As climate change continues unabated, Mexico stands at a pivotal point of transformation. The election of its first female president, Claudia Sheinbaum, has put Mexico on a path to a sustainable future. With Sheinbaum’s strong background in science and politics, Mexico is on a journey to clean energy, environmental justice, and a sustainable long-term plan. 

President Claudia Sheinbaumof Mexico during an inauguration ceremony in Mexico City

Claudia Sheinbaum is the first female president in the 200-plus years since Mexico’s independence and was inducted on October 1, 2024. Sheinbaum promises Mexico the potential to have a green future as she is highly educated and comes from a family of scientists and professors. Her mother, Annie Pardo Cemo, is a biologist as well as a highly esteemed professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). Her father, Carlos Sheinbaum, has a career in chemical engineering. With such a science-focused family, Sheinbaum was heavily influenced to attend UNAM, a highly prestigious school in Mexico City, and pursue a major in physics. Sheinbaum went on to continue her education and obtained both her master’s and doctorate from UNAM with a focus on energy engineering. For her doctoral research, which took place at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, she focused on energy consumption within Mexico in comparison to other industrial countries.

Sheinbaum has always been heavily engaged in the world of political and social activism. She was politically involved within organizations at UNAM as both a student representative as well as within her professorial position during the 1980s & 1990s. Although she helped found the student-led Revolutionary Democratic Party in 1998, she never had an official political position until the 2000s when she was appointed Secretary of the Environment of Mexico City, by former President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. She served as Mexico’s top environmental official for six years. Her role consisted of the facilitation of the introduction of the city’s bus system, the Metrobus, as well as overseeing the construction of the second story of the Periferico, a beltway road that circles the entirety of Mexico City’s urban zone. Sheinbaum has always had close ties with Lopez Obrador, but after he lost his bid to become Mexico’s president in the 2006 election, Sheinbaum decided to return to UNAM and continue to contribute to her work within the climate sector. She contributed to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and worked specifically on the climate change migration section of the fourth and fifth reports. The ICCP as a whole was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize for the fourth assessment’s publication in 2007. Sheinbaum continued her political and social work when she was elected mayor of the Tlalpan district in Mexico City. Sheinbaum put a strong emphasis on the importance and urgency of water rights within the district. Sheinbaum throughout her early political career has always advocated for reformation of public transit issues and announced a plan to essentially modernize the outdated subway infrastructure. Her work continued into the environmental sector as she facilitated the expansion of rainwater collection, implemented a reforestation campaign, as well as modernized the municipal waste management system. 

Then Mayor of Mexico City, Claudia Sheinbaum, planting a tree.

Sheinbaum’s environmental background and knowledge have always been prevalent within her political work, especially when she was elected mayor of Mexico City in 2018. She served as Mexico’s first female mayor, and in her six years of work she implemented an agenda to expand green spaces, participate in extensive planting initiatives, improve air quality, harvest rainwater, reduce the amount of waste, create innovative new ideas for transit, and construct a municipal solar farm. Sheinbaum faced many obstacles during her time as mayor, since President Lopez Obrador supported the process of undercutting previously established federal incentives for access to renewable power and instead chose to invest in a process that favors pollution-prone oil in an ineffective gas industry. This action puts the entirety of Mexico at risk and raises major concerns within friendly capitals as Mexico almost didn’t hit its greenhouse gas emissions-reduction targets. Sheinbaum didn’t let Lopez Obradors’ environmentally destructive administration stop her as she made strong claims towards the improvement of green spaces around the city, as well as positive initiatives towards reforestation and the greenification of public spaces for the community to enjoy. Her 2018-2024 proposal promised the planting of 40 million plants & trees, the restoration of over 2,470 acres of public areas, the decontamination of over 53 miles of waterways, and reducing municipal solid waste by 50%. Sheinbaum has also promoted the installation of pollinator plants within parks, balconies, and other green spaces for the overall enhancement of the natural urban ecosystems within the city. 

In the summer of 2024, Claudia Sheinbaum was elected as Mexico’s first female and first Jewish president. As the newly elected 66th president, Sheinbaum has continued her passion for environmental activism by continuing her path towards transitioning away from fossil fuels towards renewable resource-based energy throughout the nation. Her campaign consisted of her commitment to the generation of creating at least 45% of Mexico’s electricity from renewable resources by the year 2030. Alongside this campaign, during her inauguration speech, Sheinbaum also made a mention of her plans to commence production of an electric vehicle called Olinia. The project aims to manufacture three models by the end of 2030 to boost the use of electric vehicles and reduce the reliance on the importation of foreign manufacturers. Project Olina aims to stimulate the domestic automotive industry, create an influx of jobs within the economy, as well as encourage the use of sustainable transportation within Mexico. Sheinbaum strives to steer far from former President Lopez Obrador’s devotion to the use of fossil fuels as he, among many other things, put more than $20 billion into the construction of a new oil refinery as well as suspended renewable energy auction processes. President Sheinbaum said she plans on unveiling “[an] ambitious energy transition program” which is aimed towards “[the] reduction of greenhouse gases that cause climate change.” According to the Ministry of Energy, if achieved, Mexico would be back on track to meet the goals arranged by the Paris Agreement, which is trying to facilitate the prevention of the escalation of average global temperature. 

Claudia Sheinbaum celebrating her presidential election victory.

Claudia Sheinbaum isn’t just making history with her title of first female president, she’s also making sustainable and green change for Mexico. With her intensive passion and previous work in the environmental and climate change fields, Sheinbaum offers Mexico a bright future in the world of sustainability. With the promise of environmental and social advocacy within the community, Sheinbaum offers many green incentives with Project Olina. She also opens up a future of renewable resource-based energy instead of settling for a reliance on fossil fuels. This is just the start of Mexico’s environmentally conscious future!