This Central American country has an ambitious plan to reach climate neutrality by 2050
From the article:
In 2019, Costa Rica launched its National Decarbonization Plan which aims to make the country carbon neutral by 2050, meaning the country won’t produce more carbon emissions than it can offset. The ambitious plan includes a combination of mid- and long-term targets poised at reforming transportation, energy, waste, and land use. For example: despite the country’s electricity system being almost entirely generated from renewable energy, public transportation still accounts for approximately 40 percent of Costa Rica’s climate-changing emissions. Costa Rica’s goal is to transfer 70 percent of public buses and taxis to clear air alternatives, like electricity, by 2035, and make them entirely emission-free by 2050. The National Decarbonization Plan also includes initiatives to develop integrated, low greenhouse gas emission systems to collect, separate, reuse and dispose of waste by 2025. The country has already banned the sale and free distribution of single-use plastic straws and bags, with exceptions for reusable and biodegradable bags. Although these latter bags can be plastic, they must be certified for low environmental impact and cannot be single-use. By the 1980s, Costa Rica had lost somewhere between a half and a third of its trees to loggers and agriculture. However, thanks to a successful reforestation program—which includes a Payment for Environmental Services Program, providing financial incentives to farmers or landowners who engage in activities like agroforestry and planting tree farms—and forests now cover nearly 60 percent of the country. The country’s Decarbonization plan calls for maintaining this percentage and even increasing it by 2050.
