ICM’s CEO Dr. Adrian Fernandez explains how the organization holds Mexico accountable to its international climate commitments.

Iniciativa Climática de México (ICM) is a nonprofit regranting organization that supports climate action in Mexico and works to elevate the country’s climate leadership. One of ICM’s priorities involves advancing efforts to raise Mexico’s climate ambition at the national level. With support from the Bezos Earth Fund (Earth Fund) and ClimateWorks Foundation, this work includes holding Mexico accountable to its Paris Agreement commitments as outlined in its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC). 

Under the Paris Agreement, countries are required to submit updated NDCs every five years — with each new NDC more ambitious than the previous one, based on the latest climate science. However, under its previous administration, the Mexican government’s climate policies regressed, threatening to undermine the country’s ability to deliver a sufficiently ambitious NDC.  

Dr. Adrian Fernandez is ICM’s founder and CEO. In this Q&A with ClimateWorks, he recounts how ICM mobilized civil society groups in Mexico to advocate for a stronger NDC, despite political barriers. He also explains how philanthropy can learn from this success story and help countries around the world increase their climate ambition.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Please tell us about your journey. What drove you to work on climate change, environmental policy, and philanthropy?

Professionally speaking, I like to say that I’m in my third reincarnation. I was first trained as an air pollution and health scientist: I completed my master’s degree and PhD in the United Kingdom and served as a postdoctoral researcher in the United States. 

However, I soon discovered the role that science can play in influencing policy, and after I moved back to Mexico in 1995, I began my “second career” which was focused on government. At the Ministry of the Environment (SEMARNAT), I served as director general for Environmental Management and Information and as director general for Local, Regional and Global Pollution. Then, I served as president of the National Institute of Ecology, the institution responsible for providing scientific evidence to SEMARNAT. 

Finally, after 17 years as a civil servant, I transitioned to the world of philanthropy, working with ClimateWorks Foundation, Hewlett Foundation, Oak Foundation, and the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF) on building an international network of regional climate foundations (RCFs). The RCFs are organizations with deep place-based expertise that create and execute philanthropic strategies to drive climate progress in their respective regions. This work eventually led to my role as the founder and CEO of ICM, which was formally launched in 2016 with significant support from CIFF.

How would you describe ICM’s unique approach and its role in the broader climate community?

Like many of the other RCFs that emerged around the same period, ICM was launched as a re-grantor, serving as the intermediary to connect larger funders with grantee partners in Mexico — often smaller organizations, grassroots groups, local communities, and individuals. However, in building out the institution, ICM has taken on other major roles beyond regranting, including as a think tank, a convener, and an advocacy organization. These additional roles allowed ICM to raise funds from bilateral cooperation agencies working in Mexico. 

Two approaches that we emphasize are strategic planning and an active focus on influencing decisions. This means that we allow ourselves to ask big questions and to be ambitious. As an organization, we are not just observers who track progress; we try to be part of what’s going on and make it happen. 

What led ICM to develop its own version of an NDC for Mexico?

During the administration of former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who served from December 2018 through September 2024, the Mexican government took a major step backward in its climate and environmental policies. This included increasing fossil fuel use in the electricity sector while dismantling key environmental agencies by slashing budgets, ousting critical staff members, and appointing ideological allies. 

The administration also allowed Mexico to flounder in its international climate commitments. Under the Paris Agreement framework, countries were required to submit updated NDCs in 2020 with emissions reduction targets that were more ambitious than their original 2015 submissions. Instead, however, Mexico submitted a hastily assembled NDC in 2020 that proposed mitigation targets similar to the original ones — which did not comply with the Paris Agreement’s requirement to increase ambition. 

At ICM, we understood any country’s two most important obligations on climate. The first obligation is to keep submitting updated and more ambitious NDCs in accordance with Paris Agreement timelines. The second is to communicate to the world a pathway and a timeline to achieve net-zero emissions. 

As a result, ICM worked in-house to draft our own version of an NDC proposal — a “civil society NDC”  — which suggested that Mexico could update its mitigation goal to a 30% reduction by 2030 compared to the initial goal of a 22% reduction. We led the research for this work, producing a robust and comprehensive 60-page policy document backed by more than 600 pages of detailed technical analysis on inventories, models, scenarios, and baselines conducted by ICM. This type of ambitious work is normally done by countries and not small NGOs. In other words, ICM was essentially doing the homework for the government institutions that had been dismantled under the past administration with the hope that the new administration starting in 2024 would use this work as a basis for a new “official” NDC in 2025.

