Abstract
In 2018, Costa Rica demonstrated its commitment to the Paris Agreement and published its Decarbonization Plan for achieving zero net emissions by the year 2050. We evaluate the impacts of the country's strategy for decarbonizing its Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Uses (AFOLU) sectors by coupling the Integrated Economic-Environmental Modeling framework with high-resolution spatial land use-land cover change and ecosystem services modeling (IEEM+ESM). Our results show that decarbonization of AFOLU would simultaneously enhance carbon storage, water purification, water regulation and erosion mitigation ecosystem services. Moreover, the positive cumulative wealth impact of decarbonization would be approximately US$7.27 billion by 2050 while lifting an additional 3810 individuals out of poverty. From a public investment perspective, decarbonization would have a fiscally neutral impact with the economic benefits sufficient in magnitude to off-set policy implementation costs and generate economic returns of over US$852 million when changes in natural capital stocks and environmental quality are considered. This application to Costa Rica is the first integrated economy-wide analysis of a growing number of decarbonization plans globally. The IEEM+ESM approach provides an integrated framework for analyzing decarbonization plans and can be used to refine AFOLU mitigation strategies to capitalize on synergies and minimize negative trade-offs across the three dimensions of wealth and sustainable economic development, namely economy, society and the environment.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 108115 |
| Pages (from-to) | 1-15 |
| Number of pages | 15 |
| Journal | Ecological Economics |
| Volume | 218 |
| Early online date | 22 Jan 2024 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Apr 2024 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2024 Elsevier B.V.
Funding
This study was commissioned by the UK's HM Treasury to inform the Dasgupta Review on the Economics of Biodiversity. The study was funded by the UK's Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). Support for Onil Banerjee's time was provided by the IDB until March 2022 and by RMGEO Consultants Inc. thereafter. Support for Bagstad's time was provided by the U.S. Geological Survey Land Change Science Program . This study was commissioned by the UK's HM Treasury to inform the Dasgupta Review on the Economics of Biodiversity. The study was funded by the UK's Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). Support for Onil Banerjee's time was provided by the IDB until March 2022 and by RMGEO Consultants Inc. thereafter. Support for Bagstad's time was provided by the U.S. Geological Survey Land Change Science Program. The authors thank the Central Bank of Costa Rica for their collaboration in the development of the IEEM database for Costa Rica. Thanks to Robert Marks, Emily McKenzie, Felix Nugee, Irene Alvarado-Quesada and the Dasgupta Review Team for their constructive review of this paper, and Michael Obersteiner for his insightful comments. The authors thank the IDB's Annette Kilmer, Juan Manuel Murguia, Gregory Watson, Josué Avila and Pedro Martel for their review and comments on the paper. Special thanks go to Allen Blackman (IDB) for his leadership and support for research at the IDB.
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| RMGEO Consultants Inc. | |
| U.S. Geological Survey Land Change Science Program | |
| Inter-American Development Bank | |
| Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, UK Government |
Keywords
- Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Uses (AFOLU)
- Climate change mitigation
- Decarbonization
- Dynamic Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) Model
- Ecosystem services modeling
- Integrated Economic-Environmental Modeling (IEEM) Platform
- Land use-land cover change