Pew and Partners Celebrate Costa Rica for Including Coastal Wetlands in Its Nationally Determined Contribution

WASHINGTON—The Pew Charitable Trusts today praised the government of Costa Rica for continuing its global leadership in environmental stewardship by committing to manage, restore, and finance coastal wetland ecosystems within its updated Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) to the Paris Agreement. Costa Rica joins a growing number of countries—including Belize, Jamaica, Kenya, and Panama—in safeguarding these vital blue carbon ecosystems through its national climate action plan.

NDCs are the cornerstone of the Paris Agreement—the legally binding international treaty adopted in 2015 by nearly 200 countries, which strengthens the global response to climate change. Each NDC—required to be revised every five years—must be more ambitious, communicating the country’s efforts to achieve the Paris Agreement goal to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

The conservation, restoration, and sustainable management of “blue carbon” coastal wetland ecosystems (mangroves, seagrasses, and salt marshes) are nature-based solutions to climate change, which can provide critical climate adaptation and mitigation benefits. These ecosystems stabilize sediments, reduce coastal erosion, and sequester and store carbon, and they also support coastal livelihoods by providing nursery and spawning habitats for fish.

Costa Rica’s revised NDC, recently submitted to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), builds upon the bold and ambitious coastal wetland conservation targets that the country included in its 2020 NDC. Since 2020, Costa Rica has increased institutional coordination to facilitate the achievement of these goals and began efforts to develop new conservation finance strategies. These efforts include the launch and implementation of the country’s landmark National Blue Carbon Strategy and Action Plan, and the ongoing development of a marine payment for ecosystem services program.

In its NDC 3.0, submitted to the UNFCCC in November Costa Rica committed to:

• Develop a baseline inventory of the amount and condition of blue carbon coastal wetland ecosystems in the country by 2030 and classify wetland ecosystems with carbon storage potential.
• Restore 2,000 hectares (4,900 acres) of mangroves by 2030 and an additional 1,900 hectares (4,700 acres) by 2035, for a total of 3,900 hectares (9,600 acres) of mangroves undergoing restoration in the next 10 years, drawing down measurable amounts of carbon.
• Establish a sustainable and permanent financing mechanism for the conservation and restoration of blue carbon ecosystems by 2035.
• Integrate measurement, reporting, and verification systems for blue carbon within its national greenhouse gas inventory.

“Costa Rica’s 2020 NDC included some of the boldest commitments to coastal wetlands of any NDC at the time. The 2025 revision, benefiting from five years of extensive implementation experience, continues that trend—further scaling the country’s ambitions to conserve and restore these incredible ecosystems,” said Tom Hickey, project director of Pew’s advancing coastal wetlands conservation project. “Pew is proud to have worked through a range of partnerships to support some of the research, financial, and technical capacities needed to make that happen.”

The new NDC was also applauded by Pew’s NGO and governmental partners in Costa Rica:

“Costa Rica is proud to have advanced the conservation of coastal wetland ecosystems through the NDC. As a country, we are committed to strengthening our institutional capacity and policy frameworks to ensure that our coastal wetlands, like mangroves, are protected and restored to strengthen the resilience of our local communities.”

—Rotney Piedra Chacón, director, national wetlands program, Costa Rica’s Ministry of Environment and Energy

“Costa Rica, in its newly launched 2025-35 NDC, again demonstrates the country’s commitment to include key goals to conserve the important benefits the ocean and wetlands provide to our biodiversity, coastal communities’ livelihoods, and climate resilience.” 

—Ana Gloria Guzmán Mora, executive director, Costa Rica program, Conservation International