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
    Avons-nous peur pour notre environnement, notre écologie et notre biodiversité ?
    Authors
    Hynd Bouhia
    February 18, 2020
    On se pose plusieurs questions sur le futur de notre environnement, notre écologie et notre biodiversité. On doit tirer la sonnette d’alarme pour protéger le Maroc et la planète pour les générations futures. L’objectif de ce Papier est de mettre en avant l’importance des initiatives qui ont été déjà lancées par le gouvernement, le secteur privé et la société civile, en vue d’assurer l’adaptation et la mitigation aux changements climatiques. Le Maroc est précurseur dans cette lancée, ...
  • Download PDF
    Should we be concerned for our environment, ecology and biodiversity?
    Authors
    Hynd Bouhia
    February 18, 2020
    The future of our environment, ecology and biodiversity raises a number of questions. Vigilance is critical to preseving both Morocco and the planet for future generations. This Paper highlights the importance of ongoing government, private sector and civil society initiatives to ensure adaptation to, and mitigation of, climate change. Morocco is at the forefront of this momentum, as illustrated by the organization of the COP22 in Marrakech in 2016, the implementation of a National ...
  • Climate Change: Three Reasons for Central Banks to Engage
    Authors
    Otaviano Canuto
    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 ...
  • The Evidence is Indisputable: An Opinion on Internet’s Energy Footprint
    Authors
    Helmut Sorge
    February 5, 2020
    I am pleading guilty. The evidence is indisputable, and denial a waste of time. I am using a weapon of mass destruction and threatening the future of our planet. I am killing life, a premeditated act. I   just have one excuse and four billion accomplices. I am an addict - a   polluter.  I use the internet. Our world is facing nuclear wars and climate change, the destruction of nature, the end of our civilization. Venice may sink, the rain forest of the Amazon turning into desert, t ...
  • Download PDF
    L’énergie solaire en Inde : priorité au photovoltaïque
    Authors
    Henri-Louis Vedie
    December 17, 2019
    L’Inde est confrontée, aujourd’hui, à plusieurs défis énergétiques : - Assurer la sécurité énergétique du pays, en généralisant l’accès pour tous à l’électricité. Ce qui n’est pas le cas en 2019. - Le faire en réduisant sa dépendance aux énergies fossiles, afin de mieux répondre aux orientations des Conférences des parties, COP 21 et COP 22. Pour cela, les autorités gouvernementales vont mener, dès 1981, une réflexion sur les énergies renouvelables, les conduisant à privilégier l ...
  • Download PDF
    Thinking outside the Grid: The role of decentralized power systems in electrifying Sub Saharan Africa
    Authors
    Rim Berahab
    November 15, 2019
    Meeting the energy needs of the developing world remains a critical development priority. Access to energy has been identified as correlating with economic growth as well as having positive impacts on education and health1. In sub-Saharan Africa, access to electricity has increased significantly since the 2000s, driven by the considerable efforts of countries such as Côte d'Ivoire, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya and Tanzania. But, despite this positive turnaround, nearly 600 million people ...
  • China’s Belt and Road Initiative: How has China’s energy security changed over the past decade?
    Authors
    Mehmet Öğütçü
    October 21, 2019
    Decades of rapid economic growth have dramatically expanded China’s energy needs. The magnitudes are impressive. China is now the world’s largest consumer of energy, the largest producer and consumer of coal, and the largest emitter of carbon dioxide. It is increasingly looking toward securing its future energy needs with sustainable alternatives. China has also become the world’s largest producer, exporter and installer of solar panels, wind turbines, batteries, electric vehicles, ...
  • Download PDF
    From Asian Green Revolution 1.0 to Sustainable Green Revolution 2.0
    Authors
    Isabelle Tsakok
    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 ...
  • Le modèle marocain de l’énergie solaire pourrait profiter à d’autres pays africains
    Authors
    Helmut Sorge
    Rim Berahab
    September 26, 2019
    Interviewée par Helmut Sorge, chroniqueur au PCNS, Rim Berahab, économiste spécialiste de l’énergie décortique dans son papier, les liens existant entre les énergies renouvelables en Afrique et les opportunités de croissance économique. “ Le modèle marocain de l’énergie solaire pourrait profiter à d’autres pays africains” Dans votre Policy Paper intitulé « Energies renouvelables en Afrique : Enjeux, défis et opportunités » vous expliquez l'importance de ces énergies et vous précis ...
  • Download PDF
    Solar smart grid as a path to economic inclusion and adaptation to climate change in the Brazilian Semiarid Northeast
    Authors
    Paulo Nobre
    Enio Bueno Pereira
    Francinete Francis Lacerda
    Marcel Bursztyn
    Eduardo Amaral Haddad
    Debora Ley
    August 12, 2019
    Purpose This study aims to exploit the abundance of solar energy resources for socioeconomic development in the semi -arid Northeastern Brazil as a potent adaptation tool to global climate change. It points out a set of conjuncture factors that allow us to foresee a new paradigm of sustainable development for the region by transforming the sun’s radiant energy into electricity through distributed photovoltaic generation. The new paradigm, as presented in this essay, has the transfo ...