When Costa Rica’s current government took office last May, Carlos Manuel Rodríguez came back to the Ministry of Environment and Energy (Minae) over a decade since leaving it. Having led the agency during 2002-06, he is doing a second hitch as minister—this time under President Carlos Alvarado, who has embraced Costa Rica goal of carbon neutrality. (See Centerpiece — this issue.) At his inauguration, Alvarado called decarbonization “the great task of our generation,” and said Costa Rica should be “one of the first, if not the first, to achieve it.” Guided by Rodríguez, his government is preparing a broad decarbonization plan. Rodríguez, an attorney with a master’s in environmental law from Southern Methodist University in the United States, has ample experience to tap. Aside from earlier service as minister, his past work includes stints as director of Costa Rica’s National Parks Service during 1995-98 and vice president for conservation policy for the U.S.-based green group Conservation International during 2006-18. Rodríguez spoke with EcoAméricas correspondent Daniel Gutman in October. [Log in to read more]

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