Measuring Morocco’s green growth performance

Green growth is emerging as a dominant policy response to climate change, resource scarcity, and environmental damages. It would be crucial for all the developing countries to pursue green growth so that poverty reduction and economic growth in harmony with resource efficiency and ecological protection can be achieved. Morocco has prioritized green growth and sustainable energy practices in order to achieve a harmonic synergy between economic development and environmental protection. In this study, we developed one TOPSIS model based on the input-output framework in order to conduct a comprehensive efficiency evaluation of the national system of Morocco. Data envelopment analysis (DEA) is applied to measure green growth efficiency for the period of 2000–2018. The comprehensive evaluation index of green growth in Morocco experienced an overall increasing trend, with a green growth score of 0.26 in 2000, achieving 0.60 in 2016. The growing resource investment index (16.30 in 2000, 29.01 in 2018) and economic benefit index (10.31 in 2000, 31.28 in 2018) are accompanied by increasing environmental impacts. CO 2 emission intensity reached 29.55 CO 2 /t in 2000 and jumped to 58.89 CO 2 /t in 2018, driven by the increasing electricity demand and transportation sector. Overall, Morocco experienced a steady socio-economic growth, reflecting a strong commitment of the national government in promoting green growth. However, the dependency on fossil fuels for energy demand resulted in increasing environmental costs. Such results indicate that it is urgent to make more efforts to change the current development pathway so that the whole country can move toward green growth.