Costa Rica’s president-elect Carlos Alvarado announced his goal to remove gasoline and diesel from the country’s transportation plans by 2021, its 200 year anniversary of independence. This promise marks the first time a Costa Rican leader has backed such a move, though green organizations have previously urged it. While completely eliminating fossil fuels within three years may not be realistic, ERG’s Jose Daniel Lara (a Costa Rican native) praises the plan, and the groundwork it lays for faster action toward the goal.
“A proposal like this one must be seen by its rhetoric value and not by its technical precision,” Lara told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. One problem in cutting back on fossil fuels is that the country´s budget depends on them, Lara said. “But the president´s proposal to eliminate fossil fuel use for transport could force a rethink of Costa Rica´s financial dependence on a pollution source.”
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