We will now hear from the Honorable Mr. Felipe Calderon Hinojosa, President of the United Mexican States.

-Mr. Felipe Calderon Hinojosa: Thank you, thank you very much.  Good afternoon friends.  I am very pleased to greet you.  Mr. Achim Steiner, Executive Director of the United Nations Environmental Program, UNEP, I am very please to receive you here in Mexico.  Please know that you and all the head environmentalists from the world are going to be welcome in  our country. I, of course, greet the Governor, Felix González Canto; the members of the head table: the mayor.  There are many people here that are dear to me and welcome all.  Of course, the Ambassadors of the United Kingdom, of Germany, of France, of Spain; representatives of the government of the United States, from the Environmental Protection Agency; several teams have come for the United Nations and I hope these fora help you all to work together.  For example, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, the Commission, also the United Nations Organization for Industrial Development, welcome. There is a large delegation from the CEPAL [ECLAC] here, too; welcome.  Many civil  associations are present, business associations stand out, including COPARMEX; there are people from diverse institutions, like PRONATURA, like, of course, from the UNAM, SOS Earth,  The World Nature Fund, of course, Televisa Foundation.  Inciativa GEMI is here, from the Bar Association, welcome also.  Ecosecurities, welcome.  Of course, there are people who are very committed to the environment such as, of course, Selva Negra Foundation and Grupo Manacts, present here; Fer and Alex, welcome to our friends, who additionally have done tremendous promotion of the environmental issue. Emanuel, who also received recognition today, you are also very welcome.  Well, many people who are… We need to also say that there are two, of course, the songs "Dónde Diablos Jugarán" ["Where the Devil Will They Play"] by Maná, which opened enormous awareness.  And, of course,  I remember one filmed by Emanuel in Xochimilco.  I remember, they began to open ecological awareness that, in Mexico, the truth is, did not exist, that still does not exist in many places and we need to open.

I greet the Mayors that are here, of course; the Presidents of Integral Family Development, also, and I also salute their teams and of course the governors of the states.  To businessmen, to Mr. Carlos Slim of the Slim Foundation.  In other words, to all of you, friends all, good afternoon.

I also thank you for having come to  Xcaret for  several reasons.  In the first place, because this coincides with an effort, as you have seen, of all Mexicans to get people to come to our country and to visit our places. Places that, additionally, because of their natural attractions, the treasure of their people, their hospitality, as is the case with Xcaret; because of their magic are very important to us. But also because Quintana Roo is in many respects a symbol of the encounter, of the occasional friction due to confrontation that we must avoid and that we should try to harmonize between national treasures and the challenges of development itself.

Additionally, I want to congratulate all  the academics, environmentalists, organizations that are here; Dr. José Sarukhán who I also salute; other people that also work actively for the environment; Pancho González ---Infink, who is also here; many of you, friends.  But especially those who received the Ecological Merit Award today for having earned it.  And something Margarita said to me at the table that I think should really be emphasized, which is that for some reason, the majority of the winners are women.  They are the winners of the Ecological Merit Award, which I think is great.

I also want to thank the Carlos Slim Foundation and the World Wildlife Fund for this investment effort of $100 million dollars that are needed and that will be very useful for the preservation of biodiversity and sustainable development.

Friends, for Mexico it is an honor to be the venue of this organization.  Since 1972, the United Nations Organization has dedicated this date to the environmental issue and this commemoration has become and extraordinary opportunity to reflect on the risks the planet and humanity face  due to global warming. The slogan this year reflects this concern.  The slogan: "Your Planet Needs You – United Against Climate Change" is a  very timely slogan.  Indeed, climate change is one of the greatest challenges of our times.  And I know that we all have, countries or people, well a lot of problems day-to day.  But if I had to prioritize those problems that constitute a true threat to civilization, to humanity as such, that threat is climate change.

There is not, I believe, a region or a living being that might be immune or safe from the possible impact of this increase in global temperature, nor is there a person or a nation that can face it alone.  By the way, here we need to remember that in the Caribbean damage from climate change is expressed in the ever increasing intensity in strength and frequency of the hurricanes that affect this area, that blow off all the palm roofs of the area, that devastate the jungle itself, that isolate people that break bridges, roads.  In other words, the damages suffered ever increasingly due to climate disturbances derived from change are evident. As the Minister of the Treasury indicated so well, the cost of climate change in economic terms is significantly higher than what we invest to mitigate climate change.

