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North Africa and Middle East’s Pathways to Environmental Policy
January 30, 20257:00 p.m.
MADRID
Casa Árabe Auditorium (at Calle Alcalá, 62).
7:00 p.m.
Free entry until the event’s capacity is reached.
In English, with simultaneous translation.
On Thursday 30 January, the eighth session of the series Aula Árabe Universitaria will take place in Madrid, with Giulia Cimini, professor of Political and Social Sciences at the University of Bologna, who will talk about how Arab countries are making a "green turn" in their environmental and economic policies. Come and listen to her or follow the event live on Youtube.
The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) are overwhelmingly mentioned as evidence of a looming climate peril. Nonetheless, countries in the region have long resisted the incorporation of environmental norms and ideas into the fabric of their state systems and international relations.
Since the early 2000s, however, a ‘green’ turn has taken hold, with a significant acceleration, especially in Morocco and even in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) monarchies, after the crude oil prices dropped between 2014 and 2016. Still, less is known about how Arab regimes stand regarding environmental policy.
This talk thus aims to offer an overview of North Africa and Middle East’s ‘greenisation’ process and reluctance to it, as a combined effect of increasing domestic awareness which stems from Arab regimes’ new ambitions, climate adaptation constraints and external pressure – namely, the EU’s environmental pivot.
Cimini will review recent developments in national and regional cooperation initiatives, reflecting on the new spaces for convergence and new sources of divergence that climate degradation foreshadows.
Organised in collaboration with the Master's Degree in Lifelong Learning in International Cooperation (UCM), the session will be presented by Miguel Hernando de Larramendi, Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies at the University of Castilla La Mancha and lecturer in the aforementioned Master's Degree. The debate will be moderated by Olivia Orozco, Casa Árabe's coordinator for training and the economy.
Giulia Cimini
Giulia Cimini is a Junior Assistant Professor at the Department of Political and Social Sciences, University of Bologna.
Her research interests include political parties, security assistance and environmental governance in Middle East and North Africa. She authored Political Parties in Post-Uprising Tunisia and Morocco (Routledge 2023) and co-edited Political Islam Inside-Out (Routledge 2022). She published in the Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, Contemporary Politics, and Middle Eastern Studies.
Between 2019 and 2023, Giulia was the Principal Investigator of the research project 'Security for Whom?' funded by the German Gerda Henkel Foundation. Since 2023, she has been Scientific Responsible and Coordinator of the inter-departmental project "Go Green: A Trans-Mediterranean Approach to Climate Change" with the International University of Rabat, financed by the University of Bologna.
She has a PhD in International Studies by the University of Naples L'Orientale (with a dissertation on “The Changing Nature and Role of Political Parties in post-2011 Tunisia and Morocco”, 2018), and a MA in International Relations and a BA in Political Sciences by the same university.
Cimini is Associate Editor of the scientific journal Interdisciplinary Political Studies (IdPS)
