Implementing climate targets in Costa Rica and promoting regional knowledge transfer

Context

Costa Rica is playing an internationally respected leadership role in climate change mitigation and is involved on international platforms. This includes the NDC Partnership and the High Ambition Coalition. The country adopted its decarbonisation plan in 2019, with the aim of becoming carbon neutral by 2050. Costa Rica is currently developing a national Climate Empowerment Strategy (Estrategia Nacional de Empoderamiento Climático), which supports civil society’s resilience to climate change. In addition, the country is continuing its adaptation policy with the National Climate Change Adaptation Plan adopted in 2022.

Objective

Relevant actors in Costa Rica are implementing national climate targets and disseminating good approaches to climate policy, both regionally and internationally.

Approach

The project builds on successful approaches from the predecessor phase. One focus is to enable institutions to adopt integrated climate change mitigation policies and strategies and implement ambitious climate change mitigation projects.

The project is also developing financing arrangements with the private sector and with insurers and banks, and is promoting foreign direct investment in activities that have significant potential to reduce emissions. The closer cooperation between municipalities and the private sector makes it easier to develop and implement climate change mitigation measures. In addition, knowledge transfer is promoted via a regional hub for implementing climate targets and the regional interface of the International Climate Initiative (IKI) for Central America and the Caribbean.

In its predecessor phase, the project became a ‘contact point’ for implementation packages of various projects from IKI and German development cooperation. This ensured that coordinated and informed advice was provided to the joint partner institutions. This approach is being continued in the current, third phase.

Last update: June 2023