It is estimated that the damage, what it would cost us to face the consequences of climate change in Mexico, to cite our country, would be, conservatively, more than six points of GDP. We are talking, I repeat, of a very conservative figure, and everything that we invest to reverse climate change or mitigate it in our country will be considerably less than that cost.

Today, the study the Minister mentioned, which is published by the Ministry of the Treasury, of the Environment and the National University, demonstrates the potential of the damages, some of which are already occurring in our country.  And even though climate change is the greatest threat in the present, it is also true that this represents an opportunity to redesign the road ahead in order to make an in-depth change.  Not too long ago, for example, only four or five of my predecessors in the presidency ago, there was still a very large government entity, which was the National Deforestation Commission.  And what the Deforestation Commission sought to do was, precisely to remove all the jungles and forests that it could to open them up to agriculture. Each hectare that was opened up to agriculture was considered a resounding success in the civilizing process.  So, he change in mind set that we must create in society, in the government, in farmers, in developers, well, in many places is a Herculean task.  This is why, for example, it is important to  have an integrated action that will first create ecological awareness.  This is why I am pleased to see something that, by the way, was promoted a lot in Selva Negra: the Mexican government has already implemented a key thing, which is to incorporate environmental subjects and mandatory and free text books on the environment in the countries primary education.

It is also imperative that we design innovative mechanisms that will allow all to participate in this common objective. I really want to thank Mr. Steiner, Executive Director of the Untied Nations Environmental Program for his words and to tell him that we continue with the commitment we have assumed. That we enthusiastically participate in the campaign for one billion trees and that we continue to participate now in the United Nations  two billion campaign. As a matter of fact, in these 2 ½ years that I have occupied in the government, we have planted more than 540 million trees and although we have been criticized very much because people have thought that, due to the figures, our objective is to numerically plant trees, what we're trying to do in reality is recover the hectares that we have lost through the years.  And as a matter of fact, over these 2 ½  years, the country, through conservation, reforestation driven by the government or the private sector, and planted woodlands, the country has also recovered 700,000 hectares in this regard after having lost, according to FAO calculations during the last term, 350,000 per year.  The figures are still very uncertain, of course they calculate above 200,000 hectares per year.

Today we are already drinvingworkign with more than 700,000 hectares recovered in the past 21/2 years and we want to arrive at a goal that clearly is to recover lost forest lands.  We have heavily fostered payment of forestry services.

In the year 2000, the budget for forestry items in Mexico was a budget of $300 million pesos per year.  Today, the 2009 budget of CONAFOR alone is more than 6 billion pesos per year and, of course, we are constantly reinforcing that in order to comply with the environmental service payment goals, with the support of communities that are involved in the sustainable development and exploitation of their forests, etc.

We have already seen progress in waster treatment.  In Mexico a law was approved, against enormous resistance, to stop the destruction of mangroves for any other development purpose, for anything; this has been a complex legislation.  But we know that as we persevere in preserving our ecosystems and finding ways o link development to environmental protection, we will all win.

Today it is important, on the eve of the Copenhagen meeting on climate change and post-Kyoto mechanisms, the mechanisms that succeed to the Kyoto Protocol, once it expires, very soon,, we must seek mechanisms that allow us to move forward toward sustainable global development based on renewable energy sources in the exploitation of natural resources with the least impact on ecosystems.

Aligned with what we have repeatedly proposed in Mexico, we insist on the creation of a world fund against climate change, which we have called the Green Fund.

Mexico is wiling to support the consensus nations arrive at regarding the reduction of carbon emissions.  However, I believe that, given the progress of discussions, the momentum of the recession the world is experiencing and the enormous disparity that we still see amongst diverse players, we believe  that one viable alternative to agreement that does not cancel out the possible consensus on other issues is approval of the Green Fund  at the Copenhagen meeting.

Why?  Because not only do we need to set goals, but rather—and I would urge even more—we are going to suggest efficacious instruments to reduce the world's carbon emissions.  This is what the Green Fund seeks to do.  A fund that, first, is based on the principle of shared but differentiated responsibility of the countries, and that seeks to break down taboos.

First, that in conserving nature only developed countries should contribute.  We believe that in order to conserve nature we must all contribute, whether developed or not, although, of course, each one in proportion to its economic capacity and level of development.

