The Race to Clean Energy Is Leaving Mexico's Poorest Citizens Behind Meg Wilcox - AlterNet
go to original April 18, 2016

Wind turbines in Oaxaca, Mexico, produce not only power but also concerns about energy equity. (Acciona.com)

Wind power is booming in Mexico. With more than 3,200 megawatts in operation, the country is on par with Japan. By 2018 it expects to have 10,000 MW installed as part of the government’s Climate Action Plan.

Promising, right?

Scratch the surface of that boom, however, and you’ll find uncomfortable truths: land rights conflicts and perceived inequities in access to the cheaper wind power that are fueling fierce resistance to the wind farms among indigenous communities in the southern state of Oaxaca, which provides more than 80 percent of the total wind-power output of the country.

Mexico’s experience is a cautionary tale of how the global transition to clean energy can leave the world’s poorest citizens behind — and why we need policies, new business models and financing schemes to remedy the imbalance.

Close to two dozen wind parks now operate on the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, a stretch of land in Oaxaca just 120 miles (193 kilometers) wide from coast to coast. Mountain formations there create a tunnel that whips the wind up to 60 kilometers per hour (37 miles per hour), and resource studies show the region could more than double its current output — currently at 2,700 MW within a 463-square-mile (1,200-square-kilometer) area. The scale of the development is staggering. In one cluster of parks north of the city of Juchitán, hundreds of turbines spin for miles along the highway, towering over cinderblock homes, schools and farm fields.

And yet, “Not a single watt stays here in Oaxaca,” says Carlos Beas, director and founder of the indigenous rights group UCIZONI (la Unión de Comunidades Indígenas de la Zona Norte del Istmo de Tehuantepec, or the Union of Indigenous Communities of the Northern Zone of the Isthmus).

More precisely, community residents don’t benefit from the low-cost wind energy, even though most Oaxacans are connected to the grid.

Read the rest at AlterNet

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