Over the past two years, the government of Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has sought to strip away central aspects of the 2013 energy reform that increased private investment in the power sector and return control of the sector to state utility CFE. These moves will reduce needed investment in the sector and lead to higher electricity costs for Mexican industry and manufacturing, affecting employment, trade, and Mexico’s ability to meet its clean energy targets, according to this new report by the Inter-American Dialogue.
Revitalizing Brazil’s energy sector will be key to Jair Bolsonaro’s success as president – but so far, he’s had mixed results when it comes to getting reforms through Congress. Unless Bolsonaro learns to work with legislators and ease turbulence within his government, Brazil’s missing energy reforms will continue to threaten its economy, and its politics.
Lisa Viscidi, director of the Energy, Climate Change & Extractive Industries Program, appeared on CGTN to discuss the reasons for the unprecedented blackout that affected all of Argentina and Uruguay and parts of Paraguay on June 16, how it affects Argentine President Mauricio Macri’s re-election campaign, and whether it could happen again.
A lack of transmission-line maintenance may have been the immediate trigger for the power outage that left much of Venezuela in darkness on March 7, but it is a symptom of almost two decades of government mismanagement that has debilitated Venezuela’s power sector, draining its reserves of both human and financial capital and nudging it towards collapse.
Venezuela’s longest-ever blackout, which began on March 7 and lasted until at least March 12 in most of the country, aggravated an already dire humanitarian situation. Lisa Viscidi presented to a special meeting of the OAS Permanent Council about how grave government mismanagement of the power sector debilitated Venezuela’s grid, making electricity rationing a routine and power failures commonplace.
AMLO’s skepticism of private investment, the cancellation of generation and transmission auctions, and the return to state-led electricity development through bolstering of the CFE threaten to squander Mexico’s renewable potential and drag its clean development efforts backwards.
Lisa Viscidi
Presentations ˙
˙ Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
In an interview with Benjamin Gedan, director of the Wilson Center’s Argentina Project, Lisa Viscidi discusses the current conditions and outlook for three key components of the Argentine energy sector.
Lisa Viscidi, Benjamin Gedan
Interviews ˙
˙ Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
On March 7th, the Inter-American Dialogue and CAF-Development Bank of Latin America organized a roundtable with a diverse group of experts to provide input for a forthcoming report on US investment in Latin American energy.
