Focus on Arts and Ecology

Finance normally reserved for reducing emissions is being used to secure high-quality ore for greener steel production, raising environmental concerns. 

By Deng Yaowen, March 30, 2026

In January 2024, China Baowu Steel Group issued the first tranche of a bond that raised CNY 10 billion (USD 1.45 billion) on the Shanghai Stock Exchange.

Media reports described it as one of the largest corporate bond issuances by a Chinese state-owned enterprise in recent years. But perhaps most notable is where the money will be used. At least 70% of the proceeds are allocated to developing a huge iron ore mining project in Guinea, West Africa.  

Transition bonds issued in China’s steel sector are normally targeted at decarbonising existing steel production rather than upstream mining projects. The “low-carbon” part of the bond’s name is explained by the stated use of the high-grade ore to make steel in a way that emits less carbon, namely by direct reduction.

Guinea has expressed its ambitions to use the project to develop its own steel-processing industry. However, experts have raised concerns about the feasibility of this, as well as the environmental, social and climate footprint of the mining project.

Why high-grade ore matters

In China, “transition finance” has emerged as a way to support emission reduction in high-carbon sectors such as steel. It is distinct from “green finance” which typically funds projects with clearly defined environmental benefits.

There has been a steady rise in transition loans and bonds since 2021, when regulators began publishing transition finance guidance documents for industries like steel, coal power and building materials.

Issuance of transition-labelled steel bonds rose sharply in 2024, with 12 bonds totalling about CNY 22 billion, according to a 2025 report by non-profit the Climate Bonds Initiative (CBI). Only CNY 5.1 billion had been issued prior to 2024.

The destination of the new funds has drawn particular attention. The northern blocks of the Simandou project in Guinea are reportedly the world’s largest reserve of unexploited, high-grade iron ore.  

The prospectus of the bond argues that Simandou’s ore could feed hydrogen-based direct reduced iron, a process seen as central to steel’s long-term decarbonisation.

Xu Xiaoyun, senior research analyst at CBI, called the bond “quite innovative”, saying it is fairly unique for proceeds from labelled bonds supporting steel decarbonisation to be used to secure high-grade iron ore.

“Direct reduction using hydrogen replaces the coal and coke used in blast furnaces and can enable deep decarbonisation,” she explained. “If the entire process runs on green hydrogen and renewable electricity, emissions could be more than 90% lower than conventional blast furnace production.”

Research by US-based think-tank the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis suggests that direct reduction requires iron ore grades of around 67% or higher, a threshold met by relatively few global deposits. Simandou’s ore averages above 65% iron and can be upgraded for use in pellet feed for direct reduction. The issuer states that using such ore could lower carbon emissions per tonne of steel to roughly 60% of the current global average – an average very largely formed in coal-fired blast furnaces.

Investing in high-grade iron ore deposits such as Simandou therefore has “strategic value”, according to Xinyi Shen, senior advisor at Finland-based think-tank the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA). This is because it both supports China’s long-term planning for low-carbon steelmaking and strengthens the iron-ore supply chain.

However, Xu noted that the bond prospectus provides limited detail on the company’s broader transition pathway.

“It does not specify whether the hydrogen used would be low carbon, outline a detailed corporate transition plan, or explain how the high-grade ore would be sure to support hydrogen-based steelmaking rather than other production routes,” she said.

A project decades in the making

Following major Chinese investment, the Simandou project was formally commissioned in November 2025 and the first shipment of ore arrived in China this January. Already the world’s top iron ore importer, China is expected to be the project’s primary export market.

The two northern blocks are controlled by Winning Consortium Simandou, in which China Baowu has been a key investor since June 2024 and now holds a 51% stake. The two southern blocks are developed by a Rio Tinto-Chinalco joint venture, with Baowu also involved through its partnership with Chinalco.

With total investment estimated at around USD 24 billion, Simandou includes a 670km heavy-haul railway and a new Atlantic port, making it one of the largest mining-linked infrastructure projects in Africa in recent years.

Environmental fault lines

The connection between the bond, known for short as 24 Baowu K1, and such a large mining project may challenge its credibility as a low-carbon transition mechanism. In China’s steel sector, this kind of bond is typically used to finance plant upgrades or specific decarbonisation technologies within steel production.

