Mexico City, April 27, 2023.- The head of government of Mexico City, Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo presented the successful programs in terms of mobility and climate change, which are promoted in her management, during the Summit of Cities of the Americas, in Denver, Colorado in the United States, which brings together, from April 26 to 28, 150 mayors from the American continent, in order to promote regional cooperation on various issues.
In her first intervention, during the plenary session “Accelerating investment for climate action in cities”, Claudia Sheinbaum highlighted that today Mexico is experiencing a moment of great transformations that are condensed in “Mexican Humanism”, which puts eradication at the forefront. of all forms of discrimination and corruption, in addition to promoting investment within the framework of development with well-being, sovereignty, democracy, freedom and improvement of the environment.
He also pointed out that Mexico City, “My city, with its 9.2 million inhabitants, is the heart of a metropolis of 22 million,” and like many others on the continent, it grew up with serious problems of economic, social, and territorial inequality; Furthermore, with development models based on the overexploitation of natural resources.
“Faced with these historical challenges, there is the need to contribute to the reduction of greenhouse gases and adaptation to droughts and other consequences of climate change,” he said.
Within this framework, he said that these challenges are faced with the optimism that another reality and another world is possible, “as long as we do not forget that environmental challenges are not faced only with environmental policies, but with the vision that human development –be careful, I said development and not economic growth– social and environmental justice always go hand in hand”, he explained.
He added that there is a vision that reducing corruption and privileges is enough to allocate resources; but there is also a global vision, in the sense that it is development cooperation that will allow a carbon-free society and economies, but that always promote well-being. The cooperation of the countries with more economic resources for development with well-being.
“It is not corruption, trickery, hatred, classism and racism or having more money, which makes us better people, better cities or better nations. It is not just a matter of tolerance, it is the recognition that the deepening of inequalities will always lead to violence and environmental degradation, to a world without hope and without a future”.
He stressed that “peace and carbon-free development are built with scientific and technical development, but without forgetting, without ever forgetting, the expansion and guarantee of social and human rights.”
As a scientist and as a politician, she affirmed, “I believe in the responsibility with the peoples who have elected us to build well-being for those who have less, a better world, it is possible,” said Claudia Sheinbaum.
Claudia Sheinbaum explained that in Mexico City there is a very aggressive electromobility program in public transport with the two largest urban cable cars in the world; Trolleybuses, “a work with 11 stations of unique infrastructure in the world”; Metrobús, “with a fully electric line, the only electric BRT line in the world”; as well as 250 kilometers of cycle paths.
In addition to 16 new parks with nearly 200 hectares in areas where there were no public spaces before; sanitation of bodies of water and construction of wetlands; and 35 million trees and plants planted with which 60 species of migratory birds have returned to the city.
With the Zero Waste Program, the 1,000-ton-a-day recycling plant is being built and we are about to finish the second one of the same magnitude; as well as the Hydrocarbonization Plant, which converts organic solid waste into charcoal pellets, this is a unique solution in Mexico City and that can be global.
Coupled with an 18 megawatt solar plant on the roofs of the Central de Abasto, the largest market in Latin America; and 50,000 homes with rainwater harvesting and we work on sustainable water management and our Air Quality Program.
“These and other actions have allowed the city to meet its goal of the Environmental and Climate Action Program that we set ourselves, which has achieved the reduction of 1.8 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per year,” said the capital’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum.
Later, during his participation in the panel “Aligning Investment in Infrastructure and Sustainable Development Agendas, through Complete Streets”, Sheinbaum pointed out that, since its inception, public transportation, which makes 70 percent of the inhabitants of the city move, it must not only be conceived as a system of reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, of reduction of environmental pollutants, but also as social justice projects.
He added that if transportation, the streets, if the way we move in cities are not projects of social justice, then they are reduced exclusively to the objective of reducing emissions.
“And since we talk about sustainable development, we should never forget the three pillars: of course, economic development –not growth, which is something else–; of course, the reduction of inequalities and the eradication of poverty; and, always the best environmental ones” he said.
“With these three visions, we have developed the public transport project in the City”, stated Claudia Sheinbaum.
In this context, he detailed how the Cablebus, Metrobús, Troblebuses system, particularly the elevated Trolleybus, as well as the comprehensive modernization of the Metro, which are part of the city’s integrated mobility program, represents the ordering of public transport, the reduction of emissions of polluting effects, reduction of transfer times, increase in the quality of life of users, accessibility, reduction of inequalities and social justice for those who historically had not been seen.
He pointed out that part of the serious problems of the cities of the American continent is that they grew not only with economic inequality, but also with social and territorial ones; And the only way to reduce inequalities is by investing where historically it hasn’t invested, Sheinbaum said.
Finally, he argued that the new vision of cities cannot be exclusively a vision that has to do with reducing greenhouse gas emissions or reducing local pollutants; necessarily has to do with sustainable development.
“It is possible to do it and it is possible thus, to generate better living conditions for all the inhabitants of the cities of our continent”, he pointed out.
At the beginning of the day, prior to their arrival at the Summit of the Cities of the Americas, to the rhythm of “México Lindo y Querido”, families of Mexican migrants living in the United States surprised the head of government of Mexico City with mariachis , Claudia Sheinbaum, with whom she will later hold a meeting.
Also, in the morning, the Head of Government held a meeting with Ilan Goldfajn, President of the Inter-American Development Bank, where they discussed current cooperation projects.