How did ICM collaborate with civil society to encourage the adoption of a more ambitious NDC?

While we initially planned to use our research and analysis behind the scenes, we eventually decided to release our work publicly and to coordinate civil society groups to advocate for a more ambitious official NDC. To do so, we convened our network of grantee partners, which includes NGOs, civil observatories, youth organizations, academic institutions, think tanks, and faith groups. 

Together, we deployed strategic communications efforts, including a wide-reaching media campaign that encouraged the government to submit a new and more ambitious goal. The campaign also stressed that ongoing litigation by NGOs against the flawed 2020 NDC goal was not an impediment to submitting an adequate mitigation goal at COP27. 

Collectively, I believe these efforts provided the government with the tools and confidence to adopt bigger goals. While they didn’t adopt our proposed NDC verbatim, they saw that our plans were feasible, which informed their final decision to submit an updated NDC in 2022 at COP27 with a more ambitious target of 35% in emissions reductions by 2030. 

The Bezos Earth Fund (Earth Fund) and ClimateWorks Foundation were key partners in this effort through the Raising the Ambition of Climate Commitments (RACC) partnership. This included providing support for ICM and other RCFs to raise national climate ambition in emerging economies like South Africa, Indonesia, Brazil, and Mexico. Each RCF that was involved had the freedom to define their own proposals, and we directed this funding support toward our efforts to put the NDC together in-house. 

What can NGOs in other countries learn from ICM about civil society’s role in pushing for increased national climate ambition? 

The role of civil society is particular to the context of each individual country. However, broadly speaking, NGOs can play a role in holding governments accountable and working to ensure that countries comply with climate commitments.

More specifically, NGOs should work constructively with governments and help policymakers and cabinet members around the world better understand that climate is not just an environmental issue but the most critical threat to global prosperity and development. Particularly in emerging economies, it’s important to raise awareness of how decarbonization efforts can unlock opportunities for jobs, prosperity, and well-being. 

Finally, any NGO working on climate and the environment should continue to make efforts to improve their technical capabilities and the robustness of their analysis. That way, they can go beyond raising voices for climate ambition and join efforts with government actors to use interdisciplinary approaches in identifying the most effective policies.

What’s next for ICM’s work on advancing efforts to increase Mexico’s climate ambition?

Leading up to the inauguration of President Claudia Sheinbaum, ICM actively engaged with senior officials in Mexico’s incoming administration — including key cabinets such as the secretaries for the environment, energy, and foreign affairs — to share critical strategic information and deepen their understanding of the climate priorities in the immediate term. 

One heavy focus of our ongoing efforts is providing updated implementation pathways that outline the needed policy measures on climate change mitigation and identify the ones that will require significant investments. This analysis is critical for informing the administration on a portfolio of policy measures ready for enactment and implementation — with a recognition that success will require political will and prioritizing the right mix of achievable goals.

We will also explore financing options for these implementation pathways, which include providing cost estimates and analysis for key policy measures. Our priority is to avoid fragmented efforts and to secure significant, consolidated funding sources to drive substantial, impactful financing. For example, we’re leveraging our network to find viable financing solutions for deploying 30 gigawatts of renewable energy within the next six years. 

How can philanthropy help drive more ambitious country-level climate commitments and action?

RCFs play a critical role as orchestrators for climate action by providing deep technical and political knowledge on its countries of expertise and what it would take to make a meaningful difference. In turn, funders need to trust and work closely with RCFs and local partners to provide support in an expeditious way. 

That’s because timing is crucial when it comes to NDCs. While the technical work is intensive, it is often the easiest part of the process. The real challenge is putting together all the pieces to capitalize on the political moment in a country. That could involve applying outside pressure on the government, as ICM did during Mexico’s last NDC cycle — or working hand-in-hand with the government, which we hope to do with the new administration as they develop their next NDC. 

Ultimately, climate funders talk a lot about the urgency of the crisis. The ways in which we collaborate should reflect that. In terms of climate action, there isn’t time to wait for more favorable political environments in countries. As a community, philanthropy has significant brain power and resources, and we must be willing to work together smartly, take some calculated risks, and increase our trust in RCFs and partner organizations — even amid adverse political circumstances. Driving meaningful climate action will require different strategies for different countries, and we must keep revising our approaches to reflect the level of ambition needed to meet the moment.