Anti-colonial memory and AMLO’s energy policies

What is really behind Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s so-called ‘fossil fuel fixation’?

At the April 22 virtual Climate Summit organised by United States President Joe Biden, as various countries made commitments to curb their greenhouse emissions, Mexico’s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) defended his country’s continuing use of fossil fuels. He shared that Mexico has discovered three large hydrocarbon deposits, but tried to present this as a development that should please rather than alarm the participants of the summit. “Although we have discovered three big reserves of hydrocarbons,” the president said, “the oil we’re discovering basically will be destined to cover fuel demand in the domestic market, and the practice of exporting crude will be ended.” By doing so, he added, “we will help avoid the excessive use of fossil fuels.”