Morocco

Critically Insufficient4°C+ World

NDCs with this rating fall well outside of a country’s “fair share” range and are not at all consistent with holding warming to below 2°C let alone with the Paris Agreement’s stronger 1.5°C limit. If all government NDCs were in this range, warming would exceed 4°C. For sectors, the rating indicates that the target is consistent with warming of greater than 4°C if all other sectors were to follow the same approach.

Highly insufficient< 4°C World

NDCs with this rating fall outside of a country’s “fair share” range and are not at all consistent with holding warming to below 2°C let alone with the Paris Agreement’s stronger 1.5°C limit. If all government NDCs were in this range, warming would reach between 3°C and 4°C. For sectors, the rating indicates that the target is consistent with warming between 3°C and 4°C if all other sectors were to follow the same approach.

Insufficient< 3°C World

NDCs with this rating are in the least stringent part of a country’s “fair share” range and not consistent with holding warming below 2°C let alone with the Paris Agreement’s stronger 1.5°C limit. If all government NDCs were in this range, warming would reach over 2°C and up to 3°C. For sectors, the rating indicates that the target is consistent with warming over 2°C and up to 3°C if all other sectors were to follow the same approach.

2°C Compatible< 2°C World

NDCs with this rating are consistent with the 2009 Copenhagen 2°C goal and therefore fall within a country’s “fair share” range, but are not fully consistent with the Paris Agreement long term temperature goal. If all government NDCs were in this range, warming could be held below, but not well below, 2°C and still be too high to be consistent with the Paris Agreement 1.5°C limit. For sectors, the rating indicates that the target is consistent with holding warming below, but not well below, 2°C if all other sectors were to follow the same approach.

1.5°C Paris Agreement Compatible< 1.5°C World

This rating indicates that a government’s NDCs in the most stringent part of its “fair share” range: it is consistent with the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C limit. For sectors, the rating indicates that the target is consistent with the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C limit.

Role model<< 1.5°C World

This rating indicates that a government’s NDC is more ambitious than what is considered a “fair” contribution: it is more than consistent with the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C limit. No “role model” rating has been developed for the sectors.

1.5°C Compatible< 1.5°C World

Global Warming Potentials

Previous assessments of the Climate Action Tracker used the global warming potentials (GWPs) from the IPCC’s Second Assessment Report (SAR). For this assessment we have updated all figures and time series to GWPs from the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4).

All historical values are reported in Global Warming Potentials (GWP) from the IPCC’s Second Assessment Report (SAR) in the BUR but are converted to figures reflecting GWP from the Forth Assessment Report (AR4), using CO2, CH4 and N2O emissions in 2012. The ratio between SAR and AR4 in 2012 is used to scale historical SAR data so final figures reflect GWP from AR4.

Both pledges, targets, and policy projections are calculated applying growth factors, determined based on the original SAR values, to historical data already converted to AR4. This approach is used to ensure the same growth factor is used independently of the GWP used.

Historical emissions

For historical emissions, we used national GHG inventory data provided by Morocco’s 1st Biennial Update Report (BUR) for 1994 until 2012 (Government of Morocco 2016d). For the historical years before 1994, we used a linear backward extrapolation of the trend between 1994 and 2012.

Pledges and targets

The targeted emissions levels (incl. LULUCF) for both the unconditional and conditional 2030 pledge are provided in Morocco’s NDC submission (Government of Morocco 2016c). All projections are calculated applying growth factors to the base year of the NDC projections. To exclude emissions from LULUCF, NDC targets are recalculated by subtracting projections of LULUCF emissions under the NDC from the targets including LULUCF. We derived these projections by taking the BAU emissions projections for the LULUCF sector provided in the 3rd National Communication and accounting for targeted emissions reductions from the LULUCF sector under the NDC, based on the reported sectoral breakdown of total emissions reduction contributions between 2020 and 2030 in the NDC (see Figure 2 in Government of Morocco 2016a).

To recalculate NDC targets only excluding emissions from LULUCF but including agriculture, we subtract projections of LULUCF emissions under the NDC from the NDC targets including LULUCF. We derived these projections by taking the BAU emissions projections for the LULUCF sector provided in the 3rd National Communication and accounting for targeted emissions reductions from the LULUCF sector under the NDC.

Current policy projections

Current trend projections are based on BAU emissions projection provided in the 3rd National Communication (Government of Morocco 2016b). In addition to the BAU scenario, the current policy projections consider several sectoral policies currently under implementation. For each of these sectoral policies, the 1st Biennial Update Report (Government of Morocco 2016d) provides emissions reduction estimates, which were used to model the current policy emissions pathway.

The current policy scenario considers targets for the extension of national wind farms, solar parks, and hydropower capacity by 2020, energy efficiency programmes in the building sector, public lighting and the industry sector (excluding large energy consuming industries) as well as the extension of Rabat and Casablanca tramways. The 1st Biennial Update Report provides annual emission reduction estimates by 2020 and 2030 for the all the aforementioned policies (Government of Morocco 2016d). The extension of wind, solar and hydro capacity by 2020 is estimated to reduce emissions by 11 Mt CO2 annually (Government of Morocco 2016d).