LatAm Eyes Policy, Partnerships to Power Energy Transition

The Energy Talks 2025 conference in Mexico City brought together policymakers, industry leaders and financial institutions to take stock of Latin America’s role in the global energy transition in the road to COP30 in Brazil later this year. Across keynote speeches and panel discussions, one central theme emerged: the region’s success depends on aligning industrial growth with decarbonization, while ensuring reliable and inclusive access to energy.

From Regulation to Action

Opening the conference, José Luis Samaniego Leyva, Deputy Minister of Sustainable Development and Circular Economy, SEMARNAT, reflected on the evolution of international climate governance. For decades, he said, the UN’s climate conferences focused on defining responsibilities and creating mechanisms such as carbon markets. That regulatory framework is now in place.

“Now, what the convention is fundamentally going to do is serve as the international repository where we report on the progress of collective action,” Samaniego explained. COP30, he added, is less about designing rules and more about monitoring how well countries deliver.

Samaniego stressed the urgency of decoupling economic growth from carbon emissions. “If we think growth is totally tied to emissions, there is a contradiction,” he said. “If we think there can be growth that becomes decoupled from carbon intensity, then we have a solution.” Achieving that balance, he argued, requires both technological adoption, greater energy efficiency, cleaner technologies, and ecosystem restoration that unlocks new opportunities for decarbonization outside heavy-emitting sectors.

For Mexico, the deputy minister laid out a three-pronged strategy: strong public policy, an emissions trading system, and flexibility for sectors unable to meet annual reduction targets within their own operations. Yet, major challenges persist, particularly in mobility, meat production, and waste. The auto sector must accelerate hybrid and electric fleets, livestock practices must adapt to cut methane and reduce deforestation, and rising household incomes are pushing up both fuel use and waste volumes.

International cooperation will be key, but Samaniego cautioned against depending on external resources. “One of the messages we want to send is that we must depend increasingly on our own resources to make progress,” he said. While he did not expect sweeping results from COP30, he called for Latin America to present a united front. “We hope that Latin America participates with a common vision and makes its voice heard as a region.”

Technology Is Ready, Partnerships Are Key

The private sector’s message was equally clear. Javier Pastorino, Managing Director, Siemens Energy LatAm North, emphasized that public-private collaboration is “essential.” Without it, he warned, plans for expansion and decarbonization risk remaining on paper.

“The technology to face these challenges with sustainability is already available,” Pastorino said. “With well-articulated public-private collaboration, I believe we can move forward.”

His comments set the tone for the first panel on strategic policies and partnerships, where multiple voices echoed the urgency of blending state legitimacy with private sector investment and execution.

Pastorino underscored that Mexico alone will need to add nearly 30GW of new capacity by 2030, requiring investments above US$30 billion. Meeting such targets without public-private partnerships (PPPs) is “unviable,” he said, especially as multilateral development banks increasingly favor PPP structures in their financing. Natural gas, he argued, will remain essential as a transition fuel alongside growing renewable capacity, with hydrogen poised to play a role in the medium term.

Juan Ignacio Díaz, President and CEO, International Copper Association, was blunt: “Without copper, there is no renewable energy, no electromobility, no digitalization.” Copper, he said, is central to electrification, but customers are demanding it be produced responsibly. For him, PPPs are “absolutely essential” because they combine regulatory stability with private innovation and capital.

From the European perspective, Javier Arribas Quintana, Minister for Sustainability and Energy Transition, EU Delegation to Mexico, noted that PPPs are designed to close gaps, both in universal access to energy for marginalized communities and in powering major industrial hubs. He pointed to lessons from Europe: stable regulatory frameworks, independent regulators, risk distribution through PPPs, financing instruments like those of the European Investment Bank, and crucially, community inclusion in project design.

“Dialogue with communities is essential to avoid problems later,” Arribas said, adding that Mexico’s recent reforms were a positive step in creating stability.

Salomón Amkie, Banking Director for Specialized Industries, Citi Mexico, framed PPPs as long-term agreements that acknowledge the sector’s inherent risks. “Infrastructure in general, energy in particular, are very long-term businesses,” he said. “This is not something that yields quick returns.”

Coordinated Regulation; Transmission: The Weak Link

Representing the Ministry of Economy, Sergio Silva Castañeda, Head of Economic Growth and Promotion, highlighted a new level of inter-institutional coordination in implementing last year’s energy reform. Unlike previous administrations, when agencies learned about new rules only after their publication, today there is ongoing collaboration with the Ministry of Energy. “That will prevent surprises not only for the private sector, but also for other areas of government,” Silva said.

While policy and partnerships may set a strong foundation, the second panel made clear that transmission remains the Achilles heel for Mexico’s growth.

“Energy is the backbone of a country’s growth,” said Aniela Marval, Vice President of Grid Technologies Sales for Latin America, Siemens Energy. With nearshoring and green-shoring fueling industrial demand, she warned that modernization, digitalization, and expansion of the grid are critical. Equipment delivery times are lengthening amid global demand, making long-term planning essential.

Grid expert Casiopea Ramírez Melgar described a decade of underinvestment that has left Mexico’s transmission network lagging. Private players, not the state utility, have carried most of the load. Even projects that were budgeted face six to seven years of delays, with only about 5% currently advancing. Frequent regulatory changes have compounded the bottleneck.

“Transmission is not only a barrier to new demand, but also to decarbonization and to one of the most important goals of the new energy policy: addressing energy poverty and achieving energy justice,” Ramírez said. She warned that recently announced plans by the federal government totaling US$8.18 billion cover just 6% of needed new lines, insufficient to meet demand growth.

Mexico’s weak interconnections, she added, exacerbate the problem. While the country has 11 cross-border points, nine with the United States, most are for emergencies or small surplus trades. Stronger regional interconnections could diversify supply, lower costs, and provide backup in crises.

Private investors are already responding to grid challenges. Luis Lugo, Country Head Mexico for CloudHQ, said his company had to build its own high-voltage line and substations to power its data centers. With expected consumption of 360MW, nearly equivalent to all of Queretaro’s current metropolitan demand, data centers are straining the system. “The challenge right now is transmission,” Lugo said. “There is generation nearby, but it does not reach where it is needed.”

Latin America’s Voice at COP30

Looking ahead to COP30 in Brazil, Ana Toni, CEO of the upcoming climate summit, positioned Latin America and the Caribbean as global solution providers. The region already generates 65% of its electricity from renewables, well above other parts of the world.

She emphasized the link between the energy transition and countries’ Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). For the first time, most governments are preparing sectoral plans for energy, industry and transportation, offering private investors greater policy clarity.

“The discussion about the transition to a low-carbon economy has energy at the center,” Toni said, noting that the region’s ability to attract foreign investment will be decisive. Yet she acknowledged persistent challenges, from grid integration to scaling battery storage and tackling transport emissions.

If there was a consensus at Energy Talks 2025, it was that Latin America stands at a crossroads. The region’s renewable resources give it a head start, but transmission gaps, regulatory instability and investment risks still threaten to slow momentum.

Samaniego’s call for collective action, Pastorino’s insistence on PPPs, Ramírez’s warnings on transmission, and Toni’s vision for COP30 all point toward a delicate balancing act: fostering industrial growth while decarbonizing, strengthening regional cooperation while securing national resources, and ensuring access for all while attracting private capital.

As the conference made clear, Latin America has no shortage of solutions or ambition. The challenge now is to turn regulatory frameworks and technical potential into tangible progress on the ground, before demand growth outpaces the ability to deliver clean, reliable, and affordable energy.