U.S., Mexico aim for more clean energy electricity by 2025

OTTAWA (Reuters) – The leaders of the United States and Mexico this week plan to announce that half of their electricity will come from clean power sources by 2025, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp reported on Monday.

U.S. President Barack Obama and his Mexican counterpart Enrique Pena Nieto will meet in the Canadian capital Ottawa on Wednesday for a trilateral summit hosted by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

A spokeswoman for Canadian Environment Minister Catherine McKenna said clean energy would be an important part of the summit but declined to confirm the CBC report.

White House spokesman Eric Schultz told reporters at a briefing that he could not preview any announcements ahead of Wednesday’s summit.

“I can say we do ‘ambitious’ well here at the White House,” Schultz said, responding to a reporter’s suggestion that the target would be ambitious.

Currently, around 13 percent of U.S. electricity comes from hydro electricity or renewable energy sources, with another 19 percent from nuclear.

About 25 percent of Mexico’s electricity is from non-fossil fuel producing sources, CBC said. Mexican officials had previously said they want to boost that to 35 percent by 2025.

In Canada, 81 percent of electricity is provided by hydroelectric, solar, wind and nuclear power generation.

(Reporting by David Ljunggren in Ottawa, Roberta Rampton in Washington and Simon Gardner in Mexico City; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Alan Crosby)