MEXICO CITY,  – US special climate envoy John Kerry on Monday praised Mexico’s efforts to fight global warming. Visiting a reforestation program in the southern state of Chiapas together with Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, Kerry said that combatting climate change “cannot be achieved without reforestation and dealing with deforestation.”

“All of us in the world need to focus in what Lopez Obrador is trying to do,” Kerry added. One million hectares of trees have been replanted as part of the “Sembrando Vida” (“Sowing Life”) program, according to the Mexican government.

Kerry praised the program, saying that it focuses “on people, on people lives, on work, on the ability to be able of stay where you live, on the ability of stay connected to the land as part of the future”.

The Mexican president said Sembrando Vida, which has been replicated in El Salvador and Honduras, creates jobs and thus helps contain migration to the United States through Mexico. Kerry visited Mexico before flying to London ahead of the COP26 UN climate summit which begins on October 31 in Glasgow.