The government of Costa Rica has released an ambitious plan to decarbonize the country's economy by 2050. The plan has received international attention and praise as the latest example of Costa Rica's climate and clean energy leadership.
The introduction to the plan states:
- Decarbonization and resilience are conceived as a means to transform the development model to one based on the bioeconomy, green growth, inclusion and the improvement of the quality of life of citizens.
- The definition of the key actions was carried out based on the paradigm of transformational change - in contrast to the logic of incremental change - which is required to abolish the use of fossil fuels in our economy.
- In order to bring the concept of decarbonization to practice, a methodology was used whose starting point is a long-term vision of Costa Rica: to have a decarbonized economy by 2050, which has reached the lowest possible level of emissions consistent with the global climate goal - that is; the goal of containing the increase in global temperature well below 2 ° C (and ideally a limit of increase to 1.5 ° C) with respect to pre-industrial levels.
- From this global goal and applying a "backcasting" exercise considering the national reality, the public policy packages and actions that must be implemented from today to reach the goal to 2050 were identified.
A link to the full plan (in Spanish) is here.
A key component of the plan will be electrifying transportation, which accounts for 40% of Costa Rica's greenhouse gas emissions.
In 2018, 98% of the country’s electricity came from renewable sources, and the economy grew 3%.
The introduction to the plan states:
- Decarbonization and resilience are conceived as a means to transform the development model to one based on the bioeconomy, green growth, inclusion and the improvement of the quality of life of citizens.
- The definition of the key actions was carried out based on the paradigm of transformational change - in contrast to the logic of incremental change - which is required to abolish the use of fossil fuels in our economy.
- In order to bring the concept of decarbonization to practice, a methodology was used whose starting point is a long-term vision of Costa Rica: to have a decarbonized economy by 2050, which has reached the lowest possible level of emissions consistent with the global climate goal - that is; the goal of containing the increase in global temperature well below 2 ° C (and ideally a limit of increase to 1.5 ° C) with respect to pre-industrial levels.
- From this global goal and applying a "backcasting" exercise considering the national reality, the public policy packages and actions that must be implemented from today to reach the goal to 2050 were identified.
A link to the full plan (in Spanish) is here.
A key component of the plan will be electrifying transportation, which accounts for 40% of Costa Rica's greenhouse gas emissions.
In 2018, 98% of the country’s electricity came from renewable sources, and the economy grew 3%.
RSS Feed