MEXICO CITY (apro).– Although she could not remain in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (SRE), Alicia Bárcena Ibarra will assume ownership of the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources (Semarnat) at the start of Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo’s six-year term; She promised that she will take advantage of her position to promote a transition “from extractivism to sustainability,” and insisted that water management will be one of her main challenges.
“The comprehensive management of water throughout the country is a great dilemma,” acknowledged the still chancellor in an interview with the press after the ceremony in which Sheinbaum announced his appointment at Semarnat. “This country requires a great restoration crusade to combat deforestation, forest fires, destruction, pollution,” she added.
So far, Bárcena is one of the three members of Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s cabinet who will continue in Sheinbaum’s: Rogelio Ramírez de la O will continue to head the Ministry of Finance and Public Credit (SHCP), while Marcelo Ebrard Casaubón , the former chancellor, will assume the Ministry of Economy (SE).
After 15 years in Chile, first as president of the Economic Commission for Latin America (ECLAC) and then as ambassador, Bárcena returned to Mexico in June 2023, with the invitation of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, to replace Ebrard in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (SRE) when the politician resigned from his position to dedicate himself fully to his pre-campaign for Morena’s candidacy for the Presidency.
During his year at the head of the Foreign Ministry, Bárcena had to deal with several diplomatic crises, including fentanyl trafficking and migration, in the relationship with the United States, or the dispute with Ecuador over former vice president Jorge Glas, which led to the raid of the Mexican Embassy in Quito, the breaking of diplomatic relations and the presentation of cross-claims before the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
The chancellor deepened Mexico’s rapprochement with the leftist governments of Latin America and at the same time relaxed relations with Spain; In parallel, following López Obrador’s instructions, he defended a neutral position for Mexico in the war between Ukraine and Russia – last week he refused to sign the declaration of the Peace Convention, because the Swiss government had not invited a delegation of Moscow – and in Israel’s war against Gaza.
“This transfer from the SRE to Semarnat is very important, because today the great global challenges are in climate change, in biodiversity, in the use of water, and that is where Dr. Claudia Sheinbaum, who is a convinced that it is an essential issue to search for renewable energy, to search for electromobility, to search for a different way of living,” Bárcena told the press.
The head of Mexican diplomacy will formally remain in the SRE until September 30, but reported that her team is already reaching an agreement with that of her successor, Juan Ramón de la Fuente, for the transition process.
The former rector of UNAM, who currently serves as transition coordinator on Sheinbaum’s team, will take the reins of the Foreign Ministry with diplomatic experience in the government of López Obrador, who sent him as Mexico’s ambassador to the United Nations, in New York, from 2019 to last year.
