Sustainable development
The Bajío states and the 2030 Agenda
Five states, five ways to put the SDGs into practice. Three charge per tonne of CO₂, at different prices. Two have a net-zero emissions target. Only one has an energy ministry. Water is the weak point of all five. And there is no regional table.
Energy and environment projects with state governments, municipalities and industry in the Bajío.
Let's talk about your projectBajío Ventures · October 2026 · From commitment to project, 5 of 6
Mexico ranks third in the world for the number of voluntary local reviews on the SDGs. Post 2 showed that the agenda moves more at the lower levels of government than at the top. This post reviews what the five states of the Bajío and its surroundings do: Guanajuato, Querétaro, Aguascalientes, San Luis Potosí and Jalisco.
In this series: 1. The MDGs · 2. The SDGs four years from 2030 · 3. What Mexico signed · 4. What the federal government is doing · 5. The Bajío states (this post) · 6. What Bajío Ventures can do
The comparison
| Guanajuato | Querétaro | Aguascalientes | San Luis Potosí | Jalisco | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Multidimensional poverty, 2024 | 26.0% | 16.3% | 17.1% | 30.4% | 18.6% |
| IMCO state competitiveness 2026 | 16th | 2nd | 8th | 10th | 6th |
| 2030 Agenda body | Council within IPLANEG (2017) | Not established | Council re-established in 2024 | Subcommittee within COPLADE (2017) | MESA 2030 (2020) |
| Voluntary review | Not found | State-level, 2024 | State-level, 2024 | Not found | Guadalajara 2021; Zapopan 2024 |
| Carbon tax | Since June 2023 | Since 2022; 5.9 UMA (Mexico’s official unit of account) per tonne | No | Since January 2025; 3 UMA per tonne | Not in force |
| Emissions inventory | 20.5 Mt net (2021) | Not obtained | 6.2 Mt (2022) | Not obtained | 31.0 Mt (2017) |
| Climate target | Rising ceiling to 2050 | Net zero, long term | Up to −88% by 2050 | Not found | Net zero by 2050 |
| Energy body | Unit within the Ministry of Economy | Energy Agency | Not found | Not found | Ministry of Sustainable Energy Development |
| Distributed generation, end of 2025 | 358.5 MW | 127.5 MW | 145.1 MW | 118.6 MW | 747.7 MW |
Poverty: INEGI; the national average is 29.6%. Competitiveness: IMCO. Distributed generation: CNE. “Not found” means that we did not find it in public sources, not that it does not exist. The emissions inventories use different years and scopes and are not comparable with each other.
Guanajuato
Planning. The State Development Plan 2050 (Plan Estatal de Desarrollo 2050) was presented in February 2024. The Government Programme 2024–2030 (Programa de Gobierno 2024–2030) was presented in January 2025. The IPLANEG observatory assigns an SDG and a target to each indicator in the plan.
Carbon. The state has charged the environmental remediation taxes since June 2023. The state collected MXN 17.1 million in 2023 and MXN 58.7 million in 2024; 523 companies had paid by May 2025. The tax on soil and water pollution was deferred to April 2027. The rate per tonne differs between the sources we consulted and we do not cite it here.
Climate. The state observatory records 20.5 million net tonnes of CO₂ equivalent in 2021. The plan’s targets to 2050 are not reductions: they are ceilings of between 27.6 and 33.1 million in 2030. Of the four state trajectories we found, it is the only one that rises.
Energy. In September 2026 the Ministry of Economy reported a portfolio of 14 projects totalling 1,728 MW and USD 1,946 million. The state has 428 MW of clean capacity and ranks fourth nationally in distributed generation.
Water. The Solís–León aqueduct costs between MXN 10,000 million and MXN 15,000 million, depending on the source. According to the President’s second annual report, it is “in the process of evaluating alternatives”. It has organised opposition and an open conflict with Jalisco over the effect on Lake Chapala.
Querétaro
Planning. The State Development Plan 2021–2027 has a section on alignment with the 2030 Agenda. Querétaro submitted its first voluntary subnational review to the UN in 2024. The review acknowledges that the state monitoring council has not been established. In April 2026 a bill to create it was introduced in the state Congress.
Carbon. It is the most developed instrument in the region. The state has charged the emissions tax since 2022; the 2025 rate was 5.9 UMA, MXN 667.52 per tonne. The tax allows a company to offset up to 20% of the tax base with the Low Carbon Seal (Sello de Bajo Carbono), which backed more than 415,000 tonnes in 2024. The 2026 Revenue Law budgets MXN 347 million in environmental taxes. There are at least 95 amparos (constitutional injunction suits).
Climate and energy. The state climate change programme 2021–2050 has a vision of net-zero emissions. The state has an Energy Agency. In August 2026 a private 400 kV substation of USD 100 million entered operation in Corregidora. The state government reported that the CFE will invest more than MXN 9,000 million between 2026 and 2030.
Water. The El Batán project, of about MXN 11,000 million in its first stage, was dropped in September 2025: the governor declared it dead. We did not find a replacement project.
Aguascalientes
Planning. It is the state with the most orderly monitoring. The 2030 Agenda council was re-established in March 2024, chaired by the governor. In June of that year it presented its first voluntary local review. The state plan was updated in December 2024 with a diagnosis by SDG.
Climate. The inventory with a 2022 base year totals 6.2 million tonnes; half comes from energy and 27% from industrial processes. The state climate action programme, delivered in March 2026, sets out a reduction of up to 88% by 2050. The state has no carbon tax.
Water. The state water plan acknowledges overexploitation in all its aquifers.
