Morocco’s Ambassador to Panama, Oumama Aouad, highlighted Morocco’s environmental achievements at a conference on “Public Policies to Preserve the Environment,” held this week at the Technological University of Panama (UTP).

Morocco has been building a green economy that ensures the sustainability of its development, benefiting from the natural resources that are both clean and renewable.

Aouad tied these achievements to Mohammed VI’s vision of making the environment a national priority, along with social and economic development.

The diplomat stated that the choice for renewable energies, whether wind or photovoltaic, allows Morocco to reduce its energy dependence. In fact, thanks to solar stations NOOR I and NOOR II, at Ouarzazate Solar Power Station, Morocco is expected to account more than half of its energy consumption with renewable sources by 2030.

This policy also involves the ban on producing, marketing, and using plastic bags, given their negative impact of the environment on the short, medium, and long-term.

At the international level, Aouad maintained that the preservation of the ecological heritage and the fight against global warming were illustrated by Morocco’s participation in various editions of the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP), including hosting two COPs in 2001 and in 2016 in Marrakech.

Morocco also adheres to the Paris Climate Agreement, which aims to unite all the world’s nations under one single climate change agreement for the first time in history.

At the end of the conference, students held a discussion about Morocco’s efforts to preserve the environment, touching on Panama’s decision to follow in Morocco’s footsteps with the plastic bag ban that went into effect in January.

This conference, which is part of the Month of the Francophonie celebration, took place in the presence of the Director of the French Alliance in Panama, several university officials, representatives of diplomatic missions and organizations, accredited internationals in Panama, and students and researcher from the Faculty of Engineering Science.

Vice-Rector for the Technological University of Panama (UTP), who presided the opening of this conference on the experiences of Morocco and Costa Rica, thanked the organizers for the choice of UTP as a framework and stressed its weigh on the theme of the environment.