LECB Programme Impact and Results: Costa Rica

Costa Rica is a leader on carbon neutrality in Latin America. In 2011, the objective of “achieving a low carbon economy” was stated in the National Development Plan. In 2012 Costa Rica issued its National Strategy on Climate Change where the goal of carbon neutrality was included.Two sub-sectors were identified by government as key challenges to achieving this goal: Livestock, within the AFOLU sector of the GHG inventory; and transport within the energy sector.As such, the aim of the Low Emission Capacity Building (LECB) project in Costa Rica was to improve the capacity of both sectors to develop mitigation measures, with livestock as the priority.

It therefore supported the development of emission factors at the country level, the formulation of the livestock Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Action (NAMA), and monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) system proposals. Transport, and the energy sector as a whole, was also targeted by the LECB project.