Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The World Cup, disputed territory and green energy are three of the things that increasingly make the world go round, and they are coming together in Morocco. Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner is even in the background of it all.
Morocco’s Atalayer reports that Rabat will attempt to double sustainable energy generation in the Sahara by 2030.
What is so special about 2030? It is the soccer World Cup centenary, a World Cup for the ages. The first World Cup was held in Uruguay in 1930.
Spain, Portugal and Morocco jointly submitted the successful bid as hosts that year, with each country providing 6 or 7 stadiums. For Morocco, this success boosts its prestige in the Arab world and Africa. Countries fight tooth and nail over this honor. Qatar’s successful bid for the 2022 World Cup was one of the reasons Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates imposed an economic boycott on it 2017-2020. They were that jealous.
So Morocco wants literally to shine in 2030, by showing off its impressive progress toward greening its grid.
Morocco gets 44% of its electricity from renewables, up from 37% only 3 years ago. It has about 4.6 gigawatts of green energy.
About 1.3 GW of Morocco’s wind and solar plants are sited in the Western Sahara, a region Morocco absorbed in 1975-1979 when Spanish colonialism there ended. Some of the Amazigh tribes there had long ties with the Moroccan monarchy before the 1884 Spanish conquest. Some of the 600,000 people in Western Sahara, however, weren’t happy to become part of Morocco, and the POLISARIO party has long led a movement for independence.
But Morocco is a country of 38 million people, and its military is the 5th most powerful in Africa. So it has gradually made its claims stick, de facto. Moreover, most economists don’t consider the Western Sahara to have the makings of a viable independent country. What is important is that they have a democratic say in their own affairs.
Plus the Trump family helped the Moroccan government in this endeavor.
The Trump family?
Yes, Kushner persuaded Morocco to join the Abraham Accords recognizing Israel. In return, the United States recognized the Moroccan claim on the Western Sahara.
And now that it was the U.S. position, French President Emmanuel Macron swung around and also recognized the territory as Moroccan.
Billionaire Moroccan Prime Minister Aziz Akhannouch intends to install another 1.4 gigawatts of wind and solar capacity into the Sahara. Integrating the territory into the country’s green energy grid is one of the ways Rabat is weaving it into the fabric of the country’s economy.
Akhannouch will put $2.1 billion into these projects, and they will generate green energy jobs for the local population.
The entire episode demonstrates the ways in which renewable energy is increasingly intertwined with nation-building projects, with all their virtues and vices.
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Bonus video added by Informed Comment:
The World’s Largest Concentrated Solar Power Plant | A Brief History of the Future | PBS
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