Breaking Free from Fossil Fuels

January 20, 2026

The episode explores the global push to move beyond fossil fuels amid climate urgency, geopolitical tensions, and energy security shocks. It highlights how the energy transition is advancing unevenly, with advanced economies decarbonizing faster than many Global South countries constrained by financing and development needs. Renewables, green hydrogen, electrification, and efficiency emerge as key pillars of this shift. Ultimately, the transition is framed as a geopolitical, industrial, and social transformation reshaping global competitiveness and North–South power relations.

Speakers
Ahmed Ouhnini
Economist, Policy Center for the New South
Ahmed Ouhnini is an Economist at the Policy Center for the New South. His research area covers agricultural economics, human and social development. Previously, he has worked as a researcher at the Paris School of Economics (PSE) and has also a record of working in consulting services in Morocco. Ahmed holds an engineering Diploma in Agriculture and Rural Development from the National School of Agriculture of Meknes and a Master’s Degree in Law, Economics and Management from the Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne Institute of Development. ...

RELATED CONTENT

  • Authors
    December 7, 2020
    The pandemic is accelerating history, in the sense that it is leading to the speeding up of some recent trends. In the case of globalization, the pandemic will not reverse it, but it will reshape it. Here we take a bird’s eye view of global trade during the pandemic, relate it to previous trends, and guess how global value chain managers and government trade policymakers are likely to react. A Bird’s Eye View of Global Trade during the Pandemic World trade took a deep dive during ...
  • Authors
    February 17, 2020
    - There are three possible justifications for central banks to engage with climate change issues: financial risks, macroeconomic impacts, and mitigation/adaptation policies. - Regardless of the extent to which individual central banks take action in each of the three areas, they can no longer ignore climate change. Last year, extreme weather events associated with climate change – floods, violent storms, droughts, and forest fires –occurred on all inhabited continents. In at least ...
  • Authors
    Tharcisse Guedegbe
    September 27, 2019
    This paper is about the basic principles which should guide fertilizer policy for smallholder agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa It is not about detailed country-specific prescriptions on the “how” of policy. This important task should constitute the substance of detailed country studies. The overarching goal here is to use fertilizer to spearhead and sustain an African Green Revolution (GR). In this paper, fertilizer use is not considered as an end in itself, but as a necessary mean ...
  • Authors
    August 23, 2019
    “O! WRETCHED MORTALS, OPEN YOUR EYES” Leonardo da Vinci, creator of the ever beautiful and impenetrable Mona Lisa, noted 500 years ago that he realized the importance of water, which is, the artist jotted in his notebooks , “the driving force of all nature”, the vetturale di natura, the vehicle of nature. Da Vinci was not only acclaimed by kings and wealthy nobility like the Florentine Medici’s for his paintings , but the genius, possibly one of the greatest minds and creativ ...
  • Authors
    August 16, 2019
    Earlier this month, the World Resources Institute based in Washington D.C. revealed that 17 countries, home to one-quarter of the world's population, are facing extremely high water stress. Below is an international press review of the global water crisis by Helmut Sorge, former Foreign editor, and Middle East expert for Germany's leading newsmagazine "Der Spiegel", and columnist at the Policy Center for the New South.    “A QUARTER OF T ...
  • Authors
    Under the direction of
    Philippe Chalmin
    April 9, 2019
    Commodity prices were once again marked by significant volatility in 2017 and 2018. While there are many economic factors to explain this, politics were also present—trade tensions between China and the United States and, more generally, a rise in uncertainties—weighing upon the global macroeconomic outlook and the ‘dynamism of the markets’. Africa, which has countries with strong growth rates, has, however, been able to show solid economic performance, and this trajectory is not li ...
  • Authors
    July 28, 2017
    Renewable energy technologies are projected to have substantial growth in the coming decades, especially given the environmental, social and economic drivers observed globally. The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region encloses abundant alternative energy sources such as solar, wind and hydropower. The concern is more whether the Arab region will be able to respond to and manage the growth opportunities in this emerging sector. This Policy Brief explores opportunities and chall ...
  • From

    22
    5:30 pm March 2022
    يخصص مركز السياسات من أجل الجنوب الجديد حلقة برنامجه الأسبوعي "حديث الثلاثاء" لمناقشة تأثر القطاع الفلاحي بالمغرب بالتغير المناخي ومدى تأثيره على النسيج الاجتماعي والاقتصادي، مع عفاف زرقيق، باحثة في الاقتصاد والطاقة، مركز السياسات من أجل الجنوب الجديد. شكَّل تغير المناخ على الدوام، إحدى الإكراهات الأساسية أمام تنمية القطاع الفلاحي بالمغرب. فسيناريوهات التغيرات المناخية تشير إلى أن مناخ المملكة سيصبح أكثر قحولة وذلك بسبب قلة التساقطات المطرية وارتفاع درجات الحرارة، إضافة الى الظواهر الطبيعية الأخرى الحادة والمتكررة. ما من شأنه أن يؤثر سلباً على الموارد المائية والتنوع البيولوجي وكذا المشهد الفلاحي. بعد أربعة عقود من اعتماده سياسة تشييد السدود لضمان الأمن المائي، بدأ المغرب خلال الأعوام الأخيرة في تنويع برامجه للحد من أزمة ندرة المياه، وإصدار قوانين تضمن الحق في الماء لجميع ال ...
  • يخصص مركز السياسات من أجل الجنوب الجديد حلقة برنامجه الأسبوعي "حديث الثلاثاء" لتقديم التقرير السنوي لتحليل ديناميات السلع في إفريقيا مع بدر منظري، باحث في الاقتصاد، مركز السياسات من أجل الجنوب الجديد. بتعاون بين مركز السياسات من أجل الجنوب الجديد ومركز سيكلوب، تم إصدار النسخة الرابعة من...