Young Moroccans commit to fighting climate change

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Written by northsouth

Category: Environment

Published: 22 January 2022

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RABAT - A new way to recycle large amounts of coffee grounds; a platform connecting young African activists; technology to produce electricity from ocean waves or recycle plastic. A new energy-efficient construction method - an innovative carpooling app.

Behind all these initiatives, are the young men and women featured in "From Milan to Glasgow: Moroccan Youth Leaders in the Spotlight", a new campaign launched by the United Nations team in Morocco to empower young people to take climate action and reduce the harmful carbon emissions that are dangerously heating the planet.

For the United Nations Resident Coordinator in Morocco, Sylvia Lopez-Ekra, the new campaign is a “bet on the importance of partnering with Moroccan youth invested in climate issues.”

Tipping the balance

One of the activists featured is Manal Bidar, an 18-year-old from the city of Agadir, who believes "it is young people who can tip the balance to the right side in the fight against climate change."

She first got involved in climate and environment action at 13, when she joined a group of friends from a local club, to clean a beach.

She is now an ambassador for the African Youth Climate Hub, a platform that brings together activists from the continent, and serves as an advisor to the Global Center on Adaptation (GCA), an international non-profit dedicated to promote climate-resilience around the world.

‘Fight of our lives’

Like Ms. Bidar, Hasnae Bakhchouch, a 22-year-old student from Rabat, is taking action to tackle the impact of climate change.

"With its adverse effects on biodiversity and the health of living beings, climate change jeopardizes societies and can cause conflicts over access to natural resources”, she says.

Ms. Bakhchouch was a National Coordinator of the Moroccan youth delegation to the UN Conference of Youth on Climate, held in September 2021 in Milan, Italy.

She explains that the goal was to draft recommendations for the 26th UN Climate Change conference (COP26), which was held in Glasgow, Scotland, a couple of months later.

The Conference closed with a “compromise” deal, which the UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, said was simply “not enough”.

At the time, the UN chief encouraged young people and everyone leading the charge, to keep fighting.

“We are in the fight of our lives, and this fight must be won”, he said.

From coffee to bricks

One day, while enjoying a cup of coffee, Hamza Laalej, a 23-year-old Moroccan student from Meknes, asked himself if there was a way to recycle the large amount of coffee grounds that end up in the garbage every day.

Months later, Mr. Laalej managed to turn his idea into a viable green business, where one of the main products is an eco-friendly brick made with a mix of coffee grounds and regular clay.

"Inspired by the Moroccan craft tradition, the production of these bricks relies on [using less] heating, thus helping to reduce greenhouse gas emissions", he explains.

Since then, he has teamed up with 23-year-old Moroccan, Nour El Houda Ben Khoudja, to launch a company that specializes in the collection, sorting, and transformation of coffee grounds into building materials and decoration products.

"You don't have to wait for the perfect time to start [a green business]. It's the obstacles you encounter along the way that make business creation an inspiring and fruitful adventure", he says.

Green entrepreneurs

A roundtable organized last November, during the launch of this UN campaign, saw other young people present their green start-up projects.

Oussama Nour and Mohamed Taha El Ouaryachi, for example, introduced WAVEBEAT, a company that aims to produce electricity from ocean waves.

The goal is to provide companies operating in the Moroccan port of Tangier Med, with a renewable alternative to meet their energy needs.

Younes Ouazri presented an ecological and energy-efficient construction method to build homes, including seasonal residences and tourism resorts, using locally sourced materials.

Hicham Zouaoui and Otman Harrak spoke about their carpooling app, that currently allows some 400,000 Moroccans to travel across the Kingdom, helping save on transportation costs and reducing CO2 emissions.

For his part, Seifeddin Laalej heads a start-up that specializes in recycling plastic waste to manufacture building materials, which he sells all over the country.

"It is important that young people believe in their potential and launch their own projects based on their skills and professional networks", he said.

A key player

According to the UN Resident Coordinator, "thanks to its climate policy for the past years, Morocco has become a key leader on initiatives for climate action.”

Through an ambitious greenhouse gas emissions reduction programme and strategies for the preservation of natural resources, Morocco intends to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 45.5 per cent by 2030 and achieve a 52 per cent share of renewable energy in its energy mix in the same year.

