The North Africa Post
Africa has featured prominently in Morocco’s climate action. The recent remarks delivered by state secretary for sustainable development, Nezha El Ouafi, at the UN Climate Summit (COP23) in Bonn have yet affirmed that the continent remains at the heart of Morocco’s climate concerns.
El Ouafi said that Morocco is building on the conclusions and recommendations of COP22, which was held in Marrakech in November 2016 and during which three commissions were set up under the effective chairmanship of King Mohammed VI, revolving around the Sahel, the Congo Basin, and the Island States regions.
She said that Morocco’s priority is to gather support for least developed countries through advocating a speed up in delivering on the Paris Agreement notably in areas relating to fund-raising and capacity-building.
According to current estimates, the negative effects of climate change are already reducing Africa’s GDP by about 1.4 per cent, and the costs arising from adaptation to climate change are set to reach an annual three per cent of GDP by 2030.
Steadfast Commitment for Climate Action in Africa
Climate is a key constituent of Morocco’s action in Africa. During the COP22 several initiatives took shape in favor of supporting climate adaptation and mitigation efforts in the continent.
Since Agriculture is the main victim of climate change in the continent, Morocco has launched the Adaptation of African Agriculture (AAA) initiative, which seeks to restore African ecosystem balance and enable countries of the continent to have access to climate funds.
This initiative focuses on strengthening the financing capacities of African farmers, via the micro-credit generalization to small farmers, meso-credit development to medium-sized farms and mobile banking solutions deployment.
In the same vein, Morocco and the World Bank agreed at the financial summit of COP22 to launch the “Green Growth Infrastructure Facility for Africa” tasked to spur green economy on the African continent and pull together environment-friendly private and public investments.
On the sidelines of COP22, Morocco hosted the Africa Action Summit. The event, first of its kind, was marked by a landmark speech of King Mohammed VI who stressed that Morocco makes its expertise in renewable energies available to its African partners.
The Africa Action Summit adopted a final statement laying out a forward-looking vision for a common African action to tackle climate change, highlighting that Africa is disproportionately affected by global warming and reaffirming urgent need to make climate action a lever of emergence in order to build an inclusive, sustainable development mode.
Championing Green Revolution in Africa
By giving example through increasing the share of renewable electricity generation to 52% by 2030, Morocco is reinforcing its continental climate leadership.
King Mohammed VI has earlier this month reiterated commitment to Africa through calling for a “Green Revolution” in the continent. The call was made in a speech at the 10th “World Policy Conference”
This “Green Revolution” should be based on a large-scale overhaul of technology and production methods suited to the African context and consistent with the requirements of climate change, the King underscored.
Climate remains a landmark feature of Morocco’s commitment to Africa in line with a south-south cooperation approach that focuses on pooling efforts to address common challenges. In fact, countering climate change is a means to safeguard the future of young generations, curb calamities such as migration and displacement and promote agriculture.
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