After speaking out against Costa Rica’s plans to build an oil refinery with a loan from the Chinese government, Monica Araya was dismissed from her country’s delegation team at UN climate talks in Bonn.
As a country with ambitious carbon-neutral plans and sustainable development, plans for an oil refinery in Costa Rica seem pretty incongruous with its history. Although it wouldn’t significantly increase emissions, it would, according to Araya, mean ‘the next step is exploration’ and lock the country into further high carbon investment.
Now Araya plans to show how the $1.3 billion dollar loan could be used to support the low carbon economy instead, which would ‘be good for Costa Rica, China and the environment’ as well as being ‘consistent with Costa Rica’s 20 years of environmental commitments’.
Further details on this story can be found at RTCC and Climate Wire.
Sign the Avaaz petition against the oil refinery here.
