While most countries are still discussing ideas of how to curb carbon emissions, last March, Costa Rica made a groundbreaking announcement—their state-run utility company reported that they had powered their country’s electricity through renewable energy sources for a record-breaking 75 days since the start of the New Year. The renewable energy streak continued throughout March and well into April, ultimately lasting for 113 days. To top off this achievement, they predicted that renewable energy would account for more than 95% of their total electricity consumed this year.

As a middle power on the global stage, Costa Rica fills the niche of a model renewable energy source country (much like how the Nordic countries have taken the lead on climate change research). With the upcoming Paris Climate Change talks at the end of November, Costa Rica’s recent achievement comes at the perfect time. As other nations may hope to emulate the progress Costa Rica has made, it is important to understand Costa Rica’s history with renewable energy—the factors for Costa Rica’s success, the effectiveness of their measures and the reasons why Costa Rica chose to prioritize clean energy in their domestic agenda.

Costa Rica’s hydroelectric-friendly geography is a large factor in its decision to focus on clean energy. Due to its tropical landscape and climate, the government has focused on hydroelectric energy since the founding of the Costa Rican Institute of Energy (ICE) in 1950, and strengthened its renewable energy sources ever since, particularly by building dams. By the time they were making record-breaking environmental steps like the one in March, the government had already established a strong hydroelectric power foundation. In fact, hydroelectric power has generated the majority of Costa Rica’s electricity since 1989 and accounted for 80% of the electricity used during the 113-day record in 2015. While Costa Rica relies on its geothermal and wind power too, hydropower will reign supreme for many years to come.

Costa Rica’s national culture also plays a large factor in the government’s decision to cultivate clean energy. The country places a large human interest on combating the effects of climate change, since climate change intimately impacts the lives of the its people. Costa Rica – along with many of its neighboring Central American countries – has suffered from intense and unusual droughts since 2012, devastating the agricultural sector of the country and worsening famine and poverty in already struggling areas. In the case of Guanacaste, a northwestern province of Costa Rica, the government declared a “national emergency” in September 2014 after a $9.3 million loss in agriculture and more than $16.8 million in loss for the region’s cattle industry. The weather phenomenon “El Nino” is credited for the worsening drought conditions in Central America, amplifying the Costa Rican people’s belief that climate change issues should be a top priority for the government. According to a 2014 UN report, approximately 80% of the population is knowledgeable about climate change, 98% feel that climate change impacts their lives and a large majority of the population favors the creation of renewable energy projects.

Because of its large base of support from the public, the environmental factors that benefit renewable energy sources and the sense of urgency arising from climate change’s tangible effects, the Costa Rican government has been ardently pursuing a renewable resource agenda for the past decade. In addition to promoting renewable energy, it also became a carbon neutrality leader in 2007 when it became the first country to declare a goal of reaching complete neutrality by 2021. While many Costa Rican environmentalists believe that this goal is unrealistic, their government has made it a guiding force for public policies. In March 2014, their Legislative Assembly unilaterally passed a Framework Law on Climate Change, which mandated mandatory sustainability and climate change curriculum in elementary and middle schools, granted their Ministry of Environment and Energy (MINAE) more power to create climate change policies and created a National Commission on Climate Change. While the bill was ultimately stalled before the second and final vote, the attempt to create a national, comprehensive climate change law showed the government’s seriousness towards tackling the issue.

While Costa Rica’s success has set a precedent, there are still a few kinks to be worked out. A large critique of their announcement has been that while yes, Costa Rica has used only renewable energy sources for electricity, it still significantly relies on fossil fuels for transportation. As Costa Rica’s biggest source of pollution, vehicles account for 40% of the country’s total carbon emissions. The government has articulated a priority of bettering their public transportation system, as privately owned vehicles are the largest sector in transportation. At the UN Climate Summit in September 2014, President Luis Guillermo Solis stated that his administration’s main goals were to develop a new bio-fuel bus system, as well as an electronic railway. A second critique has been that Costa Rica’s success makes it too dependent on its hydroelectric-friendly landscape—a factor that will not always be certain, especially due to increasingly irregular weather patterns. It should also be noted that Costa Rica is a small nation, and its political process is therefore unique in comparison with larger states.

The irregular weather patterns that Costa Rica has long been experiencing have begun spreading around the world—California’s current drought comes to mind, as well as Chile’s recent earthquake. In light of the future Paris Climate Change talks, other countries should look towards Costa Rica’s example of rallying public support and spurring significant change in the realms of renewable energy development and carbon neutrality. While Costa Rica’s road towards clean energy has its blocks, it has built the infrastructure needed for a reliable source of renewable energy, and has outlined its plan to tackle their goal’s biggest threat: the country’s reliance on fossil fuels for transportation. If the other nations at the Climate Change Talks embraced a similar level of commitment, they would be bound to make progress towards mitigating the effects of climate change, even if smaller in scale.

The views expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect those of the Glimpse from the Globe staff, editors or governors.