There has been some precedent for incorporating iron-ore mining into sustainable finance frameworks. Australia’s latest Sustainable Finance Taxonomy, developed with technical support from the Climate Bonds Initiative, includes iron ore mining as a potentially green activity, Xu Xiaoyun told Dialogue Earth.

The key criterion is that the ore grade must be compatible with hydrogen direct reduction, or other low-emissions routes for producing iron and steel. The taxonomy also requires mining activities to meet targets on emissions intensity.

Simandou has drawn scrutiny from civil society groups over its environmental footprint. In 2022, Human Rights Watch raised concerns that the project could affect local land, water resources and ecosystems, citing risks including deforestation and land acquisition.

The organisation stated that construction of the railway could occupy more than 100 sq km of land and affect habitats of endangered species such as the West African chimpanzee, drawing on an impact assessment by Winning Consortium Simandou itself.

The assessment apparently also estimated that forest clearance and associated activities could result in more than 19 million tonnes of CO2 emissions over the mine’s 22-year lifespan. Other experts argue the emissions impact of deforestation may be even larger.

In July 2025, community organisations raised concerns over potential water and soil contamination. Winning said it remains committed to advancing the project in accordance with Guinean law and international standards.

Under the latest Shanghai Stock Exchange guidelines, issuers of transition bonds are encouraged to have an independent third-party verify the environmental benefits of funded projects and to provide ongoing assessments during the bond’s lifetime.

As well as third-party verification, Xu told Dialogue Earth that the credibility of bonds like 24 Baowu K1 also depends on whether proceeds are used for the stated purposes and information is disclosed transparently. This would all ideally be clarified through the issuer’s future reporting.

As of the time of writing, no such report has been identified. A June 2025 bond management report – which are published by bond issuers to account for how raised money is being spent – states that the port and railway components will conduct environmental and social impact assessments in line with International Finance Corporation standards.

Beyond ore exports

Simandou is tied to Guinea’s industrial ambitions. The government has positioned the project as the anchor of its national development strategy, Simandou 2040, aimed at moving beyond raw ore exports towards long-term industrial growth and economic transformation.

“Guinea, like many resource-rich countries, hopes to use projects such as Simandou to move up the value chain and support structural transformation,” said Yunnan Chen, a research fellow at ODI, a British think-tank.

With rising global demand for critical resources, she said, governments may have an opportunity to negotiate greater technology transfer and higher-value investment from external partners.

Guinea’s presidential chief of staff, Djiba Diakité, said in November 2025 that project partners must complete feasibility studies for building downstream processing facilities, either a steel mill or pellet plant, within two years of production.

Simandou and its associated infrastructure are also seen as long-term national assets. The Guinean government holds a 15% stake in both mining blocks and in La Compagnie du TransGuinéen (CTG), the joint venture responsible for developing the railway and port.

It has proposed industrial zones along the rail corridor to support broader development, including agriculture, alongside the establishment of a sovereign wealth fund to manage future revenues for long-term investment.

Translating resource wealth into a competitive downstream industry is no easy task, said Xinyi Shen of CREA. Doing so requires “supporting infrastructure, skills and stable demand. In many African countries, these conditions are still evolving, and green steel markets are at an early stage. This is where international partnerships can play a constructive role in supporting industrialisation and value addition.”

The bond prospectus states that Simandou will provide essential feedstock to support Baowu’s and the global steel industry’s decarbonisation efforts, and references potential downstream processing in the Middle East and West Africa. It does not, however, outline specific plans for steelmaking facilities in Guinea.

Guinea’s industrial ambitions also sit at the centre of a broader shift in how Chinese companies support overseas resource and infrastructure projects, Chen noted. Projects are moving away from the traditional construction and finance model, in which Chinese contractors build projects financed by loans from policy banks. Instead, companies and investors are playing an increasing role in financing and risk-sharing, including through domestic bond issuance like 24 Baowu K1.

Whether Baowu’s bond ultimately supports Guinea’s industrial ambitions remains uncertain. But by linking domestic transition-labelled financing to an upstream mining project abroad, 24 Baowu K1 suggests one possible pathway through which Chinese companies could support the raw materials needed for low-carbon industrial transitions.

At the same time, it raises questions about how Chinese sustainable-finance instruments should be defined, verified, governed and held accountable when applied to projects far from the steel plants they are meant to decarbonise.

Big auto and steelmakers say they will deepen cooperation on decarbonisation, but use of climate friendlier steel in cars remains at an early stage. 

