Leader on paper, laggard in practice: policy fragmentation and the multi-level paralysis in implementation of the Mexican Climate Act

ABSTRACT

Over the past decade, Mexican climate policy has captured worldwide attention for its ambition and level of commitment to international goals. Mexico was one of the first countries to adopt a climate change act, the 2012 General Law on Climate Change (referred to as the Mexican Climate Act, MCA). However, Mexico has been unable to fulfil its self-imposed climate goals and the innovative national climate legislation has only produced limited results. By assessing the functioning of the Inter-Ministerial Commission on Climate Change (CICC) and the National System on Climate Change (SINACC), this article analyses how and why climate policy fragmentation occurs during MCA implementation. This paper argues that the lack of integration observed in the Mexican case is the result of a dynamic process characterized by multi-level paralysis, which is caused by three interconnected factors: (1) weakness of the Mexican federal system affecting vertical integration of climate policy (CPI); (2) ambiguities in MCA mandates impeding horizontal CPI; and (3) uneven leadership in Mexican climate policy that generates a breach between promises made abroad and actual domestic implementation capacities. The empirical findings of this paper are based upon quantitative and qualitative content analyses applied to the minutes of meetings of both the CICC and the SINACC, together with 22 elite-interviews with officers close to the policy process. This paper concludes that if there is a blueprint for organizing the Mexican administrative system, it has to start with rethinking the role of climate federalism.

Key policy insights

• Mexican climate policy suffers from policy fragmentation and administrative instruments conceived for integration are not functioning properly. A reform of both is needed.

• Three interconnected factors generate policy fragmentation in Mexico: weakness of the Mexican federal system affecting collaboration across levels of government (vertical CPI); ambiguities in MCA mandates impeding coordination (horizontal CPI); and uneven leadership that generates a breach between the promises made abroad and actual domestic implementation capacities.

• Mexico has to rethink the role of climate federalism. The country adopted a model not suitable to its political and administrative culture.

KEYWORDS:

• Climate policy integration
• Mexican climate policy
• climate leadership
• administrative instruments for integration
• climate change act

Acknowledgements

This article is the result of the PAPIIT research grant IA303517 ‘The national climate policy: institutional challenges for environmental governance in Mexico (ClimaMex)’, funded by the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). The author recognizes the work of all the students that were part of the project. A special gratitude is to all the interviewees that share their opinions on the Mexican experience and to three anonymous reviewers that helped to shape the ideas here contained. The author acknowledges the support received from the guest editors of this special issue and the journal editor.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The platform Climate Action Tracker rated Mexico's NDC target as insufficient, signalling that the country lacks ambition in its new/upcoming NDC targets (see https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/mexico/).

2 As opposed to the multi-level reinforcement idea put forward by Schreurs and Tiberghien (2007).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México [grant number IA303517].