JURIST - Paper Chase: Mexico legislature passes climate change bill

[JURIST] The Mexican legislature passed a sweeping climate change bill on Thursday 128-10 in the Chamber of Deputies [official website, in Spanish] and unanimously in the Senate [official website, in Spanish]. The bill requires the country to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 30% by 2020, requires 35% of its energy come form renewable sources by 2024, requires mandatory emissions reporting, establishes a carbon-trading market and creates a commission to oversee implementation of the bill. The bill now goes to Mexican President Felipe Calderon [official website, in Spanish] to sign into law.

Mexico is following a global trend of countries implementing their own climate change laws, rather then relying on international agreements such as the Kyoto Protocol [text; JURIST news archive]. In December Canada withdrew [JURIST report] from the Kyoto Protocol. Earlier in December 194 countries agreed to extend [JURIST report] the Kyoto Protocol until 2017 after they failed to institute a new internationally-binding climate change treaty in 2009. In November Australia passed a law that imposes a price on carbon emissions [JURIST report] in an effort to improve the environment and the country's economy. In 2007 the UK introduced its own climate change legislation [JURIST report], pledging to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 60% by 2050. The Kyoto Protocol was adopted [JURIST report] in 2005.