By You Xiaoying, March 26, 2026

Earlier this year, a group of Chinese automakers and steelmakers gathered in Shanghai to chart a new path for their industries. They pledged to work together to cut the carbon emissions generated by steel production.

Their goal is to speed up automakers’ large-scale use of what they call “low-carbon” steel, and ultimately drive the green transition for China’s manufacturing industries, according to a joint declaration signed by companies from both sectors, alongside key industry associations and research institutes.

The statement echoes a direction laid out in China’s 15th Five Year Plan, the overarching economic blueprint passed by legislators on 12 March in Beijing. In the next five years, the plan said, the country must spur cuts to carbon emissions in “key sectors”. China’s steel industry will likely be counted as it is the world’s largest by production and the country’s second largest emitter.

Chinese automakers are still taking baby steps towards using green steel. But the auto industry can actually serve as a spearhead in the national effort to cut emissions from China’s steel industry, according to Shen Xinyi, a researcher focusing on steel at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, a think-tank based in Helsinki.

A key reason is that carmakers are more capable of absorbing price hikes of raw materials because their products can fetch larger profits, Shen explains. This basically gives the sector an advantage in creating a market for green steel ahead of other industries, such as construction, she adds.

New trade rules are also adding external pressure for automakers to make the switch so as to build their competitiveness globally, according to Bonnie Zuo, China engagement lead at Transition Asia, a think-tank based in Hong Kong.

She highlights the European Union’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), which puts a price on carbon-intensive imports of products such as steel, and which entered into force this January. The EU has proposed to extend its coverage downstream, bringing some steel car parts under CBAM from the beginning of 2028, potentially subjecting foreign-based carmakers to this carbon tax.

Seeking standards together

The joint declaration was signed by five Chinese car companies, one parts manufacturer and nine steelmakers. They include popular electric vehicle manufacturers, including Li Auto, Nio and Xiaomi, as well as steelmaking giants, such as Baowu, Ansteel and Shougang Steel.

The document was signed voluntarily and has three goals. One is to find out how the auto and steel industries define “low-carbon” steel and work towards aligning their standards – the foundation that will allow them to report their carbon emissions more accurately.

A lack of a clear standard for low-carbon steel is a big obstacle that prevents Chinese automakers from buying the product, Zuo says.

The absence of such standards will make it harder for automakers to calculate carbon emissions throughout the lifecycles of their cars. It will also prevent them from branding their cars as being “low carbon”, she notes.

“Green steel will not attract automakers whatsoever if they cannot do either of those things,” she adds.

There are also different terms used to describe steel produced in more sustainable and climate-friendly ways, such as “green steel”, “low-carbon steel”, “net-zero steel” and “renewable steel” – demonstrated by the variations among researchers’ comments and reference materials for this report.

These terms are related but not identical, according to Shen, and there are not yet internationally agreed definitions that clearly distinguish them.

“Clear standards are the foundation of any market,” she says. “Once green steel, low-carbon steel and other similar terms are clearly defined, then it will become much easier for automakers to invest in it and buy it.”

Beyond cooperation in the domestic context, the China Iron and Steel Association (CISA), the industry body which convened the joint statement in January, also signed a partnership in late 2025 with the global nonprofit Responsible Steel, pledging to collaborate on international frameworks for emissions measurement and classification that could support trade in low-emissions steels.

‘Chicken and egg’ dilemma

The declaration also aims to establish an understanding that there are economic benefits for carmakers to use low-carbon steel – and, more importantly, to help carmakers afford the additional cost or “premium”.

From green steel to renewable hydrogen, many emerging green materials are struggling to take off due to a chicken-and-egg problem: there is no firm demand for these products because they are more expensive than existing – albeit more polluting – options. That discourages manufacturers from making them, essentially creating a vicious cycle.

From the automakers’ perspective, before making any decisions they need to understand clearly how the green steel premium will affect their production costs and how policy and markets may change, Zuo explains.

Currently, the most mature method for making low-carbon virgin steel uses iron processed with green hydrogen and electrified furnaces. When and if the technology is available at scale in China, each tonne of steel would imply a cost up to USD 225 per tonne more than steel produced in conventional, coal-fired blast furnaces, according to a 2024 analysis by Transition Asia. The projection takes into consideration all aspects of steel production, from capital investments to energy costs, including green hydrogen.