San Luis Potosí
Planning. The state plan 2021–2027 includes a table of alignment with the SDGs. Monitoring sits with a subcommittee of the planning committee, established in 2017; we did not find recent activity.
Carbon. The emissions tax came into force on 1 January 2025 with a rate of 3 UMA per tonne, MXN 339.42 that year. It has an exemption for small emitters and reduced rates by bracket. According to a report dated 1 June 2026, a federal judge granted an amparo to a civil society organisation over the lack of information on the revenue collected and its use.
Water. The El Realito aqueduct had its tenth failure of 2026 in September. The state is preparing the replacement of 13 kilometres of pipe.
Jalisco
Planning. The State Development and Governance Plan 2024–2030 (Plan Estatal de Desarrollo y Gobernanza 2024–2030) has 82 indicators and a block on alignment with the SDGs in each topic. The monitoring mechanism, MESA 2030, has operated since 2020.
Climate. The 2021 state strategy is the most ambitious: from 31.0 million tonnes in 2017 to 15.3 in 2030 and net zero by 2050. The carbon tax has been proposed several times since 2020; we did not find that it is in force.
Energy. It is the only one of the five with a ministry for the sector. Its state supply plan dates from October 2025. The first call for projects gathered 20 solar and wind projects totalling USD 4,752 million. It ranks first nationally in distributed generation, with almost 100,000 contracts.
Water. On 6 October 2026 the state government announced that, because of contamination, it will stop using the old system that carries water from Lake Chapala to Guadalajara for six months. El Zapotillo operates at 45% of its design capacity.
What does not exist: the regional table
The Centre-Bajío-West Alliance (Alianza Centro-Bajío-Occidente) brought the five governors together in February 2020. We found no activity by it in 2025 or in 2026. The five states share a river basin, a power grid, an industrial corridor and a labour market, and they do not share a dashboard.
The only index that compares them on sustainability is the 2023 Sustainable States Index (Índice de Estados Sostenibles): Querétaro ranked third nationally and Guanajuato was the state with the second-largest progress between 2015 and 2023. We did not find a later edition.
The takeaway
1. Three states, three prices for the same tonne. A company with plants in Querétaro, San Luis Potosí and Guanajuato pays three different rates, under different rules — only Querétaro allows offsets — and nothing in Aguascalientes or Jalisco. The tax already converts emissions into pesos. What is missing is a way to convert the payment into a project within the same state.
2. Energy has an institutional owner in two states. Jalisco and Querétaro have a body that plans energy. In Guanajuato the subject sits inside the Ministry of Economy; in Aguascalientes and San Luis Potosí we did not find an equivalent body. The difference shows in the portfolio: Jalisco calls for projects; the others receive them.
3. Water is the goal that all five are failing. Solís–León, El Batán, El Realito, Chapala and the Aguascalientes aquifers are the same news in five versions. Any energy project in the region must first show what it does with water.
4. State environmental money exists and it is small. We reviewed it fund by fund in the series Bajío environmental funds.
With this inventory, the final post answers the question of the series: what Bajío Ventures can do.
This note is for information only and is not legal or tax advice. State rates and rules change every fiscal year; check the version in force.
Sources: INEGI — multidimensional poverty 2024, presentation · IMCO — State Competitiveness Index 2026 · CNE — distributed generation statistics, second half of 2025 · UNDP — Localisation of the 2030 Agenda in Mexico · Government of Guanajuato — State Development Plan 2050 · La Silla Rota — Government Programme 2024–2030 · AM — environmental tax revenue, Jul 2025 · Basham — Guanajuato ecological taxes · IPLANEG — observatory, net emissions · Government of Guanajuato — energy infrastructure, 4 Sep 2026 · Government of Guanajuato — 428 MW of clean capacity, Jan 2026 · AM — Solís–León aqueduct, 3 Sep 2026 · Excélsior — Solís–León aqueduct, Jun 2026 · Government of Querétaro — State Development Plan 2021–2027 · UN — voluntary subnational review of Querétaro, 2024 · Querétaro Legislature — bills on the 2030 Agenda, Apr 2026 · MéxiCO2 — technical note on Querétaro, 2025 · Publimetro — Querétaro environmental taxes, Dec 2025 · SEDESU Querétaro — climate change · Yahoo Noticias — substation in Corregidora, Aug 2026 · Código Qro — CFE investment, 14 Jul 2026 · ZonaDocs — El Batán, 18 Sep 2025 · Government of Aguascalientes — Voluntary Local Review 2024 · Government of Aguascalientes — Development Plan 2022–2027, update · Government of Aguascalientes — emissions inventory · Government of Aguascalientes — climate action programme, Mar 2026 · Government of Aguascalientes — State Water Plan 2021–2050 · Government of San Luis Potosí — alignment with the SDGs · MéxiCO2 — San Luis Potosí, 2025 · Astrolabio — amparo on the green tax, Jun 2026 · La Orquesta — El Realito, Sep 2026 · Potosí Noticias — El Realito pipe, 3 Oct 2026 · Jalisco Congress — State Development and Governance Plan · Government of Jalisco — 2030 Agenda · Government of Jalisco — State Climate Change Strategy · El Informador — state energy supply plan, 17 Oct 2025 · El Informador — clean energy call for projects, 15 Apr 2026 · El Informador — Chapala system, 6 Oct 2026 · UN-Habitat — voluntary local review of Guadalajara, 2021 · Crónica — Zapopan and the 2030 Agenda, Aug 2026 · Expansión — Centre-Bajío-West Alliance, Feb 2020 · NovaGob — Sustainable Cities and States Indices 2023
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Energy and environment projects with state governments, municipalities and industry in the Bajío.
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