This is why, what the Green Fund is proposing is, first, that all contribute.  Naturally, not everyone will contribute the same, but a formula should be put in place that, based on per capita income of each country or based  of per capita emissions of each country, or a combination of the two, establishes a fair assessment for each nation, with the exception of the world's poorest countries, specifically a good port of the African nations, for monetary contribution to be made to this fund.

And, furthermore, at the same time we could all withdraw from the Fund; we could withdraw based on the tons of carbon or, for example, the tons of carbon that each one reduces or avoids.  If a country like Mexico contributes, according to a formula, let's say 50 million dollars per year, then Mexico—for each incandescent bulb program or for each wind power plant, or for each change in building construction, or for each carbon sequestering plant—we could recover that tonnage of carbon that we sequestered or avoided.

In the carbon bond market, for example, this was before the recession, tons of carbon were worth 18 dollars.  Let's assume they were worth 10 dollars and we can avoid 50 million tons-I'm saying a hypothetical figure, not that much, and you'll see why—we could recover $10 dollars for every one of those tons.

That's $500 million, if we do the math, that's $500 million dollars.  And what will happen?  The Green Fund would be an economic stimulus. I know it wouldn't be the only one, but a very important one that would make the nations get to work to reduce carbon emissions.

Well, they say that money doesn't bring happiness; that's true, money doesn't make you happy and even less so when it's just a little amount, but economic stimuli can be a factor that would help, specifically with something that world diplomacy has not been able to solve.

The Green Fund seeks for everyone, civil society and the different national governments, developed or not, emitters or not, to make some effort toward reducing carbon emissions.  To have that effort economically rewarded, I repeat, is not a substitution for global goals, but rather provides them with an economic instrument of public policy that will make incentives align appropriately.

As long as we achieve concrete international goals, as long as the Green Fund is approved, Mexico has reiterated the need for everyone to take on commitments in order to reduce carbon emissions and global warming.

Even though Mexico is not required to do so, according to the Kyoto protocol, even though Mexico is not required by the United Nations framework Convention on Climate Change to reduce its emissions, from the beginning of this presidency, we  have designed a national climate change strategy, which we presented in 2007.

And thus, we are the only developing country that has presented three international communiqués to the United Nations on greenhouse gas emissions.  We are already formulating the fourth communiqué that we will deliver this year.

And today, to celebrate this World Environment Day, I have some good news for you.  Not only the national climate change strategy, but today I announce that Mexico is elaborating the Special Climate Change Program, which has already been approved by my government, through which Mexico promises right now to reduce the 50 million tons per year of carbon monoxide emissions starting now with a completion date of 2012. 

This is the first commitment and we have voluntarily, unilaterally elaborated this program, which will be published shortly in the Official Federal Gazette, with our own resources and with our own capacities.

This is the first step to demonstrate our interest in contributing to the solution to the problem of climate change.  And if additionally we find the appropriate financing and the resources to go faster, we would even be able to double the commitment to reduce carbon emissions.

Some of the premises of Mexico's special climate change program are as follows:  first, the program not only establishes concrete mitigation measures in the short term, that is to say indicating the full emission reduction date as 2012, but also in a responsible manner includes a medium and long term chapter and plans for cost effective measures to reduce emissions towards 2020.

It means that the program is based on a vision of long term impact in the environmental arena that stretches beyond this administration.

Second, it incorporates specialized diagnoses on the potential to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, like the studies in the framework studies of the Centro Mario Molina that, fundamentally, have directed the McKenzie Study, Quadri, the World Bank that look for actions undertaken at a lower cost but with the most positive impact possible.

An example is the household appliance substitution program we have.  For example, this year we started up a program so people could exchange their old refrigerators and air-conditioners with high levels of energy consumption for new equipment.  And, well, to make the goals of this program clearer, we called it: 'Change your old one in for a new one.'  This is an energy-savings program that the government is implementing and that we hope will reach nearly half a million actions a year.

Another example is the substitution of incandescent light bulbs for energy-saving bulbs.  In the mid-term, Mexico proposes to replace all high-energy incandescent bulbs  with energy-saving bulbs.  It won't be easy or fast, but we are going to do it.

Third, the program goes hand-in-hand with the energy reform that we made, that includes a special chapter on transition to sustainable energies that permit financing mid- and long-term actions.