Since a car is normally built with around 0.9 tonnes of steel, using green steel made in this way would increase its production cost by up to USD 203, roughly 1% of the price of an average car in China, the report said. Projects to produce such green-hydrogen-fed iron and steel, however, are for now largely at the pilot stage or small scale in China.

The recent joint declaration does not require participating automakers to commit to buying low-carbon steel immediately, according to a source close to the matter. But it does require them to “engage, contribute and participate in a shared process” aimed at making “low-carbon” a commercially viable product, the source said. It also aims to build a platform to make it easier for steelmakers and carmakers to collaborate with each other.

Shen agrees that the declaration is about promoting collaboration along the steel supply chain rather than mandating any action towards buying green steel. But it lays the groundwork for a real market by attempting to address the core problems, she says.

Uphill battle

Although Chinese carmakers are leading the world in making electric vehicles, adopting green steel has proven to be an uphill battle so far.

They have fallen behind their EU, US and Korean rivals in the switch, according to a ranking published by Lead the Charge, a global network of climate, human rights and investor groups monitoring automakers’ progress on socio-environmental issues.

Chinese car companies face intense pressure to control their production costs so as to stay ahead in a price war, and that may have prevented them from buying more expensive steel, says Xing Lei, an independent analyst of the Chinese auto industry. An immature supply chain for green steel is another factor behind their slow action, he adds.

For many, promises by automakers to buy green steel will be significant for growing a meaningful market. “This gives certainty to green steel suppliers that they will have customers in the future,” says Franziska Grüning, raw materials policy officer at Transport & Environment, a Brussels-based nonprofit and a member of Lead the Charge.

“This is something that we still don’t see yet from Chinese companies,” Grüning says.

Out of the four Chinese automakers assessed, BYD, GAC and SAIC have taken little action, the ranking shows. The company that stands out is Hangzhou-based Geely.

“Geely discloses the share of renewable steel in one model, which makes Geely one of only two carmakers [in the ranking] that offer this level of transparency,” Grüning says. The other is the German company Mercedes-Benz.

Geely required its direct suppliers to ensure that recycled steel would account for 20% of their respective annual steel usage by 2025, according to its 2024 environmental, social and governance report. The company also revealed that four of its models were built partly using recycled steel and gave the percentage in each case.

Recycled steel typically means steel derived from scrap rather than produced from scratch. It skips the most carbon-intensive step of steelmaking, which is turning iron ore into pig iron, usually using coal. As such it generates much lower emissions than the conventional coal-based method, Shen says.

Researchers also agree that government policy, such as subsidies, can support car companies to take the first step.

Steel typically makes up 65% of a car’s weight, so it is important that automakers buy green steel, according to Grüning.

Auto manufacturing is currently also looked to as a key driver of steel demand amid the continued slowdown in China’s construction sector, so more ambitious action from carmakers could be a significant signal for green steel development.

“What we want to see, at the end of the day, is green steel or low carbon steel in a vehicle,” Grüning adds.

UN nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi on why he believes direct engagement is the only path to peace – and why he wants to lead the UN. 

By Julian Reingold, April 7, 2026

Rafael Grossi has spent the past six years at the centre of the world’s most dangerous nuclear standoffs – and now he wants the world’s most demanding diplomatic job.

The 65-year-old Argentine has led the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN’s nuclear watchdog, since 2019. In that time, he has navigated the decline of the Iran nuclear deal, negotiated ceasefires between Russia and Ukraine, and has found himself at the centre of a war that is redrawing the politics of nuclear risk, energy and global trade.

This has led to threats from Iranian officials and Austrian intelligence has provided him with round-the-clock protection. He has pressed on regardless, maintaining inspectors inside Iran and contact with all sides. It is precisely this record of showing up and talking to everyone that he is now putting forward as his qualification for the biggest job in multilateral diplomacy.

Late last year, Argentina officially nominated Grossi to succeed António Guterres as UN secretary-general for the 2027-2031 term.

Dialogue Earth sat down with him last week in Vienna at IAEA’s headquarters to talk about shaking hands with Vladimir Putin, depoliticising the energy challenge, and why energy security, climate diplomacy and nuclear politics can no longer be kept in separate boxes.

The interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Dialogue Earth: Is the world closer to a nuclear incident?

