A bitter dispute about one of Poland's largest lignite mines — the source of electricity for millions, jobs for thousands, and serious environmental concerns for the region — highlights the hurdles communities around the world could face during attempts to phase out coal.
This brief examines the legality of the decrees issued by the National Center for the Control of Energy (CENACE) and the Department of Energy (SENER) in Mexico earlier this year, which were intended to prevent renewable energy companies from connecting to the transmission grid.
The authors present a case study that considers the technological merits of methane pyrolysis while also addressing real-world implications including health and safety risks and commercial risks for introducing new carbon supply chains.
This issue brief is a preliminary paper introducing forthcoming research that will be expounded upon in future publications.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.25613/7tvg-6k39
This paper tracks a change in the direction of Mexico’s energy policy under President Andrés Manuel López Obrador — a change that inhibits private investment while attempting to restore Pemex’s oil monopoly.
Mexico’s 2013 energy reform, which opened its hydrocarbon and electricity industries to private investors, increased the autonomy and independence of its regulatory commissions. However, recent decisions by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador now threaten these institutions, writes nonresident scholar Miriam Grunstein.
To gain public support for Mexico’s energy reforms, the government promised a future of low gas prices. The author documents the fallout when gas prices instead shot up 20 percent.
Energy regulation under Mexico's energy-sector reforms are of great interest to investors, since autonomous regulators—protected from political pressures and able to make and sustain technical decisions—can guarantee greater legal consistency than government authorities exposed to political pressures. The difficulty was finding an alternative model that ensured the institutional strengthening of the agencies without relinquishing too much control of the executive branch.
Impact investments — investments made with the intention to generate a social and environmental impact alongisde a financial return — have gained momentum both in developed and developing countries in recent years.
