Mexico will start to voluntarily reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 50 million tons a year starting in 2012, President Felipe Calderon said Friday.
"Mexico is committed to reduce CO2 emissions by 50 million tons a year starting in 2012 with its own means and funds," Calderon said in a speech at the presidential residence of Los Pinos.
A week before his attendance at the UN climate summit in Copenhagen, Calderon also pushed an initiative to pay for further global CO2 curbs through national contributions based on economic might and CO2 footprints.
Mexico is prepared to "reach a rate of reduction in its greenhouse gas emissions of up to 30 percent by the year 2020," he added.
For that, however, Mexico will have to rely on "necessary funding and technology transfer," he said.
"We also take on this commitment with the understanding that developed nations will have a responsibility and developing nations a shared and proportional responsibility," Calderon said.
Mexico has received between 350 and 450 million dollars a year in foreign aid since 2007 for its environmental programs targeting global warming, according to Mexico's the Environment Ministry.
Calderon will attend the closing days of the United Nations-sponsored climate talks in Copenhagen, held December 7-18, which are seeking to clinch a successor treaty to the Kyoto Protocol before it expires in 2012.
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