This February, Mexico, host of COP16 in late November this year, will launch a first in the world initiative on climate. This initiative involves the mass engagement of its population in problem solving on climate change. National pride and excitement at having the world’s highest greenhouse gas measuring station (at 4500 meters) has caused a surge of interest in climate change. For nearly a year, a climate theater (the climate education equivalent of a planetarium) has been a magnet drawing the public to Puebla’s Flor del Bosque State Park. Over ninety thousand visitors have already received multi-media briefings on climate change. This week, a similar theater opens at Mexico City’s Museum of Natural History, and another theatre dedication will occur in an ecological park in Cuernavaca, capital of the State of Morelos.
All these theaters and a growing network across Mexico - the next in an art museum in Cancun - are to be connected to the world’s highest climate observatory named for Sir Crispin Tickell, who has become an environmental folk hero in Mexico. Measurements have been taken atop Sierra Negra, site of the Tickell Observatory, since January 2009.
Although those who manage the world’s network of just over 24 greenhouse-gas monitoring stations believe that the Tickell Observatory may join the famed Mauna Loa station in Hawaii as one of the most significant from a scientific standpoint, its much larger significance may have been in inspiring a nationwide climate education network. Using the Science On a Sphere Projection systems developed by the US’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the growing Tickell Network seeks to ignite interest among theater visitors to become climate problem solvers using online tools available to them on their laptops, smart phones or desktops.
The Tickell network seeks to tap growing interest among the citizenry of Mexico in being global leaders in practical problem solving on climate. In the past few years Mexico has managed to show remarkable ingenuity in responding to climate change and provide a lesson to its wealthier neighbors to the North. Here both governmental officials and environmentalists have shown an imagination and drive unmatched by their counterparts in either the US or Canada. The Mexican response to Hurricane Dean in August 2007 reflected a sophistication in responding to climate change rarely achieved in the US, Canada or Western Europe.
Hurricane Dean made landfall with Category 5 intensity on August 21 in the State of Quintana Roo, the heart of Mexico’s tourist industry.
In stark contrast to actions in the US two years earlier with Hurricane Katrina, Mexican authorities, especially in Quintana Roo, took effective anticipatory actions. There were no fatalities in Quintana Roo, the only place in the entire Caribbean Region that experienced the full fury of Hurricane Dean. This extraordinary achievement, perhaps the first time in centuries that an inhabited area came through a Category 5 strike without fatalities, may have been due in part to the fact that the storm missed the heavily populated tourist havens and instead ripped through rural Mayan country. It also showed a remarkable effort led by Felix Gonzalez Canto, Quintana Roo’s young Governor, that involved civic organizations and the canny Mayans, who were determined to be far better prepared than when Hurricane Wilma savaged Quintana Roo in 2005.
In the past two years all three major parties in Mexico have agreed on the need for Mexico to become a leader on climate change. The Administration of President Felipe Calderon has committed Mexico to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions to 50% below 2002 levels by 2050.
Some state and city governments seem even more active. This sea change in Mexican public attitudes on climate change has occurred without spending a peso on paid television ads. In contrast, US environmental groups have spent tens of millions of dollars on such ads only to see public skepticism grow about the need to address climate change.
Luis Roberto Acosta, the young Mexican scientist who has spearheaded the development of the Tickell Network, has applied lessons learned while working beside first responders in Quintana Roo during Hurricane Dean. They have learned that giving people a sense of ownership in shaping practical solutions to benefit their families is far more effective than clever ads. As Mexico prepares to host COP16 in November, it also is advancing a model that can be more important than climate negotiations - exciting millions of minds to focus on climate and energy innovation.
John Topping Jr. is the President of the Washington, DC based Climate Institute and a CAO columnist