Sarah Phillips joined the Inter-American Dialogue in 2019 as a program assistant for Energy, Climate Change & Extractive Industries. She graduated magna cum laude from the State University of New York (SUNY) Geneseo with a B.A. in Spanish and international relations, as well as a minor in Latin American studies. While at SUNY Geneseo, Sarah volunteered at the Geneseo Migrant Center and West Side Learning Center and spent a semester abroad in Granada, Spain. After graduating, Sarah taught English at the Universidad Cooperativa de Colombia in Pasto, Colombia, on a Fulbright teaching assistantship.
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.
This policy brief examines the regulatory changes in Mexico’s electric power sector made under the López Obrador administration. The brief analyzes the broader implications for Mexico’s economy and its trade and economic relations with its key trading partner, the United States. A full report will be forthcoming in October 2020.
Latin American national oil companies (NOCs) have made important advances in slashing emissions from their operations through techniques such as reducing flaring, improving energy efficiency, and injecting CO2 for enhanced oil recovery, according to a new report by the Inter-American Dialogue and the Inter-American Development Bank. Yet, progress in producing lower carbon energy sources for consumers has been sluggish, no Latin American NOC has committed to net zero emissions, and for some companies emissions are on the rise, the report finds.
For over a decade Colombians have been debating whether or not to allow oil companies to use hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, to produce oil and gas from shale rock, a technique that has been controversial in many countries. The high court’s decision last week to uphold a moratorium on fracking suggests the increasingly polarized debate is far from over.
