internacional, 65(3). doi:10.24201/fi.3140
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Officials struggle with land invasions in Mexico’s Balam Kú Biosphere Reserve
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