The partnership between Morocco and the UK on the global climate crisis is leading to “real world change,” British Ambassador to Morocco Simon Martin declared today.
“We are proud, as COP26 President and as [a] close partner, to be working together with Morocco to deliver real world change,” he said.
The British Embassy in Morocco communicated the ambassador’s declaration in a press release shared one year before the UK will host the 2021 UN Climate Change Conference (COP26). The UK is set to host the event in November 2021 in Glasgow, Scotland.
Martin gave a positive review of Morocco’s efforts to transition towards cleaner energy and help combat climate change.
“I was in Ouarzazate [southern Morocco] recently where both the challenges of water scarcity and Morocco’s success in expanding clean energy are evident,” the ambassador said.
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He then presented some of the projects that the UK supports in the framework of bilateral and multilateral agreements.
“UK support … is helping address these challenges, for example reducing the vulnerability of mountain communities to climate change, supporting water resource management in the Souss-Massa basin, and supporting the [National Institute for Agronomic Research] INRA and the [Adaptation of African Agriculture initiative] AAAi in adapting agriculture,” Martin added.
The UK supports the International Fund for Agricultural Development’s (IFAD) “Rural Development Programme in the Mountain Zones,” which covers several villages in Morocco’s Atlas Mountains.
Britain also directly funds and offers technical assistance to several agricultural projects in Morocco.
With both countries considered leaders in the fight against climate change in their respective regions, Martin expressed the UK’s enthusiasm to cooperate with Morocco before, during, and after COP26.
“We would develop a strategic framework for UK-Morocco cooperation on climate change, green recovery, and clean energy, and I look forward to our joint work ahead of and beyond COP26,” he concluded.