Rafael Grossi: This conflict has its trigger in the questions around Iran’s nuclear program, which has been a concern for more than two decades. The 2015 JCPOA agreement – a framework to limit Iran’s nuclear activities – was abandoned by US President Trump in his first term, opening a period of growing tension. Last June, the so-called 12 day war became the first direct military confrontation between the United States and Iran, targeting facilities related to uranium enrichment, which could be used to manufacture nuclear weapons.

Now, a few months on, we are in the midst of a new conflict with a wider scope – destruction of energy infrastructure, political and spiritual leaders targeted, and continued pressure on nuclear sites. What concerns me most is that this has paradoxically enhanced the sentiment that nuclear weapons are a security guarantee. Some speculate that had Iran had nuclear weapons, this would never have happened. That logic is spreading to other countries around the world, and that is deeply worrying. There is also the risk of a nuclear accident – not from weapons, but from a nuclear facility being struck and releasing radioactive material, as happened in Chernobyl last year.

Would you be doing anything differently if you were already UN secretary-general?

One fundamental gap I see in the UN is the absence of the secretary-general from the resolution of major international conflicts: Iran, Gaza, India-Pakistan, Yemen, South Sudan. In all of them, the secretary-general is not present as interlocutor or mediator. My experience at the IAEA allowed me to establish platforms of dialogue with Russia’s President Putin, Ukraine’s President Zelensky, the Iranian government, Israel, and the United States. That approach – direct, persistent engagement – is what the secretary-general should be doing.

Is that capacity to create dialogue part of your suitability for the role?

I fervently believe in the capacity of the human factor to change things. Empathy, commitment, passion, knowledge of history and strategy; these matter enormously. We Argentines are the result of a melting pot. There are no hard distinctions. That may help.

Some have criticised me for not condemning certain leaders more forcefully. But if I open a conversation by calling someone a war criminal, I become useless as a peacemaker. The first time I went to Russia to speak with President Putin was in 2022. Some told me not to go. I said: if I don’t talk to him, to whom should I talk? When someone asks how I can shake hands with that person, I say: you must. It is for others to judge. If you are in the business of peace, you must talk to those who are at war.

We live in a culture of cancellation, where people who disagree refuse to speak. The diplomat’s job is to bring them together. Here at the IAEA, we are deployed at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, on the frontline between Ukrainian and Russian forces. I have been there several times. We have negotiated six ceasefire agreements between Russia and Ukraine to carry out critical repairs. To negotiate a ceasefire, you must sit down with very difficult military commanders.

Is the Iran conflict an opportunity to make the case for renewables as energy security, not just a climate issue?

Energy transition is easier said than done. Economic structures and supply chains in many countries are heavily dependent on fossil fuels. I remember a conversation with Prime Minister Modi, who described how many hundreds of millions of people in India work in the coal sector. When you are responsible for 1.4 billion people, shutting down coal overnight is not so simple.

The 1.5C target of the Paris Agreement is a victim of many things: the inherent difficulty of transition, and now the volatility created by this conflict. But the overall direction is not wrong, and we are seeing results. The nuclear renaissance is one of them, driven in large part by the energy security debate. Countries across Central and Eastern Europe like Czechia, Romania, Poland, Bulgaria and Hungary are doubling down on nuclear. They need to reduce dependence on gas, they need baseload power, and renewables alone are not enough. Renewables are good, but they are inherently intermittent. Baseload will be gas, or it will be nuclear.

If elected, how would you approach President Trump on the Paris Agreement?

I will be very honest: I don’t think I could convince him. He has a clear view. But there are positive things happening in the United States, particularly the expansion of nuclear power, which will indirectly mitigate some of the effects of more fossil fuel use, and which he has been championing. The previous absolute dogmatism about 100% renewables was not scientifically or technologically viable. Being a diplomat, I believe in the middle course.

Given the massive energy drain of AI, do you see a nuclear-AI alliance as a global blueprint? Are you concerned about AI in our conflicts?

I am an AI optimist. Like any technology, it may have negative uses, but I do not subscribe to AI catastrophism. The nexus between AI and nuclear is very strong. I hosted a conference in Vienna attended by Google, Meta and OpenAI, all discussing this intersection. Where I do have concerns is autonomous weapons and systems where a human is not in the loop. But that can be addressed with sound policy. AI is fundamentally a force for good.

Do the UN Security Council’s structures need reform?

