Climate Impacts on Energy Systems
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Figure H2. Oil Refineries, Distribution Terminals, and Pipelines in Mexico
Source: PEMEX, 2008.
progressively being replaced with natural gas and renewable energy. There is also potential to displace generators driven by fuel oil, diesel, or gas turbine with wind power at a number of locations: Sierras De La Rumorosa and San Pedro Martir (274 MW), Yucatán (352 MW), and the Riviera Maya (157 MW) (SENER and GTZ, 2006). According to its Third National Communication to the UNFCCC, Mexico emi ed 643 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent2 (Mt CO2e) in 2002, of which almost 400 Mt CO2e came from the combustion of fossil fuels. Mexico’s CO2 emissions have been growing steadily over the past 25 years.3 The oil and gas sector is responsible for about 12 percent of the GHG emissions, about half of which are classified under energy generation.
Future Climate Mexico is particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change (SEMARNAP, 1997, 2007, and 2009; IPCC, 2007b; PECC, 2009), many of which may be irreversible. Impacts include an increase in sea surface temperature in the Gulf of Mexico, continuous sea level rise affecting coastal areas and inland basins, intensification of hurricanes, changes in the hydrological cycle (with an increase in heavy rains and storms, longer and more frequent drought episodes), and net decreases in water runoff, among others. A high-resolution projection of climate has been completed to the year 2100 using the Earth Simulator4 for the country as a whole and for the Gulf of Mexico region. The IPCC scenario used in this study was A1B,5 which projects a temperature increase of between 1.3 and 3.5 degrees Celsius by 2100. The analysis was conducted primarily to assess temperature and rainfall anomalies and extreme events. Results on rainfall, moisture, and evaporation are also reported and later compared with other model outputs. The simulations were performed at a grid size of about 20 km and routinely compared