Costa Rica’s president is on an inaugural state visit to the UAE in an effort to deepen ties ­between the two countries, as the Central American republic faces threats from climate change and what could be a new anti-trade administration in the United States.

Luis Guillermo Solis, who was a keynote speaker at the opening of the World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi yesterday, says that despite his country’s leading position in renewable energy, the changing climate has put that at risk.

Costa Rica, a rainforest country, generates 75 per cent of its electricity from hydro sources and has in recent years generated 100 per cent of its electricity from renewable sources for extended periods.

But after three consecutive years of drought the country has had to rely on imported fossil fuels to generate up to 10 per cent of its electricity. The hydroelectric infrastructure it has developed since the 1960s “is a tremendous advantage but that is hampering us at times of climate change because of water availability”, said Mr Solis.

“We are trying to diversify the renewable energy matrix and put more geothermal, wind, solar and biomass into it so that if at a point in the future we lose more water we can be more significantly diversified.”

He and his Costa Rican delegation have been presenting to UAE investors potential renewables projects and other schemes.

“In the next few years we have to build an airport, which is probably US$2.5 billion, a dry canal between the Caribbean and the Pacific that can be as much as $5bn … We have different ports that need to be developed, so it is significant. Plus all the other smaller investments.

“The big challenge we have is reducing the car fleet, which is the biggest source of carbon emissions … So unless we can reduce that all the efforts we are making on renewables is going to be limited,” he said.

Mr Solis also aims to increase trade between the countries, which remains fairly small but has grown at a rate of 25 per cent a year for the past two years, based on a range of products including coffee, fruit and vegetables, sweeteners and medical devices from Costa Rica, with mostly aluminium headed in the other direction.

Mr Solis said that countries like Costa Rica are looking to div­ersify trading partners as they are especially vulnerable to the potential for trade restriction.

“Costa Rica and many countries in Latin America have been involved in free trade agreements for more than 15 years now and changing that would have tremendous impacts on our economies,” he said. “Things like blowing up the World Trade Organization or putting an end to some of the understandings [in the North American Free Trade Agreement], could force investments to not to come to Costa Rica.”

He said: “We’ll have to see what the new administration does specifically, b ut so far what we’re hearing are things could signify trouble in the future.”​

amcauley@thenational.ae

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