Security Council reform is driven by member states, with varying expectations. Some countries want permanent seats, others prefer a regional approach. But the problems in the Security Council are derived from politics, not from institutional structure. It remains indispensable: all five permanent members are nuclear weapon states, and essential conversations happen there. The Gaza plan was approved with only two abstentions. Agreements are still possible.

What is missing is an active secretary-general. History shows what is possible. The secretary-general is not going to be a lay saint performing miracles, but the role can be far more effective than it currently is.

As a career Argentine diplomat, what would you offer Latin America and the Global South, given that no Global South country holds a permanent Security Council seat?

The UN needs less declaratory posturing and more pragmatic engagement, in peace, in development, in human rights. On development specifically, the UN’s machinery needs restructuring to be more agile, working hand in hand with the World Bank and multilateral development banks. I have cultivated those relationships closely at the IAEA. There is too often a schizophrenic approach. Countries say one thing in New York and something different in Washington. I believe in a cooperative approach: work with the institutions we have, make them function better.

Latin America is at a moment of real opportunity with food production, energy, minerals, rare earths. More importantly, it is a zone of peace. Countries here are not spending heavily on defence. That is a tremendous advantage and frees up resources that could go to education, economic growth and investment. I am fundamentally optimistic, and I think having a secretary-general from the region would not be a bad thing.

Some say the mathematics don’t add up for net zero without nuclear, while other environmentalists argue the money is better spent on faster-deploying renewables. What do you think?

Cost should never be the sole driver of energy decisions. What countries need are integrated, intelligent energy mixes. No serious energy planner believes in a matrix built on a single source. Countries with abundant hydro do not necessarily need nuclear. Japan, with its limited space and large economy, does. The right mix depends on context, not ideology.

There has been a false narrative about nuclear safety [from environmentalists]. In 70 years of commercial exploitation, there have been two serious accidents. By any insurance metric, that is an excellent record. Nuclear mortality rates rank lower than renewables in some analyses. As for nuclear waste, all the spent fuel from 100 US reactors over 70 years would fit inside a football stadium. The image of glowing, unmanageable waste is wrong. Small modular reactors are now multiplying the opportunities further.

What would you reform structurally about the UN Secretariat on climate and environment? Can climate governance succeed without deeper China-US cooperation?

We have too many UN bodies dealing with climate – seven or eight – with sometimes contradictory advice and normative approaches. Some streamlining is needed. China and the United States, paradoxically, at the climate summits they tend not to disagree as much as you might expect. They compete, but there are areas of convergence. What we need is to depoliticise the energy discussion. That remains the hardest challenge.

What is the single biggest global risk in the next decade?

Two things stand out on my dashboard. The first is nuclear weapons proliferation. Today, with the fraying of alliance guarantees, important countries in the West and in Asia are quietly asking whether they need their own nuclear deterrent. Imagine a world where instead of nine or ten nuclear-armed states you have 25 or 32. That is technologically possible. In such a world, the risk of a conventional conflict escalating to a nuclear exchange becomes very real.

The second is poverty mitigation. Entire regions of the world, like the Sahel which borders the Sahara Desert, are derelict. These become epicentres of terrorism and instability, apart from the incredibly inhumane conditions in which millions still live without potable water, without electricity. These are factors that have a big impact on international peace and security.

Julian Reingold

Initiative: Mexico City’s Environmental and Climate Change Program

Mexico City is one of the largest and most populated metropolises in the world. Despite having only an area of 1,494.3 km2, equivalent to 0.1% of the national territory (INEGI, 2020), it is home to 2% of world biodiversity and 12% of national biodiversity, 770 endemic species of plants and animals, and a great variety of species of corn, squash, chili, amaranth, and beans. This natural and cultural heritage comes both from urban areas (rivers, urban forests, ravines and parks), as well as from the more than 87 thousand hectares that are classified as “conservation land” that represent almost 60% of Mexico City’s territory (natural forests, thickets, rivers, wetlands and lands worked by rural communities).

Given the deterioration and loss of this heritage, caused by the disconnection with nature, the growth of the urban sprawl and factors such as overexploitation, pollution, changes in land use, invasive species and the effects of climate change that have generated, for example, conditions conducive to a greater incidence of fires, as of 2019 a comprehensive policy was launched to regenerate the ecological conditions of the city based on a vision of sustainability, innovation and rights, derived from the Government Program of Mexico City 2019-2024 and established in the Environmental and Climate Change Program (ECCP) 2019-2024.

