At what point it became Morocco’s leading the fight against climate change? – CNNEspañol.com

Marrakech (CNN) - The renewable energy is taking off in Morocco.

In 2014, the country opened the biggest wind plant in Africa, valued at 1,400 million dollars, located in the city of Tarfaya in the southwest of the country.

In February of 2016, started the first complex of the power plant solar thermal largest in the world, Noor-1, located at the gates of the Sahara desert. When the entire plant is operational, in 2018, will illuminate a million homes and will make of Morocco a superpower solar.

And although the country still depends heavily on imported energy (90% in 2013, according to the World Bank), plans that by 2020, 40% of its energy from renewable sources.

For all this, Morocco is now the home of the annual summit of climate change of the United Nations, the COP22, which takes place in Marrakech.

Reducing energy consumption

Morocco occupies the seventh place in the Global Index of Outcomes against the Climate Change, 2016, and is the only non-european country in the top 20.

in Addition, it is one of only five countries that have achieved a rating of "adequate" for their efforts to keep warming below 2°C in the so-called Climate Action Tracker.

This fact is not minor, because there is still no country has reached the qualification of "example to follow", so that the qualification "adequate" is by far the best possible.

At what point it became Morocco’s leading the fight against climate change? How was it possible?

"we Started with a question: how can we reduce our energy consumption?", she explains to CNN the director of the National Agency for the Development of Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency, Said Moulin.

"Morocco is a country highly dependent on energy. In 2009, the consumption amounted to 10,000 million dollars."

that’s why, in 2011, Morocco amended its Constitution to include the sustainable development, stopped subsidizing fossil fuels to make them more competitive sources of renewable energy and opened the doors to private investment related to clean energy.

efficiency is The key

"The transition has two paths and that of renewable energies is one of them. The other is the energy efficiency. The two should be developed at the time," says Moulin.

A key action is to reduce the waste: the state energy company, ONEE, started a program to replace old incandescent bulbs in the homes of Morocco’s 10 million compact fluorescent lamps (CFL, for its acronym in English), which are much more efficient.

to compensate For the initial cost -the CFL’s are worth six times more than the bulbs traditional – the company allows users to pay in instalments through the bill that, by itself, already comes cheaper by the efficiency in energy expenditure.

The United Nations Program for the Environment estimates that only make that change in the 40% of households, the energy consumption would fall by 20%, which in turn would reduce at 2.74 million tonnes of CO2 emissions for the year 2021, as what would be created with the consumption of 308 million gallons of fuel, according to the calculator green of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA, for its acronym in English).

As part of its efforts to build a greener future, Morocco also began to make the transition to renewable energy from its 15,000 mosques, and in July banned the production, sale and use of plastic bags, which used 3,000 million each year.

A great boost for the economy

Moulin, who is also a member of the Steering Committee of the COP22, ensures that the energy efficiency is the cheapest way for the countries to comply with the goals laid out in the historic Paris agreement, which was signed last year.

"The Government has mapped out several ambitious goals. 52% of our energy capacity must come from renewable sources by 2030 and at the same time we have to improve by 20% the energy efficiency of all sectors: transport, housing, agriculture. That means that if our consumption of energy is doubled by 2030, we want to consume 20% less than that. We want to stop waste and wasting energy," he says.

And Morocco could work only with clean energy (or green, as it is said) by the year 2050, according to a study by the University of Stanford, conducted in 139 countries.

That represents about 3,500 millions of dollars to the economy of the country and allow the creation of about 88,000 permanent jobs, according to the study.

An example for Africa

In one of the events on solar energy in Africa carried out in the COP22, the efforts of Morocco were put as an example of how the continent sub-saharan africa can capitalize on the fact of being one of the areas with the highest solar radiation in the world, even if the solar power only accounts for 0.5% of the total energy production in that area.

The event also highlighted the efforts of the World Bank and the International finance Corporation to invest $ 1,600 million in solar energy projects, hydro, and geothermal across the continent.

According to Moulin, the transition will be inevitable: "We are changing, all over the world. Last year, for the first time more money was invested in clean energy than in fossil fuels. Look how many jobs, energy storage, and electric mobility has been created".

The wind plant of Morocco, in Tarfaya, which produces 850MW, has also created a new industry in the country, given that 70% of parts of the turbines are manufactured there with local labor.

"electricity is only a part of a grand strategy".

water Security

Given that 78% of Morocco belongs to desert or dry areas, in accordance with the United Nations Organization for Food and Agriculture (FAO), the country faces special challenges in its fight against climate change.

"At the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, in 1992, Morocco was one of the first countries to ratify the agreement on biodiversity, desertification and climate change", says Abdelâdim Lhafi, High Commissioner for Water, Forests and combating Desertification of Morocco.

"Long before 1992, starting in the 60s, there were strong public policies on water and Morocco now has about 140 dams, with a storage capacity of 18,000 million cubic meters, something crucial for a country that is being hit by extreme droughts".

Due to the increase in demand, demographic changes and tourism, some areas of the country now faced a shortage of water. "But we’ve made a lot of progress in the use of water, especially in agriculture, which absorbs about 85% of the offer. That is why we are looking to new technologies to the 1.2 million irrigated hectares that we have, to preserve food security," says Lhafi.

"We’ve done a lot, but we still have much to do in the years to come."