The importance of facilitating renewable energy transition for abating CO2 emissions in Morocco

ABSTRACT: Achieving environmental sustainability has become a core policy agenda of the Moroccan government. The nation's monotonic dependence on fossil fuels for meeting the local energy demand has been acknowledged as the major cause of environmental distress. Besides, Morocco has traditionally been a major importer of fossil fuels whereby the nation's fossil fuel dependency could not be phased out to a large extent. Consequently, the greenhouse gas emission figures of Morocco have persistently surged over the years. Moreover, Morocco has large reserves of untapped renewable energy sources which can be employed for producing power without significantly degrading the environment. Against this backdrop, this study explores the renewable energy consumption-carbon dioxide emissions nexus, controlling for economic growth, financial development, and foreign direct investment inflows, in the context of Morocco over the period between 1980 and 2017. In addition, along with the direct impacts, the indirect environmental impacts associated with renewable energy consumption are also scrutinized in this study. The empirical strategy involves the application of econometric methods that are robust to handling structural break issues in the data. Overall, the results reveal that renewable energy consumption curbs carbon dioxide emissions both in the short and long run. In contrast, financial development and foreign direct investment inflows boost carbon dioxide emissions in Morocco. However, these adverse environmental impacts are partially neutralized by facilitating greater renewable energy use within Morocco. The results indicate that renewable energy consumption interacts with financial development and foreign direct investment inflows to jointly reduce the carbon dioxide emission figures of Morocco in the long run. Furthermore, the findings also validate the environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis in the long run only. In line with these key findings, it is recommended that the Moroccan government should adopt relevant policies that can help the nation overcome the existing barriers faced in transitioning from non-renewable to renewable energy use. Simultaneously, it is also necessary for Morocco to achieve environmentally sustainable economic growth by greening its financial sector and revisiting its financial globalization policies.