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There is a narrow but growing sector at the nexus between clean energy and international development—one that may be leveraged to simultaneously address both climate change and wealth inequality. Developing states are increasingly taking advantage of this synergy to galvanize their economies with zero carbon footprints. At the heart of this movement is solar energy, the energy source that will soon be a major catalyst for international sustainable development.

Energy poverty, the state of living without access to household electricity, is concentrated in Sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia and India, and is moderately prevalent throughout the Middle East and South America. Of the one and a half billion people living in energy poverty around the world, nearly 85% are in rural areas, which lack the complex infrastructure of a city that allows electricity to be transmitted through a grid. Solar energy is the solution to powering these underdeveloped regions, because it is a natural, renewable resource that allows citizens the freedom to harness electricity for themselves.

While other types of clean energy require public utilities to harvest and allocate electricity through vast networks, solar energy sidesteps the barriers of centralized energy as a type of distributed generation. Both wind and hydroelectric power demand large-scale construction and capital, not to mention the ownership of viable land and rivers. Even nuclear energy, which has the potential to power hundreds of households, calls for the most extensive upkeep and a preexisting grid. Solar alone fits the bill for small-scale development, because photovoltaic cells are modular, which allows batteries to be independent and easily scalable, ranging in size from a single lantern to a solar farm.

Flexibility is essential to powering rural areas, because the energy infrastructure is decentralized. The small-scale version of a centralized system is the microgrid: a generator that supplies electricity to multiple users. Because village communities typically consist of less than 100 households, pushing the electricity through a grid over great distances is more expensive than building a smaller power source. Originally, microgrids were only a temporary interim between a centralized power system and distributed electricity generation. But, more than ever, rural populations are adopting microgrids as a permanent solution since they allow developing regions to leapfrog building a complex energy infrastructure and start employing modern technologies immediately.

Looking to the future, decentralized, renewable energy will be a major component of environmental resilience. As fossil fuel prices fluctuate, solar energy is particularly important in low-income regions, which are extremely susceptible to the impending shortage of global oil. Additionally, damage to major power plants can shut down entire neighborhoods and take days to fix; but, if a single microgrid suffers from mechanical failure or a natural disaster, then the others will remain intact. Climate change will inevitably hit impoverished and marginalized communities the hardest because they cannot afford rising market prices of kerosene, oil, or coal, nor can they tolerate the pollution of natural resources, which they may use for water, shelter, or income. Solar energy is not only a short-term solution to electricity, but must also be a long-term solution to development.

To date, several developing countries have begun to adopt substantial solar energy projects. In early 2014, Schneider Electric, specialists in energy management, introduced the Microsol Project to Kenya: the creation of village-size public utility models that use solar thermodynamics to provide drinking water, heating and electricity to dozens of households. With a lifespan of 20 years, a Microsol produces 50 MWh/year, 1000 m³/year of clean water, 800 MWh/year of heat. Annually, 50 MWh would provide over 100 rural households with two lights and a cell phone charger, or the equivalent of five American households. In July, Dharnai became the first village in India to be entirely solar powered, serving 2,400 residents, two schools, one health centers and over 50 growing businesses. This is just one of many instances in India where solar energy fosters community and entrepreneurship; to produce one’s own power is liberating, and this equips students and business owners with the ability to work at night and embrace modern technologies. In addition to sustainability, distributed solar energy allows rural areas to leapfrog into the modern economy.

Even in the developed world, however, solar is becoming a major asset. For example, more than half of Germany’s energy is now generated by the sun. Thanks to China, panel production escalated to meet Germany’s demand, the price of solar energy has fallen by 70% in the last five years. As the upfront cost of going solar continues to drop, it becomes more and more expensive for households, and whole cities, to stay dependent on fossil fuels. Environmentalism no longer has to be incentivized morally, but can be inspired by the prospects of long-term economic advantage and equality.

Despite these successes, sunlight is not the catch-all, end-all solution to international development. Though solar energy has made significant progress in certain countries, those without sufficient sun exposure may have to wait for a more long-term solution, like storing solar power in batteries, to become affordable. The presence of NGOs has also boosted the presence of solar, but regions that gain less nonprofit attention suffer from the high upfront costs of solar installation. While the cost of solar panels has dropped by over 99% per watt since 1997, and now sits below retail prices in the Western world, the transition remains daunting for rural populations in developing countries. However, access to a personal cell phone and lighting at night has a high rate of return for loans and investment; microfinance has already begun to play a leading role in support for solar energy. Furthermore, solar panels, once established, require negligible maintenance and zero operating costs after an initial investment.

The looming prospects of global warming and volatile fossil fuel prices have jumpstarted a solar revolution. As solar energy becomes cheaper and more developing regions catch on to its multifaceted potential, the outlook of the next few decades is hopeful that clean energy will simultaneously combat climate change and provide electricity around the world.

The views expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect those of the Glimpse from the Globe staff, editors, or governors. 

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