During Thursday’s climate change summit, hosted by President Joe Biden, Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador pitched his “Planting Life” program, with the aim of planting one billion fruit and timber trees, while at the same time, trying to get the U.S. on board to fund a massive expansion of the program.
Lopez Obrador’s tree planting program has already planted 700,000 trees in Mexico, where the government pays 450,000 Mexican farmers in 20 of Mexico’s 32 states a stipend of about $225 per month to tend the saplings, reported the Associated Press.
The “Planting Life” proposal
Calling it “possibly the largest reforestation effort in the world,” Lopez Obrador said his tree-planting program aims to create 1.2 million jobs and plant 3 billion additional trees through expansion into southeastern Mexico and Central America.
Lopez Obrador said U.S. President Joe Biden “could finance” the program’s extension to Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, per Reuters.
“I add a complimentary proposal, with all due respect, the U.S. government could offer those who participate in this program that after sowing their lands for three consecutive years, they would have the possibility to obtain a temporary work visa,” Lopez Obrador said.
“And after another three or four years, they could obtain residency in the United States or dual nationality,” he added.
As it turns out, Vice president Kamala Harris will speak with Lopez Obrador on May 7 about his proposal to expand the tree-planting program to Central America as a way to reduce poverty and migration, Mexico’s foreign minister said on Saturday.
Is Lopez Obrador really serious?
First of all, the Associated Press suggests it is not clear just how serious Lopez Obrador is about his visa proposal or his interest in mitigating climate change. He didn’t even bother with listening to other participants at the summit, instead, attending to his daily news conference.
Diego Pérez Salicrup, a biologist and researcher at Mexico’s National Autonomous University, is not entirely convinced the program will be successful, or if it can be extended to the different farming, climate, and environmental conditions in Central America.
Noemí Interián, a technician who works with the program in Yucatan, points out that to expand the program down into Central America, it would have to be adapted to the soil, climate, and social conditions there.
However, the fact that Mexico has focused on building oil refineries, and burning more coal and fuel oil at power plants, all while placing limits on private renewable and gas-fired electricity generation, would lead many people to question the Mexican president’s sincerity when it comes to global warming.
And while Lopez Obrador did not make a commitment to reduce CO2 emissions at the summit, he detailed how the country was updating its hydroelectric plants to reduce the use of oil and coal in the production of electricity.
It will be interesting to see how that program pans out, seeing as 85 percent of Mexico is under extreme drought conditions, and reservoirs are less than half capacity.
