Photo: Pixabay

By KELIN DILLON

According to a new report from daily Mexican newspaper El Universal, Mexico’s federal government has diverted 24 billion pesos allocated to the nation’s climate change prevention plan toward funding outgoing Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s (AMLO) controversial pet project, the Tren Maya.

Though the 2024 Federal Expenditure Budget (PEF) was originally designed to mitigate the country0s climate, the new budget alterations show Mexico’s increased prioritization of finishing  López Obrador’s presidential goals – even though the Tren Maya’s construction has been internationally contentious due to its purported negative impacts on Mexico’s environment.

This marks the second year in which the Secretariat of Finance and Public Credit (SHCP) moved climate change resources to fund the Tren Maya after it shifted 93 billion pesos to the project in 2023.

When further prompted by El Universal, the Secretariat of the Environment (Semarnat) failed to address if the Tren Maya’s new funds would go toward addressing the project’s impact on its surrounding environment or climate change, saying that the budgeting of the resources would instead fall fully on the shoulders of the Secretariat of National Defense (Sedena).

The SHCP also reported that it had taken another 97 billion pesos that was likewise budgeted for the fight against climate change and instead gave it to the Mexican Secretariat of Tourism.