The USA, Canada and Mexico pledged to have their countries producing 50% of their power by 2025 from clean sources, i.e. hydropower, wind, solar and nuclear, up from 38% in 2015 and 35% in 2010 (source: Enerdata, Global Energy & CO2 Data).
The Governments aim to achieve this goal through their domestic policies, including Mexico’s Energy Transition Law and new Clean Energy Certificates, the USA Clean Power Plan and five-year extension of production and investment tax credits, and Canada’s actions to further scale up renewable energies, including hydro. Most of the efforts will have to be done by the USA, which accounts for 82% of the power generated by the three countries in 2015 (33% of clean power), although the current regulations on coal-fired power plants were put on hold by the USA Supreme Court earlier in 2016.
These countries also aim to strengthen and align their efficiency standards, including 10 energy efficiency standards or test procedures for equipment by 2020. Mexico also joined a commitment made earlier in 2016 by the USA and Canada to reduce methane emissions by 40 to 45% by 2025.
The three countries announced they also support the adoption by all countries in 2016 of the market-based measure proposed through the International Civil Aviation Organization to allow for carbon-neutral growth from international civil aviation from 2020 onwards and will join the first phase of the measure adopted.