Fourth, the cross-cutting program commits all federal government agencies to the fight against climate change with clear actions, goals and methodologies.

Amongst those goals set forth in the Special Climate Change Program the following stand out:  in the transportation sector, for example, entering into an agreement with the automotive industry to gradually improve the efficiency of vehicles that are sold in Mexico, as has already happened in Japan, South Korea, the European Union and, recently, in the United States.

With this action, also reducing our carbon monoxide emissions will contribute to energy savings, especially gas savings.  The program includes a considerable reduction in the release and burning of gas associated with Mexico's oil wells.  We are targeting a goal of zero emissions of natural gas into the atmosphere in Petroleos Mexicanos' oil fields.

In the housing sector, we are going to continue to strongly push the green mortgage program.  At this time, in the federal government's housing policy, homes with solar heaters, water saving devices and, above all, those that have thermal insulation, are the houses that have the longest terms and lowest interest rate in INFONAVIT loans, for example. And the subsidy of up to $40,000 pesos per home given by the federal government to low-income housing for the down payment will be specifically focused on housing developments that have gas saving equipment through solar heaters and water saving equipment.

The program also includes a strategy to preserve ecosystems and reduce deforestation.  Amongst its actions is the inclusion of more than 2 million hectares in environmental service payment schemes, including more than a million hectares of forest ecosystems in natural protected areas.

Installing 600,00 wood-burning stoves—I know that wood also produces emissions—but what we want is to replace the campfires that are still used in many of Mexico's marginalized communities, that are very intensive consumers of wood, with wood-saving stoves that are much more efficient and several times less carbon monoxide-emitting, in almost 600,000 marginalized homes in the countries rural areas.

With this set of measures, I repeat, at the end of my administration, Mexico will reduce more than 50 million equivalent tons of carbon monoxide per year, which otherwise would be emitted into the atmosphere if the measures were not implemented.

And we know that this is just the beginning.  For the mid-term, we will establish a new route of low carbon emissions that will allow us to be cleaner in power generation and more efficient in its use.

Friends: I would like to finalize by sharing another bit of good news, which is that today five new protected areas in Mexico are being published in the Official Federal Gazette.  One very important one near here is the Whale Shark Biosphere Reserve here on the coasts of Quintana Roo; the Lobos Reef System in front of Tuxpan, Veracruz; the marine portion of Ventilas Hydrothermal Artesian Wells in the Sea of Cortés and the protected areas in Ocampo, Oaxaca; and in Méganos de Salamayucan, in the State of Chihuahua.

What is our balance?  Today we are incorporating 700,000 new hectares to the country's protected areas.  Today, we have protected almost 24 million hectares, which is equivalent to more than 12% of the national territory, and more than the goal that we had set for ourselves for the six-year period.

I am very aware, friends, that it is not just a question of decreeing national protected areas, but of truly protecting them. And here we need enormous efforts from everyone. But believe me, friends, that we are putting forth all our efforts; and I thank Mr. Slim for mentioning it, speaking of the Monarch Butterfly Reserve, between the 2007-2008 cycle and the 2008-2009 cycle, through the efforts of federal police and also through the Proárbol Program and payment of environmental services, we have finally managed, with all the communal farming communities, to reduce deforestation and degradation in the core area from 80% to just 57 hectares, and we propose eradicating it completely and even to begin to recover and expand the forest territories of the Monarch Butterfly.

Thus, friends, to those who come from abroad, welcome once again to Mexico and welcome to this place to those of us who also enjoy it intensely.  These protected areas, this Special Climate Change Program that I announced today, are a sample of the voluntary, unilateral efforts, with our own resources, that Mexico presents to the world as proof of our environmental responsibility.

The Special Climate Change Program considers measures from reinforcing, for example, alternate energies.  We propose achieving 2,500 megawatts of wind power; inclusion of industrial transformation measures; public policies followed up by, for example, the federal government.  In the federal government, we have already implemented the program that mandates the use of bleach-free, recycled paper for federal government use, etc..

I am sure that working together with the international community, we will be able to do more, much more in order to truly preserve our planet, because this is not only our task and conviction, but should also be the survival instinct of all human beings.

The Copenhagen meeting will be the ideal occasion for countries to join together in efforts to reverse the deterioration of the climate.  Best wishes to all of you, and thank you for coming to Mexico.