Costa Rica

Costa Rica joined the Coalition in 2017, endorsing the CCAC 2030 Strategy and committing to reducing short-lived climate pollutants (SLCPs). The country has worked with the Coalition’s partners on projects in agriculture, waste, and national planning to enhance policies and strategic plans with actions to reduce SLCPs.  

Since 2011, Costa Rica committed to a long-term transformation towards climate neutrality. Andrea Meza, Costa Rica's Minister of Environment, spoke to the CCAC on how Costa Rica has “shown its commitments to mitigate [short-lived climate pollutants] for decades, and more recently, in the National Decarbonization Plan”. The 2018-2050 National Decarbonization Plan is a multi-sectoral roadmap on how to reach Costa Rica’s net-zero goal by mid-century. The plan includes short-, medium-, and long-term goals for a cleaner transport sector, such as increasing zero-emissions and renewable fuels, for electrifying the energy sector, and for transitioning to low-emission operations in the waste and agriculture sectors. Other sector-specific national strategies will stem from this document. 

Costa Rica’s 2020 Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) update further solidifies the goals communicated in the National Decarbonization Plan. The NDC identifies action areas for sectors in transport, agriculture, energy, waste, and more. For transport, it sets targets to increase the percentage of zero emission vehicles for both the public transport and private fleet. In the agriculture sector, measures aim to operationalize low emission-production and circular economy systems that incorporate adaptation and resilience. 

As prompted by the 2020 NDC and the National Decarbonization Plan, the waste sector launched the Action Plan for Integrated Waste Management in 2019. The plan’s main areas for action include reducing waste at the source, waste sorting and collection, and recovery. This Action Plan is also intended to generate other policy products such as the National Composting Plan as well as a strategy to implement best technological practices to reduce methane from organic waste, to be published in 2022.  

Costa Rica’s 2015-2035 National Strategy for Low Carbon Livestock (ENGBC) provides a roadmap for scaling up sustainable livestock agriculture practices. The Livestock Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Action (NAMA) project, launched in 2015, provides the mechanisms to implement the ENGBC, with guides on mitigation practices such as improving pastures to capture carbon and feed to reduce methane from enteric fermentation. The project has successfully completed its pilot phase on 141 farms and resulted in a reduction of 70% of greenhouse gas emissions. The NAMA aims to, by 2030, advance the application of this model to reach 27% of farms in the country.  

Discover Costa Rica's climate and clean air plans further below:

Cooling 

• Costa Rica ratified the Kigali Amendment in May 2018 of the Montreal Protocol, committing to phase down HFCs. 

Oil and gas 

• An oil moratorium was originally declared in 2002 but extended in 2018 to 2050 for the suspension of development and exploration activities for oil deposits on Costa Rican territories.  

Waste  

• The C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group and the CCAC are working with Costa Rica and various other cities in the global South on a Waste Finance Programme to build the capacity to build and operate sustainable waste management systems while also taking into consideration municipal financial limitations.  

Transport 

• The Incentives and Promotion for Electrical Transport Law (Law 9518) was passed in 2018 to strengthen the regulations and incentives to increase the use of electric transport in the general public, such as putting in place taxes.