Costa Rica’s zero-carbon plan could be a model for the world

CARLOS ALVARADO QUESADA has heard all the naysayers before. In February, the 39-year-old president of Costa Rica committed to ridding the country of fossil fuels by 2050. If successful, Alvarado's plan could make Costa Rica the first zero-emissions country.

President Carlos Alvarado Quesada
explains Costa Rica's new plan to
ditch fossil fuels and how it could inspire
others to do the same.

With a population of merely 5 million, this leafy Central American nation is not a major contributor to the world's climate crisis. So why bother then? "People ask me a lot, why do this if you are so small," Alvarado said in a meeting last week with editors at WIRED's San Francisco office. "They say, you're not going to move the needle or affect the scale of the problem." China, the US, and India hold the dark distinction of leading the emissions charts, and the top 10 emitters account for almost 70 percent of greenhouse gasses. Costa Rica's emissions barely register in the global carbon belch-athon that's throwing the climate into disarray.

Read the story from Wired by Sandra Upson - “Costa Rica’s zero-carbon plan could be a model for the world.”

Tiny Costa Rica Has a Green New Deal, Too. It Matters for the Whole Planet

SAN JOSÉ, Costa Rica — It’s a green big deal for a tiny sliver of a country. Costa Rica, population 5 million, wants to wean itself from fossil fuels by 2050, and the chief evangelist of the idea is a 38-year-old urban planner named Claudia Dobles who also happens to be the first lady.

Tiny Costa Rica has a new green deal, and it matters to the whole world.

Every country will have to aspire to something similar, scientists say, if the world is to avert the most dire consequences of global warming. And while Costa Rica’s carbon footprint is tiny compared to other countries, Ms. Dobles has a higher goal in mind: Getting rid of fossil fuels would show the world that a small country can be a leader on an awesome problem and improve the health and well-being of its citizens in the bargain.

It would, she said, combat a “sense of negativity and chaos” in the face of global warming. “We need to start providing answers.”

Read the story from The New York Times by  Somini Songupta and  Alexander Villegas - “Tiny Costa Rica Has a Green New Deal, Too. It Matters for the Whole Planet.”

Costa Rica's Electricity Has Run Entirely on Renewables For 300 Days in 2017

Costa Rica has done it again. In January, the Central American country announced it had powered its electricity for a stunning 250 days in 2016 without burning fossil fuels. Now its 2017 effort has already eclipsed that feat – and it's still only November.

So far this year, Costa Rica has clocked up 300 days where 100 percent of its electricity generation came from renewable energy sources – no small accomplishment for a nation comprised of some 5 million people.

According to figures provided by Costa Rica's National Centre for Energy Control, 99.62 percent of the country's electricity production is now generated from five renewable sources.

Leading the charge is hydropower, which provides 78.26 percent of Costa Rican electricity, followed by wind (10.29 percent), geothermal energy (10.23 percent), biomass and solar (0.84 percent), and hydrocarbons (0.38 percent).

Read the Science Alert story - “Costa Rica's Electricity Has Run Entirely on Renewables For 300 Days in 2017.”

‘Otto’ could be first hurricane to make landfall in Costa Rica since at least 1851

Otto gained strength in the Caribbean on Tuesday to become the seventh hurricane of the season so far and the latest hurricane on record in the Caribbean Sea. An “average” Atlantic hurricane season ends November 30.

A hurricane watch is up for Costa Rica and southern Nicaragua, and a tropical storm watch has been posted for Panama.

“These are startling locations for tropical cyclone advisories–understandably so,” Bob Henson wrote on Tuesday. “A storm of Otto’s expected strength has never made landfall so far south in the Caribbean, and there is no record of any hurricane striking Costa Rica.”

Otto formed on Monday as a tropical depression but has strengthened into a formidable storm since then. Sustained winds could be around 90 mph when it makes landfall early Thursday.

Read Angela Fritz’s story in The Washington Post - .‘Otto’ could be first hurricane to make landfall in Costa Rica since at least 1851."

Figueres has done 'excellent' job, but steps down in July

Christina Figueres - she has headed UN
 climate negotiations for six years, but
she will be stepping down from the role in July.

Critics say the emissions deal Christiana Figueres helped reach in December was "watered down." Figueres, a diplomat from Costa Rica who has headed UN climate negotiations for six years, will leave her position in July.

"Christiana Figueres had a very unenviable position, and she's done an excellent job in holding the whole edifice together," Kevin Anderson, the deputy director of the Tyndall Center for Climate Change Research, told DW following the senior diplomat's decision last week not to seek a new term.

Figueres, a diplomat from Costa Rica who heads the Bonn-based UN secretariat for the Framework Convention on Climate, will leave her position in July after six years.

("It's very unlikely that her replacement will really grapple with the scale of the increasing void between the rhetoric we hear on climate change and the scale of action that we now need," according to the deputy director of the Tyndall Center for Climate Change Research, Kevin Anderson.)

 

Read the DW story - “UN climate boss had 'unenviable job' sealing Paris deal.”