Podcasts

Back

Renewable Energies and Mediterranean Energy Cooperation

10
March 2015
Luigi Carafa

This podcast is performed by Luigi Carafa. This tele-briefing will focus on renewable energy cooperation in the Mediterranean, pointing out some lessons learned in the last five years as well as the challenges ahead at national and regional level.
In this Virtual Brief, Luigi Carafa discussed policy, market, and governance pertaining to the Renewable Energy industry in the MENA region. The main points of his presentation are the following:

- Energy demand has been growing steadily in the Middle East-about 70% increase;
- The Energy demand CHALLENGES cannot be faced alone;
* Reduction of power losses
* Financial challenges
* Very high upfront costs/substantial initial investment
* Challenges call for regional and international cooperation;
* Policy and politics dichotomy creates a governance gap that should be overcome for the renewable energy industry to flourish;
* Policy refers to national planning-Investment in renewable requires suitable policy
* Access to cooperation refers to politics
- The way to overcome the policy and politics dichotomy is cooperation;
- Cooperation structures include;
* Cooperation over technical aspect, that should happen in such structures as the neighborhood policy between Europe and North Africa, as well as through South-South cooperation
* Industrial cooperation that would serve the purpose of changing business strategies and proposed business models, eventually leading to diversification of strategies
* Political cooperation in order to leverage into financial assistance
- Idea between renewable energy politics:
* Trade electricity from Morocco to other regions
* Have Spain be fully connected to the European continent, as it is now isolated
* Experiment with electricity transfers from Morocco to Spain
- Political will needs to be transformed into concrete results, and this happens through policy on the one hand, with sound public policy and a creation of the right conditions to enable that, and politics on the other, focused on creating several levels of cooperation around the betterment of the renewable energy sector.

RELATED CONTENT

  • Download PDF
    Morocco’s Decarbonization Pathway Part I: Introduction to a Joint Study
    Authors
    Rim Berahab
    Chami Abdelilah
    Derj Atar
    Hammi Ibtissem
    Morazzo Mariano
    Naciri Yassine
    Afaf Zarkik
    with the technical support of AFRY
    June 28, 2021
    During the 2015 Paris Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), governments pledged to limit the global temperature increase to well below 2°C above pre- industrial levels, to peak emissions as soon as possible, and to achieve carbon neutrality in the second half of the century. Yet, even assuming full implementation of the commitments made by governments in Paris, the global concentration of greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions will ...
  • Investment in Green Infrastructure: Paving the Way to the Private Sector
    June 16, 2021
    It is now an established fact that investment in infrastructure is considered as a driver for economic growth. It acts through different channels. In the short run, the construction phase of any projects often implies the direct creation of new jobs and an indirect creation of on periph...
  • The Role of Eco-Industrial Parks in Environmentally-Responsible Economic Growth
    Authors
    Nadia Makara
    June 3, 2021
    In an effort to spur economic growth, industrial parks were created to combine industrial activities with infrastructure, service, and commercial activities. These parks involve a collection of businesses, utilizing a combination of heavy and light manufacturing, that are located in a dedicated zone for industrial use to boost efficiency, minimize operational costs, and maximize output. Though industrial parks can contribute to economic growth and social development in a region, the ...
  • Download PDF
    The Nigerian Energy Crisis: What Prospects for Green Recovery and Transatlantic Integration?
    Authors
    Rim Berahab
    April 27, 2021
    With a population of approximately 200 million, Nigeria accounts for about half of West Africa's population and has one of the largest concentrations of young people in the world. Endowed with abundant natural resources, Nigeria is one of Africa's largest oil exporters, with an estimated 37 billion barrels of proven crude oil reserves, the majority of which are found in the Niger River Delta and offshore in the Bight of Benin, the Gulf of Guinea and the Bight of Bonny. Nigeria also ...
  • Water scarcity: Same challenge, different answers
    April 12, 2021
    Water resources have become increasingly scarce in several regions of the world, particularly in arid and semi-arid zones. Countries located in these regions are constrained by water scarcity due to their hydro-climatic characteristics and intra- and interannual rainfall fluctuations. I...
  • Un chemin semé d'embûches pour éliminer les subventions des carburants au Nigeria
    Authors
    Rim Berahab
    Rim Berahab
    March 31, 2021
    Depuis la découverte des ressources pétrolières du Nigeria en 1956, le secteur pétrolier a progressivement revêtu une importance considérable, jusqu'à devenir le principal moteur de l'économie du pays : le pétrole brut est le premier poste d'exportations (figure 1) ainsi que le principal pourvoyeur en réserves de devises et de recettes fiscales pour le gouvernement fédéral nigérian (figure 2). Cependant, malgré son importance, le secteur pétrolier n'a pas élargi la base productive d ...
  • Covid-19 et énergie: quels impacts ?
    Francis Perrin, Afaf Zarkik
    March 26, 2021
    Il y a un peu moins d'un an, durant la nuit du 20 au 21 avril 2020, le prix du WTI s’est effondré, atteignant les moins 37 dollars. Le 16 février 2021, le WTI franchit le seuil des 60 $, ...