The phrase “100% Pura Vida” appeared on Eiffel Tower on 30 November 2015 to celebrate Costa Rica’s record running on 100 percent renewable energy for 255 days that year.

All around the world, we can see how climate change is already affecting lives of people. In Latin America, it has been multiplied by the El Niño phenomenon in recent years. As a response to a crisis, in my rural community in Hojancha, Costa Rica, the Ministry of Agriculture (MAG) provided new funds to combat extreme drought experienced in the aftermath of El Niño in 2014-15. Yet local farmers struggle to adjust their agricultural practices to changing weather patterns, extreme events and irregular rainfalls.

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Costa Rica relies mainly on hydropower to generate its electricity. Source: BBC

Over the last couple weeks, the international and national media stormed the news that “Costa Rica achieved 99% renewable energy in the year 2015.”i

What does this mean in the practice? As we are celebrating such achievements, it is important to understand the key message behind. The media often refers to energy and electricity miscellaneously, yet this might be misleading. In the case of Costa Rica, 99 per cent refers only to the renewable electricity and does not include other sectors such as heating, cooling and transportation, which is an ongoing hurdle in the process of reducing carbon emissions in this country.

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Teak ©CATIE

Living in the Guanacaste province of Costa Rica and working for an association of agroforestry and forestry producers called UNAFOR means that from the first day, one is deeply emerged into 'the teak debate'. Raising the key question that everyone seems to answer differently: 'How sustainable is teak?'

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The season of forest fires in Costa Rica has reached its peek. For the Guanacaste province, which has mostly dry climate and dry tropical forests, it means many fires, endless human efforts to fight against them under the hot sun conditions, and resulting loss of forest habitat, its fauna and flora on thousands of hectares.

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About four months ago, I arrived in a small town of Hojancha located in the Guanacaste province of Costa Rica. I took a bus from San José, not knowing any person, nor story about the place and arrived crossing many hills after the sunset in the middle of a ‘forgotten’ valley. It seemed to be a well-hidden place surrounded by many hills and forests.

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As the UN FCCC negotiations start in Peru this week, all the eyes of the world look to Lima to see if a brighter future and action will spark from it.

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Not long ago I arrived at the San José airport in Costa Rica. I was open to new experiences plus excited, minus my backpack which didn't make the connecting flight in Madrid.

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