Mexico’s President-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador, or AMLO, whose victory last month left many hopeful for the nation’s next chapter, elicited praise from environmentalists for promising Wednesday to outlaw hydraulic fracturing, a controversial method of extracting natural gas that’s often called fracking.

“This is the climate leadership we need,” declared 350.org.

The “plan to ban fracking in Mexico represents the latest common-sense decision by a world leader to prohibit this inherently toxic, polluting practice,” Food & Water Watch executive director Wenonah Hauter told DeSmog.

“[The] plan to ban fracking in Mexico represents the latest common-sense decision by a world leader to prohibit this inherently toxic, polluting practice.”
—Wenonah Hauter, Food & Water Watch”President-elect Obrador is moving in the right direction on many issues, including energy and the environment,” Hauter added. “He can move even farther by pledging to transition Mexico to a fully clean, renewable energy future, thereby setting a remarkable example for its neighbors to the north.”

López Obrador, who will take office Dec. 1, made the fracking announcement at a news conference on Wednesday. “We will no longer use that method to extract petroleum,” he said, according to The Associated Press.