Contribution of Excise Tax Revenues to Green Energy Development in Morocco
Houda ZAIM, Siham SAHBANI
Abstract. The world’s governments are working together to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels because we have an urgent need to address the negative impacts of climate change due to greenhouse gases emitted by fuels. To this end, many countries have made the development of “green” renewable power their top priority. One way that governments will accomplish this is through a variety of fiscal policies. The most common type of fiscal policy used to promote green energy products has been to impose a tax on consumers’ electricity use or to apply indirect taxes (such as the domestic consumption tax [TIC]) when people purchase energy, as well as carbon pricing mechanisms. The implementation of these types of policies will both encourage consumers to use environmentally friendly means of generating electricity and also create additional tax revenue for governments, which may be associated with the ecological transition to renewable energy sources. Due to the global focus on the green transition, Morocco has developed a holistic approach in which it plans to be Africa’s leader in renewable energy production. However, there is significant gaps in our empirical understanding of the true dynamics of these fiscal mechanisms in assisting with such transitions. Using a comprehensive dataset created by combining official sources from Morocco (Taxation listings and Custom documentation), we have created estimates on the revenue generated from TIC applied to fuel related energy products, as well as possible carbon-based fiscal policy mechanisms to examine their relationship with indicators of Morocco’s green energy development, such as renewable electricity produced and CO₂ emissions per person. The results indicate that excise tax revenues are not significantly associated with renewable electricity production (p = 0.551; R² = 0.02), while a statistically significant negative relationship is observed with CO₂ emissions per capita (β = −0.794; p = 0.006; R² = 0.33). The empirical results suggest that public finance plays an essential role in shaping the relationship between excise tax revenues and environmental outcomes related to the green transition. Further, in relation to Green Fiscal Policy, our findings suggest new avenues to reinforce the alignment of economic priorities with Environmental priorities through the use of tax-based investment strategies.
Keywords
Energy Taxation, Green Transition, Carbon Tax, Excise Revenues, Morocco
Published online 4/25/2026, 8 pages
Copyright © 2026 by the author(s)
Published under license by Materials Research Forum LLC., Millersville PA, USA
Citation: Houda ZAIM, Siham SAHBANI, Contribution of Excise Tax Revenues to Green Energy Development in Morocco, Materials Research Proceedings, Vol. 64, pp 1091-1098, 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.21741/9781644904091-135
The article was published as article 135 of the book Energy Futures
Content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI.
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