Morocco’s environment-friendly efforts are catching the eyes of the international community, winning the country a spot among the world’s best performing nations on climate change.
Rabat – Morocco is among the countries that have made significant progress in limiting the effects of global warming, according to the Climate Action Tracker (CAT).
CAT listed Morocco as having invested “impressive” efforts to curb the damaging effects of climate change.
The Institute of Climate Analysis, Ecofys Consultancy, and NewClimate Institute issued the CAT’s Warming Projections Global Update for December 2018 at the 24th World Climate Conference (COP24) in Katowice, Poland.
“For this year’s update the CAT has examined how emissions projections have shifted since the Paris agreement,” a December 11 CAT statement read.
The Paris agreement set out a global action plan in 2015 to put the world on track to limit global warming to a maximum of 1.5 degrees Celsius by 2030.
The CAT analysis identified “real movement on the ground, with Argentina, Canada, Chile, Costa Rica, Ethiopia, the EU, India and Morocco taking significant steps in the right direction, and with other countries also taking action.”
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The analysis, which assessed 32 countries, gave Morocco a “clear progress” indicator, thanks to the country’s “impressive progress in recent years.”
Clear progress means, according to the analysis, a “clear decrease in projected 2030 emissions level due to actual policy development.”
“We are seeing a stirring of new climate policies in the real world: if this were extended and scaled up, these combined efforts could actually begin to bend the emissions curve,” said Yvonne Deng of Ecofys, a navigant company.
The analysis gave some countries, such as Australia, Brazil, Indonesia, Russia, the UAE, and the US, a “no progress indicator,” indicating that the countries are not on track for emission reduction.
The countries, according to the CAT, are delaying global progress and are “beginning to see the reality of climate change impacts.”
Countries like China, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, and Switzerland received a “minor progress” indicator of projected 2030 emissions levels since 2015.
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Morocco’s renewable projects limit global warming
Morocco also made great achievements in climate change performance and became the second-best performing country in the Climate Change Performance Index (CCPI) for the year 2019, behind Sweden.
Morocco ranks “high” in all CCPI categories, including greenhouse gas (GHG) emission, renewable energy, energy use, and climate policy.
The index, which evaluates and compares the climate protection performance of 56 countries and the EU, also looked at Morocco’s progress in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, energy use, and climate policies.
The index stated that Morocco’s renewable energy projects and goals, including the world’s largest solar plant, the “Noor Solar Project,” resulted in a high rating in the climate change ranking.
The Noor Solar Project consists of four solar plants: Noor I, Noor II, Noor III, and Noor IV.
The Noor I plant “is expected to offset 240,000 [tons] a year of CO2 emissions,” while “the Noor II and Noor III plants combined will help offset 533,000 [tons] of CO2 emissions a year,” according to Power Technology.
