Eduardo González
The former president of Costa Rica Carlos Alvarado discussed yesterday in Madrid with the president of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, the fight against climate change, financing for developing countries and the main challenges to those that democracy faces.
“I have met with the former president of Costa Rica Carlos Alvarado,” declared Pedro Sánchez through the social network X after receiving Alvarado at the La Moncloa Complex. “We both agree on the importance of placing the fight against the climate emergency at the center of public policies, one of the priorities for Spain,” continued the head of the Executive. “It is also necessary to move towards an inclusive international financing system that allows us to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals effectively,” he added.
Carlos Alvarado (president between 2018 and 2022) traveled to Spain as a member of the Club de Madrid, a non-partisan and international organization made up of more than one hundred democratically elected former presidents and former prime ministers (including former presidents of the Government Spanish Felipe González, José María Aznar, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero and Mariano Rajoy).
As reported by the Club de Madrid itself through the same social network, Alvarado and Sánchez discussed “the main challenges facing democracy” and updated each other “on the main initiatives and projects of the Club of Madrid to explore possibilities of cooperation.” Likewise, the former Costa Rican president explained to the President of the Government the ‘Leadership for Net Zero’ report, which the Club of Madrid has just published with the aim of generating an international and multidisciplinary debate that highlights the role of leadership in the fight against climate change, and both shared, in this regard, their “concern about climate change and all its effects.”
Later, José Manuel Albares reported, through the same social network, that during his meeting with Alvarado he had talked “about the challenges of the international community, the need for financing for developing countries and the possibilities of the Club de Madrid”.
Carlos Alvarado will participate today in a conversation at the private university IE School of Politics, Economics & Global Affairs, in Madrid, in which he will talk about his experience in the Government of his country, especially in relation to decarbonization. According to the Club de Madrid, during his presidency of Costa Rica, Alvarado “contributed to global efforts to combat climate change and defended human rights, democracy and multilateralism.”
In February 2019, President Alvarado launched Costa Rica’s National Decarbonization Plan, the first of its kind since the 2015 Paris Agreement, which established the roadmap to decarbonize the country’s economy by 2050. Additionally, his Government participated in the organization of the period prior to the UN Conference on Climate Change (COP25) in Madrid.
