You may have heard by now, that Costa Rica is moving toward carbon neutrality faster than any other country in the world! The selection of articles below will provide you with some information about Costa Rica’s journey to get there.
Costa Rica has an ambitious new climate policy
By Umair Irfan https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/7/17/17568190/costa-rica-renewable-energy-fossil-fuels-transportation
Costa Rica’s new president, 38-year-old former journalist Carlos Alvarado, recently announced a plan to make his country the first carbon-neutral nation in the world by 2021, the 200th anniversary of its independence. “Decarbonization is the great task of our generation and Costa Rica must be one of the first countries in the world to accomplish it, if not the first,” Alvarado said in May in his inauguration speech. ”We have the titanic and beautiful task of abolishing the use of fossil fuels in our economy to make way for the use of clean and renewable energies.”
Many news outlets interpreted this as a decision to ban fossil fuels. But these stories are misleading. Costa Rica does not have a ban because it does not have a law restricting the use of fossil fuels, nor does it plan to. But it did just ramp up its ambition in reducing its contribution to climate change.
“Some people have misunderstood the President’s declarations because we don’t plan to ban the use of fossil fuels, we plan to phase them out through new policies and incentives so that eventually, down the road, they will be useless,” Costa Rica’s Minister of Environment and Energy Carlos Manuel Rodríguez told me in an email.
A goal of carbon neutrality allows for coal, oil, and gasoline combustion, provided that their greenhouse gas emissions are offset elsewhere. Those offsets can come from planting forests, employing better land management, or perhaps someday even pulling carbon dioxide straight from the air.
But by aiming for carbon neutrality by 2021, the tiny Central American country is signaling it wants to beat larger, wealthier countries to environmental glory. The United Kingdom is weighing going to zero net emissions by 2050. The Netherlands is considering a similar goal. Germany is hoping to reduce its emissions 95 percent but is on track to miss its 2020 targets.
Home to 4.8 million people, Costa Rica has long punched above its weight on climate change policy and action, and has produced many leaders who’ve promoted aggressive, progressive environmental policies on the international stage. Former President José María Figueres served on United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s Advisory Group on Climate Change and Energy. His younger sister, Christiana Figueres, led the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the group that convened the 2015 Paris climate agreement.
Costa Rica famously has had no army since 1948 and in 1994 amended its constitution to include a right to a healthy environment for its citizens. Today, it already gets almost all of its electricity from renewable sources, with 80 percent coming from hydropower. Costa Rica can power itself for months at a time drawing solely on renewables, running for a record 300 days on clean sources in 2017. So when it comes to greening its economy, Costa Rica has an enviable head start.
Yet even with this early lead, Costa Rica has struggled to hit its targets. In 2008, it set out to become carbon-neutral by 2021, but the goalposts were then moved back to 2085 in 2015 during the negotiations for the Paris climate agreement.
Now the new administration is restoring the previous goal of carbon neutrality by 2021 and is focusing on transportation, one of the largest contributors to climate change around the world and one of the most difficult sectors to decarbonize. In Costa Rica, transportation accounts for two-thirds of emissions. Using incentives for cleaner vehicles, particularly electric cars, the government aims to clear the home stretch in decarbonization.
Of course the simplest way to get to carbon neutrality is to limit how much carbon you use to begin with. Cutting off the supply of fossil fuels is one way to do this, but Costa Rica is implementing a much more conventional incentive-driven plan to get the rest of the way to zero net emissions.
Right now, the challenge is that it’s hard to come up with a battery or fuel cell that can outperform gasoline or diesel in cars, trucks, buses, aircraft, and ships. The alternative fuels require chargers or dedicated fueling stations, but Costa Rica is largely starting from scratch.
And as the country’s economy grows, demand for cars is rising. In 2016, there were twice as many cars registered as babies born. More than 60 percent of the country commutes by diesel buses or trains, which provides another opportunity for electrification. The country already ranks second in per capita emissions in Central America. But in 2016, there were just 107 plug-in electric cars sold in the country. Many Costa Ricans cite the higher price of electric vehicles as the main obstacle. To drive down costs, Costa Rica is lifting taxes on electric vehicles to encourage their adoption, but 22 percent of Costa Rica’s revenue comes from taxes on fossil fuels, mostly in transportation. That means switching to cleaner cars could throttle the government’s funding stream, further contributing to Costa Rica’s rising deficit.
Other countries are also struggling with how to balance real-world financial constraints with curbing their emissions, but Costa Rica is going further and faster than most, so it’s an important country to watch and learn from in the fight against climate change. That means Costa Rica will have run on more than 98% clean energy over five consecutive years, according to data from the National Center for Energy Control (CENCE).
Costa Rica Has Run on 100% Renewable Energy for 299 Days
By Miles Rote, October 1, https://www.under30experiences.com/blog/costa-rica-has-run-on-100-renewable-energy-for-299-days
You probably didn’t think it was possible but it’s true: for 75 days straight, Costa Rica ran on 100% renewable energy. Then, they did it again this year in 2016 for 76 days straight. But that isn’t the only thing they’re doing in this field…
Costa Rica is pioneering the future of running on renewable energy and may be the model for future countries to follow suit. In the last four years, Costa Rica has generated 98.53% of its electricity from renewable sources. How? With its unique geography, forward thinking solutions, and commitment to sustainability, Costa Rica has used its rivers, volcanoes, wind, and solar power to generate its country’s power. By the year 2021, Costa Rica plans to be completely carbon neutral. Since they’ve already operated on only renewable energy (much more difficult than simply being ‘carbon neutral) for the majority of the last few years, it is definitely feasible.
