Right on, Costa Rica!
Sure, there’s a lot to complain about when it comes to the Costa Rican Government’s policies towards the environment. While internationally Costa Rica is known for pristine natural resources…locally we know it’s a bit more complicated. However….
Costa Rica deserves a thumbs up in its role as an international leader in the fight to stop deforestation. In a December 27th Op/Ed in La Nación the former Minister of Mines, Environment and Telecommunications (MINAET), Carlos Manuel Rodriguez gave us a history lesson on his country’s fight to stop deforestation. There’s actually a happy ending.
First, the bad news: Danish scientists just announced that 12% of all greenhouses gases each year are attributed to deforestation. You chop down a forest, you release CO2 into the atmosphere. There’s a lot of chopping going on in the world.
For more than 10 years Costa Rica has been the shining example in policies and projects to stop deforestation. Its 1997 law explicitly prohibits the chopping of trees without permits and actually requires that the government pay forest owners not to cut down trees. Costa Rica has been leading the way at the UN Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC) and in 2005, after years of pushing to include anti-deforestation language in an international plan to halt global warming (along with their partner-in-crime, Papua New Guinea), Costa Rica convinced the IPCC to consider “discussing” deforestation as a part the Kyoto Protocol. It was only talk, but sometimes actions follow words. Costa Rica pulled together a coalition of 25 countries to advocate for stopping deforestation as a significant method of reducing carbon emissions.
Fast-forward to December 2009. All 192 countries who participated in COP15 have agreed not only to include stopping deforestation as a means to reduce greenhouse gases, but have elaborated in great detail how to do it. The details coming out of COP15 are coming directly out of the Costa Rican experience which has evolved through five successive Costa Rican governments of different political persuasions (that’s hard). So, what does this mean? It could mean 15-20 billion US$ per year to cut deforestation in half by 2020.
REDD, Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation, is the United Nations programme that may soon collect 15-20 billion dollars each year from polluting nations and distribute it to developing nations. The very first REDD programs were started in Costa more than 1o years ago. Let’s hope the international community can get its act together –like Costa Rica did– and formally agree to REDD this year. They’re close to a deal.
So, yes, I do a lot of complaining in the Dispatch about Costa Rica’s less-than-spectacular environmental policies. But I will give credit where credit is due. Costa Rica deserves a hearty toast…so raise your glass wherever you may be…cheers, Costa Rica, cheers.
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