Mexico’s new leader is a climate expert. Can she save an oil nation?

MEXICO CITY — She was an energy engineer, a quiet, driven Mexican academic who’d worked at a major U.S. government lab and investigated some of the toughest problems in climate change. 

Claudia Sheinbaum was a natural choice when the prestigious U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change selected scientists for a landmark report in 2014. It would warn the world was hurtling toward “irreversible” damage from greenhouse gases, and call for urgent action. 

Sheinbaum’s contributions were “an added value for the team,” said Manfred Fischedick, a professor in Germany who worked on the report. “And — I would like to stress that aspect specifically — she never came across as a politician.

” Now, Sheinbaum is about to become Mexico’s president. 

Her election has given hope to environmentalists and diplomats who’ve despaired as Mexico has gone from a global leader on climate change to a laggard. 

Yet Sheinbaum has a complicated record. She’s the protégé of outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, known as AMLO, who sidelined green-energy projects and prioritized tapping petroleum fields. In her recent stint as Mexico City mayor, Sheinbaum loyally defended his policies — even as she introduced electric buses and covered the capital’s massive food market with solar panels.

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