Costa Rica presents climate change action plan

Serving as president of the Climate Vulnerable Forum (CVF), Costa Rica’s Environment Minister René Castro presented a climate change action plan Tuesday at the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Warsaw, Poland.

The action plan is an international joint plan designed to combat the effects of climate change in the financial, health, human rights, labor, migration and science sectors. 

The report focused heavily on the financial effects of climate change, calling the phenomenon “the most significant single macro-economic concern we face.” A recent study found that Costa Rica was hit with $1.13 billion in climate change related damages between 2005 and 2011.

To handle this financial burden, Castro unveiled a new organization, the Group of 20 Finance Ministers of Vulnerable Countries, or V20. The V20 will focus on opening dialogue related to financial concerns for climate change and enable countries to pool financial resources to combat crises. The V20 will officially launch during the World Bank and International Monetary Fund’s spring meetings in April 2014.

Costa Rica is among 19 other countries to have adopted the CVF charter. The others are Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Barbados, Bhutan, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Kiribati, Madagascar, Maldives, Nepal, Philippines, Rwanda, Saint Lucia, Tanzania, Timor-Leste, Tuvalu, Vanuatu and Vietnam.