Supporting the design of an emissions levy for Costa Rica

Climate Focus and its partners, the School of Public and Environmental Affairs of Indiana University, the Gnarly Tree Sustainability institute, and ICS Abogados, are supporting the Ministry of Environment of Energy of Costa Rica (MINAE) in the design of an emissions levy for mobile and stationary sources. The emissions levy has the aim of supporting the transition to a greener, lower-carbon economy in Costa Rica, while meeting the dual objectives of GHG emissions mitigation and tackling local air pollution and its associated health impacts.

The publication supports MINAE through developing a comprehensive set of design options for the emissions levy and undertaking comprehensive legal, institutional and economic analysis of the different options to determine which are most efficient, effective and implementable. This includes building and running a series of partial equilibrium models to determine the impacts of different design options on GHG emissions, local pollutants, health and the local economy. The final results of the study will include a comprehensive proposal for the design of the emissions levy and recommendations for the MINAE on how to proceed with adoption and implementation.