Costa Rica

Last update: 1 December 2023

Economy wide

Costa Rica’s NDC is not conditional on international support, though Costa Rica has also highlighted the ‘need of financial support, technology transfer and capacity’ as an impact of the pandemic.¹ Paris Agreement compatible emissions pathways would require an 18-41% emissions reduction below 2015 levels or 8.5-11.7 MtCO₂e/yr excluding LULUCF by 2030.

Costa Rica's total GHG emissions excl. LULUCF MtCO₂e/yr

Displayed values

Percent
MtCO₂e/yr

Reference Year

1990
2010
2015

*Net zero emissions excl LULUCF is achieved through deployment of BECCS; other novel CDR is not included in these pathways

Graph description

The figure shows national 1.5°C compatible emissions pathways. This is presented through a set of illustrative pathways and a 1.5°C compatible range for total GHG emissions excl. LULUCF. The 1.5°C compatible range is based on global cost-effective pathways assessed by the IPCC SR1.5, defined by the 5th-50th percentiles of the distributions of such pathways which achieve the LTTG of the Paris Agreement. We consider one primary net-negative emission technology in our analysis (BECCS) due to data availability. Net negative emissions from the land-sector (LULUCF) and novel CDR technologies are not included in this analysis due to data limitations from the assessed models. Furthermore, in the global cost-effective model pathways we analyse, such negative emissions sources are usually underestimated in developed country regions, with current-generation models relying on land sinks in developing countries.

Methodology
- Underlying global pathways
- Downscaling of global pathways
Data References

2030 NDC

Costa Rica’s NDC, updated in 2020, aims for emissions reductions of 10-14% below 2015 levels in 2030, which translates to approximately 11.9-12.5 MtCO₂e/yr excluding LULUCF by 2030.²

Current policy projection

Current policy projections show that if the country reaches the maximum potential of its current policies, it would be on track to meet its NDC target for 2030.³

Net zero GHG

Costa Rica’s current target is to reach net zero GHG emissions by 2050, including LULUCF as a sink.⁴ While the country’s National Decarbonisation Plan states that the forestry sink accounted for –7.4 MtCO₂e/yr in 2012, Costa Rica’s long term strategy predicts a sink of –5.5 MtCO₂e/yr by 2050.⁵

2050 Ambition

1.5°C compatible pathways would require Costa Rica to reach a level of remaining GHG emissions lower than 2 MtCO₂e/yr excluding LULUCF by 2050 (or 84% below 2015 levels). Costa Rica’s projected land sink indicates that the country is well positioned to balance its remaining emissions by 2050.⁶

Sectors

Power

Costa Rica has a target to reach 100% of electricity generation from renewable energy by 2030.⁷^,⁸ As of 2019, Costa Rica already generated 99% of its electricity from renewable sources, with the main source being hydropower at 68%, indicating that it is well on its way to meeting this target.⁹
This would also imply that fossil fuels would no longer be used in Costa Rica’s power sector by 2030. Currently, imported oil is the only remaining fossil fuel in use for power.¹⁰
As Costa Rica benefits already from an almost completely decarbonised power supply, this is an opportunity for the country to drive decarbonisation of the transport sector through increasing the uptake of electric vehicles in the country fleet.

Transport

While Costa Rica has seen a tenfold increase in its electric vehicle (EV) sales between 2017 and 2022, its transport sector predominantly relies on fossil fuels.
To pursue a 1.5°C compatible pathway, the country would need to increase electricity’s share in transport to 2-6% by 2030 and 27-44% by 2050.
Costa Rica has set targets to have 30% of its public transport fleet fully decarbonised by 2035 and for the passenger trains to operate entirely on electricity by 2035.

Gobierno de Costa Rica. Contribución Nacionalmente Determinada. (2020). ↩
Climate Action Tracker. Climate Target Update Tracker: Costa Rica. (2020). ↩
Climate Action Tracker. Costa Rica: Current Policy Projections. (2020). ↩
Government of Costa Rica. National Decarbonization Plan. (2019). ↩
Government of Costa Rica. National Decarbonization Plan. (2019). ↩
While global cost-effective pathways assessed by the IPCC Special Report 1.5°C provide useful guidance for an upper-limit of emissions trajectories for developed countries, they underestimate the feasible space for such countries to reach net zero earlier. The current generation of models tend to depend strongly on land-use sinks outside of currently developed countries and include fossil fuel use well beyond the time at which these could be phased out, compared to what is understood from bottom-up approaches. The scientific teams which provide these global pathways constantly improve the technologies represented in their models - and novel CDR technologies are now being included in new studies focused on deep mitigation scenarios meeting the Paris Agreement. A wide assessment database of these new scenarios is not yet available; thus, we rely on available scenarios which focus particularly on BECCS as a net-negative emission technology. Accordingly, we do not yet consider land-sector emissions (LULUCF) and other CDR approaches. ↩
Gobierno de Costa Rica. Contribución Nacionalmente Determinada. (2020). ↩
Government of Costa Rica. National Decarbonization Plan. (2019). ↩
International Energy Agency. IEA Country Profiles: Costa Rica. (2021). ↩
International Energy Agency. IEA Country Profiles: Costa Rica. (2021). ↩

What is Costa Rica's pathway to limit global warming to 1.5°C?