The country is currently one of the few nations with a nationally determined contribution (NDC) in line with the global target of 1.5°C.

World leaders pledge to power humanity with clean energy

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Written by northsouth

Category: Environment

Published: 25 September 2021

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NEW YORK - How can the world come together to radically change the way it produces and uses energy, as part of efforts to hold back climate change and to ultimately give humanity a more secure future on planet earth? That’s the question that over one hundred countries, organizations and businesses will be discussing at the United Nations on Friday at the High-level Dialogue on Energy, the first meeting of its kind in 40 years.

Several world leaders announced new energy commitments.

Denmark committed to reduce 70 per cent of CO2 emissions by 2030 (compared to 1990), and produce all of its electricity from renewable energy by 2028. Oil and gas extraction will end by 2050 and, by 2030, the country will spend at least $500 million on climate finance every year.

Malawi is targeting universal access to cleaner cooking for households and institutions, and plans to phase out open fires by 2030, with two million cleaner cookstoves reached by 2025, and an investment of more than $596 million.

In the private sector, energy company Enel said it would reach 5.6 million new electricity connections by 2030, speed up its coal phase-out to 2027, triple renewable energy generation to 145GW by 2030 and provide more than 4 million EV charging points and 10,000 electric buses by 2030.

There is more to come this morning, including a highly anticipated statement from John Kerry, Special Presidential Envoy for Climate for the United States, one of the world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitters.

The Indonesian government is putting some of these ideas into practice, and has begun bringing clean electricity to rural communities, thanks to a project backed by the UN. The programme involves the installation of off-grid solar- power plants, which will provide electricity for around 20,000 people in remote villages.

It’s being overseen by a group of Indonesians dubbed “energy patriots”, who have been tasked with boosting the use of clean energy resources, with the goal of improving access to healthcare, education, and economic development in rural villages.

Although the project is only meeting a fraction of Indonesia’s total unmet needs, with millions still to be reached, the programme serves as a blueprint for rural development that goes beyond basic socio-economic support.

Of course, the transition to clean energy is not going to be cheap and the President of the UN General Assembly, Abdulla Shahid, in his address to the meeting said: “A substantial increase in clean energy finance is essential for all countries, but particularly [those] where energy poverty equates to poverty”.

He added that 2.6 billion people are still relying on harmful fuels for cooking and that of the estimated $4.4 billion needed to achieve universal access to clean cooking, “only $32 million has been made available”.

Kew Gardens gains Guinness World Record for its 17,000-strong plant collection

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Written by northsouth

Category: Environment

Published: 16 September 2021

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By Stephanie Rendal

LONDON - Kew Gardens in London has secured a new world record for the “largest collection of living plants at a single-site botanic garden”.

The Royal Botanical Gardens in Kew, London, has gained recognition from the Guinness World Records (GWR) for a feat in biodiversity, housing a total of 16,900 species of plants within its 320-acre site.

The achievement will be honoured in the upcoming GWR book to be published in 2022.

Richard Barley, director of horticulture and learning at RBG Kew, said, “We are absolutely thrilled to hold the record for the largest living plant collection.

“It is a fantastic accolade, and a credit to the tireless work of our horticulturists and scientists.

“It also reinforces the importance of botanic gardens around the world, as not only beautiful places to enjoy, but as essential hubs of inspiration and education, increasing awareness of the vital importance of plants to the health of our planet.”

This is not the first time the Unesco World Heritage site has earned a world record. Other records it holds include the world’s biggest waterlilies and the world’s tallest plant.

This title went to the prehistoric plant known as the titan arum, famed not only for its height at a whopping 3 metres, but also for its flowers that give off an aroma of rotting flesh.

Around since the time of the dinosaurs, the plant achieved its GWR title for world’s tallest bloom at Kew in 2018.

Adam Millward, managing editor of Guinness World Records, said: “It’s been a pleasure recognising some of RBG Kew’s record-breaking plants in recent years.

“I’ve had the (dubious) honour of smelling the pungent titan arum up close; contended with the steam and sprinklers to measure a prodigious pitcher trap; and put the giant waterlily’s robust pads to the test with a GWR certificate.

“Working closely with Botanic Gardens Conservation International, it’s fantastic to be able to celebrate the entire collection – surely one of the jewels of the botanical world – in the GWR 2022 book”.