The first of the axes of the ECCP refers to the “Revegetation of the countryside and the city”, which gave rise to the revegetation strategy called “Green Challenge”, within which the planting of 10 million trees and other plants between 2019 and 2020 was established as a quantitative goal, with a comprehensive approach that covers the following lines of work:

1. Rescue of nurseries to increase production and planting
2. Recovery of native species through seed collection and nursery production
3. Promotion of gardens for pollinators
4. Strengthening of public space with the opening of natural protected areas for public access and the creation and rehabilitation of parks
5. Improvement of soil and vegetation quality through comprehensive management, attention to pests and diseases, diversification of vegetation strata and training for public servants
6. Participation of citizens, civil society and companies in revegetation days and environmental education activities

Thanks to the Green Challenge, the increase in the annual production of plants went from less than 500 thousand in 2018 to more than 10 million in 2021, which has allowed the planting of 27,082,593 trees and plants. The creation and rehabilitation of 16 large parks located mainly in peripheral areas with the greatest lack of access to public spaces, benefiting 6.3 million inhabitants. Additionally, 4,155 inhabitants of rural communities are benefiting in return for their work as brigade members in reforestation and ecological conservation activities, such as the plantation of 16.9 million plants only on conservation land, including the reforestation of 16,505 hectares in forests and rivers.

Adressing the urban challenge

Addressing the urban challenge

Breadth of the issue – How are the problem(s) that are being tackled by your initiative affecting citizens/local businesses or a significant component of the local wildlife?

Due to its geographical location and orographic characteristics, Mexico City is a system exposed to various climatic and hydrometeorological hazards. Because of anthropogenic factors such as overexploitation, expansion of the urban sprawl, changes in land use, soil, water and air pollution (the city emits 27 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent) and the effects of climate change, the city faces problematic situations caused and intensified by the deterioration of ecosystems and the loss of its biodiversity.

There is a large amount of evidence on the intensification of the effects of climate change and the deepening of the conditions of the environmental problem in the city, which led to the establishment of very ambitious goals in 2019 to reverse these conditions, such as a 10% reduction in CO2equivalent emissions, compared to those produced in 2018.

The most important effects that directly impact the inhabitants have to do with material and human losses due to extreme rains, floods and landslides (between the years 2000 and 2015 there were 51 events of this type that affected 52,331 people), urban heat islands and temperatures extreme high temperatures that, combined with changes in rainfall patterns, generate conditions for a greater incidence of fires that contribute to the loss of ecosystems (from 2019 to 2020, the area affected by fires in conservation land had been reduced by 50% thanks to the increased resources for its attention, but in 2021 the affected area doubled due to a severe drought condition linked to the ENSO-Niña climatic phenomenon).

Depth of the issue – How seriously are the problems being tackled by your initiative impacting the life of the citizens/businesses/wildlife concerned?

There is great evidence on the intensification of the effects of climate change and the environmental problems in the city that led to the establishment of much more ambitious goals in 2019 to reverse these conditions. Between 2000 and 2015, Mexico City registered a total of 66 hydrometeorological phenomena, whose impacts are the most costly and damaging due to the impacted extensions and the affected population. The most frequent were related to torrential rains and storms, landslides, low temperatures and strong winds, which caused damages of 1,173,876 million pesos (56 million dollars), affecting 11,107 homes and 64,655 people (Source: National Center for Disaster Prevention).

Also, from 1991 to 2020, 12,332 fires were registered in the city, 10.6% of the fires in the country (Source: National Forestry Commission) and the temperature in the urban area has increased up to 5°C with respect to the rural area in the dry season of the year and 4% with respect to its surroundings (mainly urban areas with cement and asphalt structures).

In the city there are 105 species in some category of risk and at the beginning of this century more than 70% of the extension of oak and pine-oak forests had already been lost (Source: CONABIO; http://200.12.166.51/janium /Documents/13054.pdf).

It’s estimated that for each urbanized hectare, the aquifers stop recharging 2.5 million liters per year, in a context in which the area built on conservation land from 2005 to 2015 increased an annual average of 2.67%, reaching 5,518.69 hectares in 2015 (Source: IG-UNAM/SEDEMA, 2017).

(Sources: AIPH aka International Association of Horticultural Producers)