Development of environmental performance and sustainable development indicators in Mexico

2. Salvador Sánchez-Colón Director General for Environmental Information and Statistics, Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources, Mexico Development of environmental performance and sustainable development indicators in Mexico

3. Objectives • Review major advancements/achievements in the development of environmental indicators and sustainable development indicators in Mexico • Examine lessons learned • Explore ways for better advancing these efforts

4. First landmark: Report on the state of the environment in Mexico (Ministry of Urban Development and Ecology, Mexico, 1986) UN Conference on Environment and Development (Rio de Janeiro, 1992) - Agenda 21, Chapter 40th: Information for decision making UN Commission for Sustainable Development: Sustainable Development Indicators Program 1995 Mexico’s entry to the OECD 1994: Involvement in OECD’s environmental information initiatives (Environmental Data Compendium, Core set of environmental indicators, Environmental Performance reviews) Background

5. Objectives Fulfil international obligations (e.g. OECD, UN-CSD, etc.) Evaluate progress towards sustainable development Support for policy and decision making Inform society Background

6. Environmental indicators.- Describe the behaviour of separate components of the environment (e.g., air quality, water pollution, etc.) Sustainable development indicators.- Indicators systems aimed to describe the economic, social, environmental and institutional aspects of development. Aggregation approaches: Indices.- linear combination of weighted variables and indicators Environmental accounts, based on the monetary valuation of environmental components and services Types of indicators

7. Indicators for the assessment of environmental performance (SEMARNAP, 1997, 2000) Purpose: Disseminating information about the state of the environment, making effective the people's right to access to environmental information Scheme: OECD’s Pressure-State-Response Environmental indicators

8. Environmental indicators • Subject themes • 1997 edition • Air • Hazardous waste • Municipal solid waste • Wildlife • Stratosppheric Ozone depletion • Climate change • Added in 2000 edition • Water resources • Forests • Soils • Fisheries

9. Environmental indicators • Basic Indicators of Mexico’s environmental performance (SEMARNAT, 20005) • Subject themes • Air quality and atmosphere (GHG, ODS) • Water (Quality and supply) • Waste (municipal and hazrdous) • Soils • Biodiversity (freshwater, marine and terrestrial • ecosystems) • Fisheries • Forest resources • OECD’s PSR scheme

10. Sustainable development indicators Mexico’s Sustainable development indicators (SEMARNAP-INEGI, 2000) • UN Comission for Sustainable Development pilot project • 22 countries participating (six from LA & C) • 113 indicators compiled (out of 134)

11. Sustainable development indicators Mexico’s Sustainable development indicators (SEMARNAP-INEGI, 2000) • Arranged by SD dimensions • Following PSR scheme • Related to the Agenda 21 chapters

12. Aggregated approaches • Mexico’s Environmental Sustainability Index • Adaptation of the World Economic Forum & Yale and Columbia Universities’s Environmental Sustainability Index • Interpretation and adaptations specific for México. • State-level analysis to account for the high environmental and socio-economic heterogeneity of the country

13. Aggregated approaches Mexico’s Environmental Sustainability Index

14. Aggregated approaches • Mexico’s Environmentally Adjusted Net Domestic Product • (INEGI, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004) • Depletion of natural resources: Oil, forests, soils and ground water • Environmental degradation: air, water, and soils

15. Aggregated approaches Mexico’s Environmentally Adjusted Net Domestic Product (INEGI, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004)

16. General issues Unequal progress in Latin-American and Caribbean countries Differences between LA & C countries and OECD countries LA & C countries: Biodiversity, Use and management of natural resources OECD and developed countries: Pollution, energy use, material flows, etc. Limited use in policy and decision-making Indicators developed following international initiatives Disaggregated data not available Inadequate data timeliness Right to access to environmental information Lessons learned

17. Environmental indicators Limited or poor data availability. High costs of developing/maintaining environmental indicators/information systems against limited budgets and capabilities. Sustainable development indicators Little success in integrating social, economic, environmental and institutional aspects. Aggregated approaches Indices: Great communicational power, but open to methodological criticisms (arbitrary selection and weighing of variables, multicolineality and redundancy of variables included, arbitrary scaling, etc.), loss of credibility. Environmentally adjusted Net Domestic Product: Incomplete consideration of environmental components, assumptions in the valuation of environmental degradation/depletion, results open to criticisms Lessons learned

18. OECD’s role: PSR scheme, Core set of environmental indicators Data/indicator systems hierarchically arranged: Municipality-level, State-level, Country-level, Region-wide level, Global level OECD’s expanded cooperation: Non-OECD countries International agencies (e.g., UNEP, ILAC, CCAD, etc.) Desirable future developments