Fossil Fuel Sacrifice Zone in the Aquarium of the World?!

It’s a World Heritage Site designated by UNESCO and a Biosphere Reserve designated by Mexico. It has famously been called the Aquarium of the World by renowned oceanographer Jacques-Yves Cousteau. And it is home to multiple species of great whales and countless other land and marine species, including 39 percent of all marine mammal species on earth. By any description, the Gulf of California is an iconic natural ecosystem of global significance that we can’t afford to lose.

Unless the fossil fuel industry has something to say about it.

On December 9, 2024, in an open letter to the CEO of Houston-based fossil fuel company Mexico Pacific Limited (Mexico Pacific), the NRDC announced our opposition to the company’s proposed construction of a massive liquified natural gas (LNG) export facility at Puerto Libertad in Sonora, Mexico, on the eastern shore of the Gulf of California.

Citing the company’s own corporate commitments to “environment, sustainability, and tackling climate change,” we expressed our “disappointment in the disconnect between Mexico Pacific’s corporate commitments and its own corporate conduct—that is, a failure to apply your compelling words about ESG [‘Environment, Sustainability and Governance’] to the company’s anchor project.” 

Called Saguaro Energia LNG (Saguaro), the project would introduce to the Gulf an industrial development anticipated in its first phase to receive about 12.8 billion cubic feet per day of fossil gas from the Permian Basin in West Texas and New Mexico and process 15 million metric tons per year (MMTA) of the super-chilled liquified fossil gas for export to Asia. At projected full buildout—costing an estimated $30 billion—the amount processed by Saguaro and transported is anticipated to double to 30 MMTA. Twenty-year gas supply contracts have already been executed with fossil fuel giants Shell, ExxonMobil, Conoco Phillips, and others.

This industrialization would occur in the heart of one of the most renowned areas of biodiversity anywhere on the planet—a UNESCO World Heritage Site, a Biosphere Reserve, and a Migratory Bird Refuge—and its impacts would be transformational. Beyond the diverse risks associated with the introduction of major industry for LNG development into this sensitive Gulf ecosystem (including, for example, liquefaction facilities, port development, and pipelines from the Permian Basin), the consequences of using the uniquely biodiverse Gulf as a shipping channel for LNG could be devastating.

LNG transport through the narrow confines of the Gulf would put at risk multiple species of whales (including the world’s largest, the endangered blue whale) and other marine animals found in the region (including the world's largest fish, the endangered whale shark). During the decades-long lifespan of the Saguaro project, transit through the Gulf of massive LNG vessels, each hundreds of meters in length, would inevitably result in ship strikes and a significant elevation of ambient ocean noise levels in key habitat of marine animals whose survival (e.g., communication, feeding, navigating, finding mates, and reproducing) depends on hearing and being heard.

Beyond these threats to biodiversity in the Gulf, the Saguaro project would attract and generate significant contributions of greenhouse gas emissions, further aggravating the escalating global climate crisis, at a time when, according to the International Energy Agency’s World Energy Outlook in 2023, global LNG markets are headed toward a “glut of LNG.” 

Further, the project has raised concerns of adverse health and economic impacts in communities in and around the region. And through construction of its associated infrastructure (including the 155-mile Saguaro Connector Pipeline in the United States and the 500-mile Sierra Madre pipeline in Mexico to Puerto Libertad), it would potentially enable development of other LNG projects currently in planning on the Gulf.

“The certain consequence of all of this,” NRDC’s letter to Mexico Pacific explains, “would be transformation of the Gulf from a region of globally iconic biodiversity into a sacrifice zone of fossil fuel development for decades to come.”

In support of its opposition to Saguaro, NRDC urges Mexico Pacific’s CEO Sarah Bairstow to consider the following points:

• First, the project would be a magnet for industrialization in an area formally recognized not once but repeatedly for its conservation value, including, among other designations, as a World Heritage Site, a Biosphere Reserve, and a Migratory Bird Refuge. It is home to an exceptional diversity of species, many of which may be adversely impacted by Saguaro, its associated infrastructure, and related industrialization. Because of its unique global importance, it has been recognized by UNESCO as a “natural laboratory for the investigation of speciation,” with “extraordinary importance for study.” The Saguaro project, NRDC contends, poses a “direct, significant risk to this internationally recognized, multiply protected natural ecosystem.”
• Second, its development cannot be reconciled with the phaseout of fossil fuels determined by the international community to be essential to address climate change. The overwhelming consensus of scientific opinion tells us that climate change is here, it is getting worse, fossil fuels are at the heart of it, and a rapid transition to renewable energy is necessary. Yet, because of its projected greenhouse gas emissions—equivalent to those of 17.4 million additional vehicles per year—Saguaro’s industrialization of the Gulf of California threatens “to become the next chapter in the accelerating global tragedy of climate change.”
• Third, the Saguaro project would make a mockery of Mexico’s protected area designations for the Gulf and, more broadly, of its history of support for whale and marine conservation, both domestically and internationally. In Baja California and the Gulf region, for example, Mexico has a compelling record of protection in the face of major industrial and commercial development that threatened its iconic biodiversity, including, since 2000, at Laguna San Ignacio and Cabo Pulmo. NRDC and our members have been proud to support those conservation efforts.
• Finally, in addition to these threats to the ecology of the region and the stability of our climate, the Saguaro project poses significant economic risks—to the region’s rich fishing industry and, more broadly, to Mexico’s economy. Rather than investing in sustainable renewable energy alternatives (and the job creation, energy security, and other economic and social opportunities that they enable), the development of multibillion-dollar LNG export infrastructure risks locking Mexico into a decades-long bet on volatile LNG markets. This is a timeframe at war with Mexico’s commitment to (1) energy security and (2) a meaningful response to climate change, including compliance with greenhouse gas commitments under the Paris Agreement.

Based on these concerns, NRDC asserted that “there may never be a clearer prescription for destruction of a natural World Heritage Site than the plan that Mexico Pacific is pursuing for industrialization of the Gulf of California—not just of its individual species but of an entire natural ecosystem recognized globally for its exceptional conservation value. That such a plan could be proposed in the heart of this natural gem defies credulity.”

Calling the decision on Saguaro “one of the most consequential land use decisions anywhere in the world today,” NRDC concluded that Mexico Pacific’s fossil fuel development plan is an existential threat that places the planet, its people, and its biodiversity at a critical crossroad: “It is no exaggeration to say that Mexico Pacific’s vision for the future of the Gulf of California is a profound and consequential crossroad for the planet. Your plan to transform the natural World Heritage Site in the Gulf into a sacrifice zone for fossil fuels is an existential threat, both to biodiversity at its finest as it exists anywhere on the planet today and to the climate, health, and quality of life as we hope they will exist for centuries to come.”

If Mexico Pacific is serious about its own environmental commitments, the Gulf should be protected, and Saguaro must be canceled. A growing coalition of opposition in Mexico, now joined by NRDC, has urged exactly that.