Paper short abstract:

Applying Gregory Unruh’s carbon lock-in as analytical framework, this dissertation attempts to find how the different political economy environments of oil-importing Morocco and oil-exporting Algeria influence the deployment of sustainable energy strategies and vice-versa.

Paper long abstract:

The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region has one of the highest potentials for renewable energy in the world, yet this potential remains poorly exploited. Applying Unruh’s carbon lock-in as analytical framework, I attempt to answer the following questions. How do the different political economy environments of oil-importing Morocco and oil-exporting Algeria influence the deployment of sustainable energy strategies and vice-versa? To what extent does access to fossil fuels interfere with renewable energy development? To what extent does resource scarcity support a fast transition towards renewables? While fuel rich countries are held back by numerous technical and institutional barriers to decarbonisation, those who lack resources and need to import them often have stronger incentives to diversify their energy mix. The interference of Western actors in both renewable and conventional energy production might lock in the interdependence of the two. Intervening Unruh’s carbon lock-in, I show that although the transition towards renewable energies leads to environmentally sustainable outcomes, it can also induce the deployment of technologies which are as socially unsustainable as fossil fuels in the way they create path dependency in unequal structures of power.