Costa Rica's Plastic Ban and Carbon-Neutral Goals: What Happened

First published February 4, 2019.

Costa Rica's Plastic and Decarbonisation Goals: A Historical Plan

Between 2017 and 2019 Costa Rica made two headline-grabbing promises: to stop using single-use plastics by 2021, and to wean itself off fossil fuels, a goal that became a formal plan for net-zero emissions by 2050. Neither target was met in the strict form the headlines suggested. Yet the small Central American country does generate roughly 98 to 99 per cent of its electricity from renewable sources in a normal year, has more than doubled its forest cover since the 1980s, and has become a reference point for climate policy worldwide.

Here is what Costa Rica actually pledged, what its renewable record does and does not mean, how the plastics plan turned out, and what has happened since.

Renewable electricity: the record behind the reputation

Costa Rica's clean-energy reputation rests mainly on its power grid. Since 2014 renewables have supplied about 99 per cent of the country's electricity in most years, and in 2015 and 2016 the grid ran entirely on renewables for stretches of 75 and then 110 consecutive days. The Tico Times summarised the streak in 2018.

The mix depends on the country's geography. In 2019, for example:

Hydropower from rivers and reservoirs supplied about 67.5 per cent;
Wind about 17 per cent;
Geothermal energy from its volcanic zone about 13.5 per cent;
Biomass and solar together less than 1 per cent;
Fossil-fuel plants just over 1 per cent.

The single biggest project of the decade was the Reventazón hydroelectric plant on the Caribbean slope, which began operating in 2016 with a capacity of about 305 megawatts and is often described as the largest in Central America. The state utility, the Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad (ICE), also added several wind farms and smaller hydro plants in the same period.

“A farmer stands near a wind mill of the National Power and Light Company in Santa Ana, Costa Rica, on Oct. 23, 2015.” (Ezequiel Becerra/AFP)

Electricity is not the same as all energy

This is the most common misunderstanding. Clean electricity does not mean a country runs without oil. In Costa Rica, cars, buses and trucks run overwhelmingly on imported petrol and diesel. In 2014 fossil fuels still made up roughly half of the country's total energy consumption, vehicles burned about 70 per cent of the petroleum used, and transport produced more than half of all carbon dioxide emissions.

So when early articles claimed Costa Rica would be "carbon-free" or "fossil-free" by 2021, they confused two things. The 2021 carbon-neutrality ambition, first set in 2007, was always about balancing emissions, largely through forests absorbing carbon, rather than eliminating fuel use. The electricity grid was already almost clean; the hard part was everything else.

Solar panels, including this one in Guanacaste, Costa Rica, produce a small portion of the renewable energy (Joe Raedle/Getty)

The plastics pledge and what came of it

On World Environment Day in June 2017, Costa Rica announced a national strategy, backed by the United Nations Development Programme, to replace single-use plastics with alternatives that are recyclable, compostable or not made from petroleum, with 2021 as the target year. The announcement was widely reported as a plan to become the first country to eliminate single-use plastic entirely.

What followed was a set of specific laws rather than a total ban:

In 2019 the country banned the import and sale of expanded polystyrene (Styrofoam) containers, with exceptions where no workable alternative exists, and fines for violations.
Restrictions were placed on plastic straws and bags, though bags and bottles that are reusable, recycled or biodegradable remained allowed.
From February 2021 the national conservation agency SINAC began refusing entry of single-use plastics such as bottles, straws and disposable cutlery into national parks, biological reserves and national monuments.
Public institutions were told not to buy single-use plastic items unless they are recyclable or recycled.

Plastic did not disappear from Costa Rican shops by 2021, but the measures go further than many larger countries had gone at the time, especially in protected areas.

The decarbonisation plan for 2050

Carlos Alvarado Quesada won Costa Rica's presidential election in April 2018. In his inauguration speech on 8 May he described decarbonisation as the great task of his generation and promised to move the country away from fossil fuels. On 24 February 2019 his government launched the National Decarbonization Plan, aiming for net-zero emissions by 2050, a later and more realistic date than the 2021 slogans.

The plan's main targets, according to the World Economic Forum and the UN Environment Programme, include:

70 per cent of buses electric by 2035 and zero-emission buses and taxis by 2050;
an electric passenger train for the San José metropolitan area;
a quarter of cars electric by 2035 and fewer cars in cities;
forest cover raised to 60 per cent;
better waste collection and recycling nationwide, and a gradual tax reform to replace fuel revenue.

Transport, responsible for around 40 per cent of the country's emissions at the time, was the central target. In 2019 Costa Rica received the UN Environment Programme's Champions of the Earth award for policy leadership. Critics pointed out that fuel and vehicle taxes made up about 12 per cent of government revenue, so phasing them out would require difficult fiscal changes.

Forests, parks and a nature-first economy

Costa Rica's environmental story began long before its climate pledges. By the 1980s, cattle ranching and logging had cut forest cover to around a quarter of the country. A mix of policies, including payments to landowners for protecting forest and water, a ban on clearing mature forest and the rise of nature tourism, reversed the trend. Forest now covers more than half of the land, and around a quarter of the country is protected as national parks and reserves.

That protected landscape has become an economic asset. Ecotourism is one of the country's largest sources of foreign income, and visitors come specifically for its rainforests, cloud forests, volcanoes and wildlife. Protecting nature and earning a living from it have become linked in a way that makes conservation politically popular.

The country is also often mentioned in debates about measuring progress beyond GDP. Economist Joseph Stiglitz, among others, has pointed to Costa Rica as an example of a country that scores well on wellbeing and life expectancy relative to its income.

The limits: drought and dependence on rain

Relying heavily on hydropower has a weakness: it needs rain. In 2023 a drought linked to El Niño cut the renewable share of electricity to about 95 per cent, and ICE projected that thermal (fossil-fuel) plants would supply around 10 per cent of power in 2024, after renting extra diesel capacity. In May 2024 the utility announced scheduled power cuts of up to three hours a day, the first rationing since 2007.

The episode does not erase the country's achievements, but it shows why energy experts urge Costa Rica to add more solar and wind and to modernise storage, so that a dry year does not push it back to diesel.

What other countries can learn

Costa Rica's experience offers some practical lessons. Ambitious targets attract attention, but measurable steps, such as banning polystyrene or electrifying buses, are what change emissions. Natural advantages like rivers and volcanoes help, but so do long-term institutions that keep policy steady across governments. And claims about being "100 per cent renewable" should always be checked: is it electricity alone, or all energy?

For a closer look at the people behind these ideas, Democracy Now! interviewed Costa Rican climate advocate Mónica Araya, who has advised the government on clean transport, in December 2018: