Socioeconomic scenarios for assessing the impacts of climate change (baseline and projection) in Costa Rica

The objective of this project was to develop a range of plausible socio-economic futures for Costa Rica that were coherent with the latest and widely applied climate change community scenario framework of Shared Socio-economic Pathways, and that could be used to determine the vulnerability and future risk of the cantons of Costa Rica to climate-related impacts. The scenarios were described in a narrative way and be accompanied by variables and indicators that can be disaggregated on a cantonal scale.

Metroeconomica carried out tasks such as reviewing the literature and conducting interviews with experts to learn about previous advances made in the country and the experiences of other countries in the generation of scenarios and socio-economic projections for climate-related impact risk analysis, as well as consulting with the team currently leading the development of the climate-related impact risk analysis at the cantonal level, in order to share the proposed methodology and learn about their requirements and needs for socio-economic information to determine the vulnerability and future risk of each canton.

Another task carried out by the consultant was to generate a preliminary proposal for socio-economic indicators with variables and parameters that can meet the identified needs, including the sources of information for each indicator, the use of gender-disaggregated data, the attributes of the projections (their temporal and spatial dimension) and their potential limitations. It also made a preliminary proposal of the socio-economic variables of the Costa Rican context to be used in the construction of the change factors for the future socio-economic scenarios.

Once the preliminary proposals were validated with the technical team coordinating this consultancy, data were collected and proposals for scenarios and projections were generated, as well as a final report that included a detailed description of the range of plausible socio-economic scenarios for Costa Rica for two time periods: 2020-2039 and 2040-2069. For the development of these scenarios, they considered previous advances that had been made in the country in terms of modelling. Each scenario should include a detailed narrative description, as well as variables and indicators (baseline and projection).

Finally, Metroeconomica provided technical advice to MINAE on technical options and possible methods for integrating socio-economic scenarios and projections with the future climate scenarios generated by the RMI and developed a guide for the appropriate use of projections and scenarios during the preparation of future climate risk analyses or other models. At a minimum, this guidance included indications for the use of the information, limitations of the information, the databases generated, and recommendations for the analysis of the results, among others.