San Luis Potosí

Durango

Sinaloa

Guanajuato

Sonora

Guerrero

Hidalgo

Tabasco

México

Tlaxcala

Aguascalientes

Jalisco

Tamaulipas

Michoacán de Ocampo

Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave

Baja California

Nayarit

Zacatecas

Baja California Sur

Chihuahua

Morelos

Yucatán

Oaxaca

Campeche

Chiapas

Nuevo León

Ciudad de México

Puebla

Coahuila de Zaragoza

Quintana Roo

Colima

Querétaro

Mexico

Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula is an ecologically and socially vital region, home to critical ecosystems like coral reefs, mangroves, seagrasses, cenotes, and coastal dunes. These provide essential services such as coastal protection, carbon sequestration, water regulation, and biodiversity conservation, supporting local livelihoods. However, sea-level rise, droughts, stronger cyclones, shifting rainfall, and ocean acidification are intensifying. These climate challenges, combined with human-driven threats like tourism expansion and unsustainable agriculture such as overfishing, endanger ecosystems and the communities and livelihoods that rely on them, particularly indigenous and vulnerable populations.

The project aims to increase the climate resilience of vulnerable communities, ecosystems, and productive systems by supporting locally led Ecosystem-based adaptation (EbA) interventions that enhance biodiversity, reduce climate vulnerability, and sustain essential ecosystem services in Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula.

Some key activities are financing ten sub-projects to conserve, restore, and improve productive practices to increase communities’ adaptive capacities in coastal and marine landscapes, mobilising financing to scale up community-level activities, and knowledge sharing and enhanced coordination among local stakeholders, national agencies, and NGOs.

GCF's Project Preparation Facility (PPF) and Readiness Programme support were deployed to help develop the project.

Local CSOs and CBOs in landscapes-seascapes around the world access grant financing and technical assistance, including capacity development and knowledge sharing to maintain and enhance their socio-ecological resilience, well-being and socio-economic conditions for global environmental benefits.

The Balsas Basin in Mexico is one of the country's most marginalised areas, making it highly vulnerable to climate change. Increasingly erratic rainfall and extended dry seasons are reducing agricultural productivity and degrading natural resources, leading to more frequent flooding, crop damage, and droughts, which further decrease crop yields. Despite considerable efforts by the government, including a strong tradition of payments for ecosystem services (PES) schemes, addressing these climate impacts remains challenging due to financial and institutional constraints. Integrating climate vulnerability systematically into territorial plans remains a key opportunity for improvement.

To address these challenges and take advantage of identified opportunities, this project will transform rural development incentives by emphasising the conservation of forest resources and strengthening of local institutions and capacities. Additionally, it will prioritise bottom-up decision-making and value chain development to ensure social inclusion and empower women, youth, and indigenous peoples.

This approach to climate-resilient production and sustainable land use will improve the livelihood resilience of the most vulnerable rural communities while conserving ecosystems in the Balsas Basin.

Throughout Latin America, the transport sector is the largest and fastest-growing source of greenhouse gas emissions, driven by a car-centric urban development and a lack of electric and public transit alternatives. While there are a few electric vehicle (EV) pilot projects in the region, achieving long-term transformation and large-scale market adoption remains difficult. This is due to the higher capital requirements for EVs, risk perceptions by the private sector regarding public EV business models, and policies that are not conducive to wide EV adoption. The region has significant potential for clean transportation and electric mobility because it generates relatively clean electricity.

To overcome the barriers and take advantage of the opportunities, the project aims to reduce the investment risks for both the public and private sector in the e-mobility industry. It will provide technical support to develop and test business models and develop the enabling environment to expedite the widespread viability of electric mobility in urban public transport – including large-scale investments in infrastructure and EVs. 

The programme will improve access to affordable, attractive, and low carbon urban transport, especially for the most vulnerable populations that often depend on public transport to access basic services and socio-economic opportunities.

Geography

Mexico

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Green Climate Fund

Global Environment Facility