The Mérida City Council will work cooperatively within the Net Zero Cities initiative, which the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) will be implementing, to receive technical assistance with the objective of reducing Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions, improving energy efficiency in the sectors of buildings, transportation, short-lived climate pollutants (methane and black carbon) through climate financing for municipalities, reported the Mayor, Renán Barrera Concha.
The Merida Municipal President recalled that on October 25, the first session was held in Mexico City with the representatives of the five selected cities, to advise them on the USAID/Mexico Partnership for Net Zero Cities vision, and that it contributes to developing the work to strengthen the work that is being carried out in the chosen cities.
“Climate change is a priority in the City Council and is part of the objectives of the 2030 Agenda, a document to which our Municipal Development Plan is aligned, for this reason, Mérida makes extraordinary efforts to allocate resources so as not to stop our environmental actions and continue with the fight against climate change,” he said.
The mitigation and adaptation actions to climate change, he added, although they must be taken at the local level, have a global objective in which all countries have a shared responsibility. In Mérida, we know that collaborative climate actions must be innovative, suitable for replication and improvement, as well as sensitive, inclusive, but also concrete, visible, measurable, and focused that integrate social and ecological benefits.
Barrera Concha highlighted that Mérida is open to working closely with the three levels of government, civil society and the private sector, to achieve better lasting results, therefore, it adds to the political will that exists to consolidate sustainable development in Mexico.
“We are extremely satisfied that Mérida, one of the Mexican cities that has worked the most on this issue, has been invited to the launch of the “Mexico Partnership For Net Zero” project financed by the United States Agency for International Development,” he emphasized.
In turn, the Ambassador of the United States in Mexico, Ken Salazar highlighted the leadership of Mérida in the fight against climate change through strategies and programs that allow to continue building a sustainable Municipality.
“Mérida, is a great example of how to continue to face this problem from any field, thank you very much Renán,” he said.
For her part, Laura Ballesteros Mancilla, ambassador of the Green Agreement for Monterrey, indicated that Mérida is a great city to live in, due to its quality of life and the work they have done to maintain it as an example at the national level. She also highlighted the work that the Mayor has done in terms of caring for the environment.
It should be noted that in the next five years work will be done cooperatively to improve energy efficiency measures in the construction and transportation sectors and address climate change with USAID and the cities of Hermosillo, Monterrey, Guadalajara, and Mexico City.
Among the actions that the City Council has carried out to mitigate the environmental impact is the purchase of efficient equipment prioritizing energy and economic savings in the long term, this maintains a decrease in electricity consumption to reduce the effects of the emission of Greenhouse Gases generated by buildings. In addition, the Energy Management System Manual was prepared, energy audits were carried out in two administrative buildings and a photovoltaic system was implemented in another 92 municipal buildings, with an investment of more than 53 million pesos for the installation of 4 thousand 835 solar panels.
The presidium was integrated by: Antonio Mediavilla Sahagún, General Director of the Net Zero Cities Project; Mileydi Guilarte, Deputy Assistant Administrator within the USAID Office for Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC); Marina Robles, Secretary of the Environment representing Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo, Governor of Mexico City; Bruce Abrams, director of the USAID Mexico Mission; Isabel Studer, director of the California-Mexico Alliance University; Pablo Lemus Navarro, mayor of Guadalajara; Renán Antonio Astiazarán Gutiérrez, mayor of Hermosillo and Laura Iraís Ballesteros Mancilla, ambassador of the Green Agreement for Monterrey.
The City Council is awarded for the “Mérida nos Une” program.
On the other hand, yesterday Tuesday the ceremony of the Second Edition of the “Transforming Mexico From the Local” Award was held at the Old Senate, where the Mayor received the award in the category of Science and innovation on behalf of the City Council for the implementation of the “Mérida nos Une” program during the pandemic, which meets the Sustainable Development Goals and aligns with the Zero Hunger goals, in addition to combining technology and a sense of community to provide attention to 4,187 requests for help, has channeled 175,000 products and services, as well as benefiting around 32,000 people in vulnerable situations.
The opening of the ceremony was in charge of the members of the presidium Nancy de la Sierra Arámburo, Senator of the Republic, Claudia Ruiz Massieu Salinas, senator and representative of the Belisario Domínguez Institute, Adolfo Gómez Hernández, senator of the Republic, Cynthia Martínez, Official National of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), Mexico, and Lorenzo Jiménez de Luis, Resident Representative of UNDP, Mexico.
The speakers agreed in pointing out that the transformation that is being carried out in the country must have a municipalist vision, because that is where the first interactions between citizens and municipal authorities take place, for this reason, it is necessary to reinforce and recognize these structures. of government that are responsible for solving problems and serving Mexicans.
The award was presented by the representative of the evaluation committee, Ana Bertha Gutiérrez, coordinator of foreign trade and labor market at the Mexican Institute for Competitiveness (IMCO), who highlighted that among the proposals received was the implementation of the execution administration procedure during the Covid 19 of Municipality of Huixquilucan, the development program for MSMEs of Reynosa, Hermosillo, and Mérida nos Une de Mérida, which after an analysis, review and social impact, the Yucatecan capital was selected.
Finally, among the winners were Julio César Chávez Padilla, Municipal President of Guadalupe, Zacatecas; Enrique Francisco Galindo Ceballos, Municipal President of San Luis Potosí; the civil society organization Explora de León, Guanajuato, the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and, received an Honorable Mention, the Jade Organization.
