US climate envoy John Kerry will meet Mexican President Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador on Friday to discuss renewable energy amid a trade dispute over Mexico’s energy reforms.

López Obrador will receive Kerry in the afternoon in Hermosillo, capital of the state of Sonora, on the border with the United States, to speak about the promotion of clean energy cars, the reduction of methane emissions and the increasing investment in renewable energy, according to the US State Department.

The president predicted that the Sonora Plan will be addressed in particular, a project to transform that state into a clean energy hub that includes solar power plants and the production of lithium, a key mineral for electric cars and technological devices.

In April, the Mexican government nationalized lithium exploration and created a parastatal company to develop the sector. He announced, in turn, that he was going to review eight contracts granted by previous governments to private companies to explore this mineral.

However, López Obrador announced on August 31 that his government would open up lithium exploration to private investment, although there is currently no precise data on the country’s reserves.

The meeting between Kerry and López Obrador takes place in the context of the dispute that Mexico has with the United States and Canada, the three signatories of the T-MEC trade treaty, over the energy policy of the Mexican government, which tries to limit the foreign participation in this sector.

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© Agence France-Presse