This illuminating book analyses energy transitions, carbon dioxide emissions and the security of energy supply in Mediterranean countries. Unpacking the history of energy transitions, from coal to oil and natural gas, and from non-renewable to renewable energy sources, Silvana Bartoletto offers a comparative approach to the major trends in energy consumption, production, trade and security in Mediterranean countries in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa.

This book analyses energy transitions and the opportunities and challenges for building sustainable energy systems to improve human capabilities while protecting the environment. Sufficient and secure energy supply is critical to human thriving and socioeconomic development. Yet energy systems are also implicated in the most pressing socio-environmental challenges of our time - climate change, air pollution, and water and land use. This book examines what is arguably the most ambitious vision for a renewable energy based system worldwide. This vision, often called Desertec, is for a regional electricity system supplying North Africa, Europe, and the Middle East with sustainable and affordable power. The behemoth plan would entail building dozens of large-scale solar and wind power plants mostly in North Africa, interconnecting the fragmented transmission infrastructure of 38 Mediterranean countries, and linking North Africa to the European Union (EU) through undersea transmission cables. Within the Mediterranean, the book focuses on Morocco, which is one of the most advanced developing countries in renewable energy scale-up, to understand its motivations for building renewable energy and the effects on sustainable development. The book therefore takes a unique multi-scalar approach to understanding the social and political aspects of energy transitions, weaving together the views of villagers living near Morocco’s first solar energy zone with the perspectives of national decision-makers in Morocco with the views of European policymakers and major transnational energy companies in the Mediterranean region. This book will be of great interest to students, scholars and policymakers interested in energy transitions, sustainable and renewable energy, Mediterranean politics, sustainable development and environment and sustainability more generally.

In the aftermath of the Arab Spring, Southern and Eastern Mediterranean Countries (SEMCs) urgently need to find a new path of strong and sustainable socio-economic development. Considering its macroeconomic and energy fundamentals, the region has a great potential for triggering of a new development process, and the ongoing political changes can enhance such a new dynamic. The current energy situation in the region is characterized by a rapid increase of energy demand, low energy efficiency, and low domestic energy prices due to extensive universal consumption subsidy schemes. The situation does not appear sustainable and poses several risks to the prospects of socio-economic development of the region. The recent Arab uprisings could provide the EU with the opportunity to play a more meaningful role in the region in the future. Energy is a topic of key importance for both the EU and SEMCs. In view of their geographic proximity, a further market integration would be in the interest of both sides. This book provides a comprehensive overview of the energy markets in SEMCs and proposes a new sustainable energy transition for the overall Mediterranean region. In doing so, the book assesses a number of specific issues, such as the regional outlook for electricity and renewable energy, the current situation of the oil and gas sector and its outlook, and the most recent hydrocarbons developments occurring in the Eastern Mediterranean area. Additionally, it proposes a series of innovative financial schemes aimed at fuelling the sustainable energy transition of the overall Mediterranean region. (Series: European Energy Studies)

The war on Gaza, the war on Ukraine, the energy crisis, and several initiatives to reshape regional and international partnerships and alliances have made the EU Southern Neighbourhood even more strategic for Italian and European interests. The urgency to diversify the energy supply (drawing on both fossil fuels and clean energy sources) has pushed Italy to strengthen old and create new partnerships with countries on the southern shore of the Mediterranean, as well as turn to countries in sub-Saharan Africa. This is aimed at both transforming Italy into an energy hub and becoming autonomous from Russia. A reflection on energy supply diversification and political reconfigurations necessarily considers the highly strategic Red Sea and Gulf regions, which are increasingly interconnected with the EU’s Southern Neighbourhood in both political and economic terms, as acknowledged by the recent European energy strategy. The volume focuses on the most recent energy and political realignments involving actors in the areas, with an eye to identifying guidelines for an integrated approach able to respond to the priorities of Italian and European foreign policies.The book is divided into six chapters. The first two chapters analyse the relationship between perspectives on cooperation and energy partnerships across the Mediterranean and into sub-Saharan Africa (Chapter 1) and the Gulf (Chapter 2), examining the necessity of proposing alternative models for energy partnerships by promoting investments and cooperation aimed at local development. Chapter 3 focuses on political and security developments linking the Sahel and the Mediterranean regions, and unpacks Italy’s evolving role in navigating the geopolitical complexities of the two regions. Chapter 4 addresses the Gulf political dynamics, especially in light of the war on Gaza, the war in Yemen, the interconnected Red Sea crisis, and a renewed sense of polarisation across the region after a few years of (often contested) normalisations. Chapter 5 centres on the role of global actors (China, Russia and the United States) in an increasingly interconnected great power competition spanning from the Sahel to the Gulf through the Mediterranean and the Red Sea. Chapter 6 integrates insights across regions and domains to identify strategies for Italy and the EU to act in line with their strategic objectives without resulting in negative effects on the governance and local development of their partners.

This paper addresses the urgent need for a sustainable energy transition in the southern and eastern Mediterranean region. It analyses the unsustainable burden of universal energy subsidies and calls for new development paths unlocking the huge potential for low-cost energy efficiency and demand-side management as well as for renewable energy. It argues that a new structure of regional and interconnected energy markets is needed. It then proposes some original approaches regarding the financing of this sustainable energy transition and finally calls for an ambitious, Euro-Mediterranean Energy Roadmap, which should contribute not only to the economic and environmental development of the region, but also to its social and political stability.--Publisher description.

This book examines the geostrategic alliances in the Eastern Mediterranean and MENA regions. It analyzes how these alliances transcend stereotyped political and cultural prototypes throughout western Eurasia as the outcome of shifting regional power balances. The authors explain how this development has its foundation mostly in the United States' ‘Pivot to Asia’ policy, resulting in a lower priority ranking of the Middle East for Washington, but also in the emergence of China’s economic incursion on the wider region. The book looks into and presents different reasons for this paradigm shift: First and foremost, the historical ambitions and conflicting assertions of sovereignty in the region. Then, competition over control of hydrocarbons reserves and pipeline politics, civil wars, and political chaos in certain littoral states. US retrenchment and Russia’s naval base expansion in Syria, as well as Turkish expansion in Libya, NATO allies divisions and, not to reckon with, waves of migration and refugees. Yet some internal and external factors could lead to some changes in these trends, including the need to engage in energy transitions due to climate change consequences in the region. Therefore, this book is a must-read for scholars, students, policy-makers, and practitioners interested in a better understanding of the political development in the Eastern Mediterranean and MENA regions, as well as of International Relations in general.