Mauritania virtual parliamentary roundtable

On 29th April 2021, the Climate Parliament held a national virtual parliamentary roundtable with parliamentarians from Mauritania. The event was co-organised with the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO), supported by the European Commission’s Directorate General for International Partnerships (DG INTPA) and co-sponsored by the Pan-African Parliament (PAP). This was an occasion to discuss opportunities for Mauritania to accelerate its deployment of clean energy.

Ms Léa Hillaireau, network coordinator at the Climate Parliament, presented a series of action ideas for parliamentarians to help accelerate the transition to clean energy. The presentation provided an overview of the energy sector in Mauritania, outlined the Parliamentary Action on Renewable Energy (PARE) project and the Green Grids Initiative. Regarding the action agenda, Ms Hillaireau emphasised that renewable energy is the cheapest energy in the world, as illustrated by recent auctions for solar generation in Saudi Arabia, which resulted in a price 1.04 USct/kWh, and Ethiopia at 2.5 USct/kWh. She stated that legislators can encourage their governments to increase climate ambition, following the example of Cape Verde, which has set a target 100% clean electricity in its grid by 2030, and Morocco: 52% by 2030.

The legislators stressed the need to build their capacity on renewable energy issues. Almost all of them expressed their commitment to work with the Climate Parliament in the fight to combat climate change. Mauritania is already taking steps to fight climate change and has passed a law to ban the commercialization of plastics. Mauritanian MPs are aware of their country’s renewable energy potential. They are interested to learn about what the neighbourhood countries are doing and what they could adapt and replicate in Mauritania. It was also mentioned that there is a lot to be done on finance access, infrastructure, advocacy with donors, international networking with other parliamentarians, and access to electricity in rural areas. The chairman of the parliamentary group for the protection of the environment will continue engaging with the Climate Parliament on future capacity building opportunities. It was agreed that MPs’ actions are crucial to help the country achieve more ambitious climate action.