Mexico ranks 8th out of 11 in sustainability in Latin America
In accordance with AméricaEconomía magazine, Mexico ranks eighth among Latin American nations evaluated in environmental efforts.
AméricaEconomía magazine, specialized in Latin America and incorporated to Dow Jones & Co, offers its reading on the sustainability of Latin American nations. It highlights that efforts within countries are uneven and difficult, as evidenced by the fact that many of them have not yet ratified the Escazú Costa Rica Agreement.
AméricaEconomía focuses on the environmental performance of eleven Latin American countries and presents a Latin American Sustainability Ranking, which measures overall progress towards sustainability in the region in twelve dimensions (using 26 standardized and endorsed indicators).
Costa Rica, Uruguay and Colombia head the second edition of the ranking, which incorporates new indicators. The research includes for the first time a vision of public policies, in a unique effort at the measurement level, which allows to evaluate the strength with which governments and States are willing to advance in environmental protection.
Data treatment
The methodology shows long-term technical indicators -such as emissions, air quality or the energy matrix- and analyzes in depth the environmental institutional framework, legislative activity, binding and non-binding international commitments, hotspots of active socio-environmental conflict, and environmental disasters (such as spills or fires).
The data comes from validated secondary sources, such as international government agencies and academic research centers, as well as some of AméricaEconomía's own journalistic research. The information and facts gathered demonstrate the lack of a coordinated strategy in the region, although there are countries working individually on climate action with imitable programs (such as Costa Rica and Uruguay, who lead the count).
Best (and worst) practices
Mexico shows low performance due to its environmental and social conflicts, lack of water resources and regular occurrence of a large number of events and disasters. Its air quality is not good either, nor is its energy matrix. Its institutional and legal framework, as well as its tax collection and spending, end up failing.
It has better grades in waste management, emissions and agricultural pollution. It achieves its best position in biodiversity and forests, as well as being a signatory of treaties and commitments.
The best practices, rated on a 100-point basis, are observed in:
Costa Rica: treaties and commitments; emissions; collection and spending; institutional and legality.
Uruguay: Biodiversity and forests; air quality; absence of environmental/social conflicts.
Colombia: Agricultural pollution.
Chile: Waste management.
Paraguay: Energy matrix.
Bolivia: Events and disasters.
Peru: Water resources.
Mexico, on the other hand, has its best score in signing International Treaties and Commitments, but signing without acting on them does not help much. Mexico scores 55.2 and thus ranks eighth in Latin America. The Sustainability table in the region is headed by Costa Rica and Uruguay. These countries, by the way, also stand out in terms of quality of life and human development.
Natural disasters in the region
The country with the highest number of non-natural environmental disasters recorded (from July 2019 to December 2020) is Peru, with 27 disasters. Among them, fires stand out. Then follows Mexico, with 20 events of this type, and with an unfortunate first place in disasters qualified as more serious: spills and leaks.
This is followed by Paraguay, with 13 disasters and a fire problem similar to that of Peru (with risk areas where fires are repeated year after year). However, the type of disasters with the greatest severity and weight, due to the primacy of man's hand, occur in Mexico and Brazil -countries with the worst performance in this dimension-.
National environmental agencies
The region has environmental institutions in various forms and with different levels of bureaucracy. Of the eleven countries studied, only Mexico does not have a Ministry of the Environment or similar. The parliaments of these countries all have a commission in both chambers that deals with environmental issues. What is not equal is the importance given to conflicts in the legal sphere: only four countries (Bolivia, Chile, Costa Rica and Paraguay) have environmental courts.