Carbon Neutral vs 100% Renewable Energy
Before we get too deep in this, let’s have a firm understanding of the difference between what is considered ‘carbon neutral’ and ‘100% renewable.’ Here is the definition of carbon neutrality:
Having a net zero carbon footprint, refers to achieving net zero carbon emissions by balancing a measured amount of carbon released with an equivalent amount sequestered or offset, or buying enough carbon credits to make up the difference.
In other words, a country can be considered carbon neutral while still using fossil fuels by planting trees that offset the carbon, or funding conservation programs which aim to reduce the amount of carbon in the air. A country using 100% renewable energy, however, is the process using sources of energy that will never run out. In other words, no fossil fuels. In addition, any carbon the country does use, it intends to offset through different initiatives.
Leading the world in carbon neutrality
For several years now, Costa Rica has run on entirely renewable energy for an average of about 300 days per year. That means the government did not burn any oil, coal, or natural gas to power the country. No other country this size has has done this. For example, Portugal was recently praised in the news for running on 100% renewables for 4 days. Which is amazing, but also a testament for Costa Rica’s amazing progress.
Here’s how they did it
Costa Rica invested early in the power of renewable energy resources and made it a priority to become environmentally sustainable. Because of that, the country has abundance of geothermal renewable sources that account for much of the necessary energy to make the country successfully function. Also, Costa Rica can get a lot of rain. With consistent rainfall, their hydroelectric plants can produce a plethora of energy. Lastly, the population is small and their workforce is not manufacturing intensive, which means their energy requirements are not as large as some countries.
The future
Costa Rica has been focused on environmental sustainability from the outset and they are working hard to keep it a priority in the future. Here is what is in store. Recently approved to be built, Costa Rica is constructing THREE 50 MW geothermal power plants costing $954 million. It should be known, this is no cheap investment…especially for a small country that is 50th in GDP. However, the country is taking advantage of their dozen volcanoes (5 of which are active) and investing in the future by showing the world they stand for environmental sustainability. But it doesn’t stop there. Costa Rica is also unveiling a 305.5 MW hydroelectric plant that is set to power over half a million homes…which is A LOT considering there are less than 5 million people in the entire country.
What do you think? How do you feel about investing in renewable energy?
Costa Rica unveils plan to achieve zero emissions by 2050 in climate change fight
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/feb/25/costa-rica-plan-decarbonize-2050-climate-change-fight
Environment minister says under plan, his grandchildren in 2035 will have the same carbon footprint as his grandparents did in the 1940s – and by 2050 none at all.
Costa Rica has launched an economy-wide plan to “decarbonize” the country by 2050, as the Central American nation aims to show other nations what is possible to address climate change.
Environment minister, Carlos Manuel Rodríguez, said that if the plan is achieved, his grandchildren in 2035 will have the same carbon footprint as his grandparents did in the 1940s – and by 2050 his grandchildren will have none at all.
“Not only are we going to reduce that footprint but we are going to bring many benefits with it,” Rodríguez said.
But Jairo Quirós, an electrical energy researcher at the University of Costa Rica, warned the plan would be challenging, and “should be viewed with some caution”. Under the roadmap launched Sunday, Costa Rica by 2050 would achieve “zero net emissions”, meaning it would produce no more emissions than it can offset through things such as maintaining and expanding its extensive forests. Such emission cuts are key to holding increases in global temperature to well under 2C (3.6F), the goal of the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change.
The Costa Rica plan aims to allow the country to continue growing economically while cutting greenhouse gases. The country’s economy grew at 3% last year, according to World Bank data.
Christiana Figueres, the Costa Rican former UN climate chief, called the goal “unprecedented” in international politics. Only the government of the tiny Marshall Islands also has laid out a detailed plan to achieve that goal, but “they still do not have the whole plan articulated sector by sector”, Figueres told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. President Carlos Alvarado noted that while Costa Rica represents only a tiny share of the world’s climate-changing emissions, the plan could be a model for other nations.
“We can be that example – we have to inspire people,” he said at the plan’s launch.
But Quirós, of the University of Costa Rica, warned the plan will take hard work to achieve. Some goals, he said, such as ensuring all buses and taxis run on electricity by 2050, may be difficult, not least because the changes will be expensive. Transport today creates about 40% of Costa Rica’s climate-changing emissions, making it the largest single source of them, according to the National Meteorological Institute.
The new plan aims to modernize public transport, including through the creation of an electric train line that would connect 15 of the 31 neighborhoods in the San José metropolitan area, according to the Costa Rican Institute of Railways.
Construction on the lines is expected to start in 2022. Under Costa Rica’s decarbonization plan, the number of cars circulating in urban areas would be cut by half by 2040, the environment minister said. By 2035, 70% of the country’s buses would be electric and 25% of its cars, Rodríguez added. Costa Rica does not have a fossil fuel extraction industry, but dependence on oil revenue could still cause problems. Fuel taxes, vehicle import taxes and driving taxes currently account for about 12% of government revenue, the minister said. To phase out fossil fuels without slashing government income, the government will need to push for “green tax reform” to find new revenue sources, he said – which would need legislative approval.
Under the plan, the country’s state-owned petroleum distributor would change course and begin research on alternative fuels, such as hydrogen and biofuels, and look at helping fossil fuel workers move to clean energy jobs.
The plan also calls for further expanding forests – though at the moment most of the money to pay for that comes from taxes on fossil fuels, Rodríguez admitted. “In the 1960s and 70s, Costa Rica had the highest per capita deforestation rate in the world. We have managed not only to stop deforestation but to double forest coverage” as the economy grew, Rodríguez said.
“It’s good to be ambitious,” he said.
