BLUE ECONOMY – ECONOMY
News: A shared G20 vision for the Ocean Commons
What's in the news?
● The oceans hold untrammelled opportunities for the prosperity of our planet. It is therefore not surprising that the most prosperous cities and countries are endowed with a coast.
Key takeaways:
● The G20 countries together account for around 45% of the world’s coastlines and over 21% of the exclusive economic zones (EEZs).
● The oceans are reservoirs of global biodiversity, critical regulators of the global weather and climate, and support the economic well-being of billions of people in coastal areas.
What is the Blue economy?
● Blue economy refers to the ocean resources available in the country that can be harnessed to aid the production of goods and services.
● It enables economic growth, environmental sustainability, and national security.
● The concept was introduced by Gunter Pauli in his 2010 book- “The Blue Economy: 10 years, 100 innovations, 100 million jobs”.
● It is the sustainable use of ocean resources for economic growth, improved livelihoods and jobs, and ocean ecosystem health.
● It advocates the greening of ocean development strategies for higher productivity and conservation of ocean's health.
● Blue Economy emphasizes on integration of development of ocean economy with social inclusion, environmental sustainability, combined with innovative business models.
● This is reflected in Sustainable Development Goal (SDG 14), which calls to conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development.
Components of Blue economy:
1. Renewable Energy: Sustainable marine energy can play a vital role in social and economic development.
2. Fisheries: Sustainable fisheries can generate more revenue, more fish and help restore fish stocks.
3. Maritime Transport: Over 80% of international goods traded are transported by sea.
4. Tourism: Ocean and coastal tourism can bring jobs and economic growth.
5. Climate Change: Oceans are an important carbon sink (blue carbon) and help mitigate climate change.
6. Waste Management: Better waste management on land can help oceans recover.
7. Mineral resources: Manganese nodules contain significant concentrations of manganese, iron and copper, nickel, and cobalt all of which have numerous economic uses.
Marine resources can be divided into the following categories:
Marine Biological Resources:
(A) Food Resources:
Animal resources, (Fishes, crabs, prawns, zoo planktons etc.).
Plant resources, (phytoplanktons, sea grass etc.).
(B) Non-food Resources:
Corals.
Alternatively marine biological resources can also be divided into the following 3 categories:
(A) Plankton Communities:
Phytoplanktons.
Zoo planktons.
(B) Nekton Communities:
Pelagic fishes.
Demersal fishes.
(C) Benthos communities:
Epibenthic community.
Benthic organisms.
Inflora and Infauna.
Marine mineral resources:
(A) On the basis of location:
(i) Minerals of the continental shelf deposits.
(ii) Minerals of the continental slope deposits.
(iii) Minerals of the deep sea bottom deposits.
(B) On the basis of nature:
(i) Metallic minerals.
(ii) Fuel minerals (petroleum, natural gas).
(iii) Construction materials (gravels, sands etc.).
Energy resources:
(A) Conventional energy:
(i) Petroleum.
(ii) Natural gas.
(B) Non-conventional energy:
(i) Tidal energy.
(ii) Wave energy.
(iii) Biomass energy.
Freshwater resources:
Manufactured water (transformation of saline seawater through the processes of desalination into potable water)
India & Blue economy:
● India’s blue economy is a subset of the national economy.
● It comprises of
a. ocean resources.
b. human-made economic infrastructure in marine, maritime, and onshore coastal zones.
● India has
a. 7,500 km of coast line (9/29 states as coastal).
b. 1,382 islands.
c. Exclusive Economic Zone of over 2 million square kilometers.
d. 199 ports, including 12 major ports that handle approximately 1,400 million tons of cargo each year.
● It provides a vast socio-economic opportunity for India to utilize ocean resources for societal benefit responsibly.
● EEZ of India has a bounty of living and non-living resources with significant recoverable resources such as crude oil and natural gas.
● Also, the coastal economy sustains over 4 million fisher folk and coastal communities.
Challenges in Blue economy:
1. Unsustainable extraction from marine resources, such as unsustainable fishing, exploited by illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing.
● Illegal whaling
● Unsustainable fishing
● Bottom troller based destructive fishing.
2. Physical alterations and destruction of marine and coastal habitats and landscapes due largely to coastal development, deforestation, and mining.
● Oil spills
● Ship accident
● Discharge of various hazardous waste into ocean.
3. Unplanned and unregulated development in the narrow coastal interface and nearshore areas has led to the marginalization of poor communities, and loss or degradation of critical habitats.
4. Marine pollution, for example, in the form of excess nutrients from untreated sewage, agricultural runoff, and marine debris such as plastics.
● Micro plastics
● Nano plastics.
5. Impacts of climate change, for example, in the form of both slow-onset events like sea-level rise and more intense and frequent weather events.
● Changes in the ocean circulation
● High frequency of Super Cyclones
● Marine heat waves.
6. Other Factors: Ineffective governance institutions, inadequate economic incentives, technological advances, lack of or inadequate capacities, lack of full implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and other legal instruments, and insufficient application of management tools have often led to poorly regulated activities
Government Initiatives:
The Government of India has launched bold initiatives to promote the development of a blue economy such as
1. The Sagarmala initiative promotes port-led development.
2. The Shipbuilding Financial Assistance Policy encourages domestic ship-building.
3. The Pradhan Mantri Matsya Sampada Yojana is actively engendering a ‘blue revolution’ through sustainable and responsible development of the fisheries sector.
4. The Sagar Manthan dashboard tracks vessels in real-time.
5. The Deep Ocean Mission explores deep-sea resources in the EEZ and continental shelf as well as development of technology for harnessing them.
6. India adopted the Coastal Regulation Zone notification to classify and better manage coastal regions and conserve ecologically sensitive coastal and marine areas including ecosystems.
7. The global community rallied together for a multilateral treaty on addressing plastic pollution. The same year, India introduced an amendment to the Plastic Waste Management Rules banning select single-use plastic items and introduced policies for extended producer responsibility in waste management in order to combat plastic pollution, including in the marine environment.
8. Lifestyle for the Environment’ that promotes mindful utilization over mindless consumption patterns.
9. MoES has joined the United Nations on the “Clean Seas Programme” to develop strategies for estimating and reducing Marine Litter/Plastic in the oceans, which is also a part of SDG-14.
10. MoES has also signed two contracts with the International Seabed Authority (ISBA) for deep ocean exploration of minerals (Ploymetallic Nodules and Hydrothermal Sulphide) in the Indian Ocean
11. O-SMART scheme - The Ocean Services, Modelling, Applications, Resources and Technology (O-SMART) Scheme aims at stepping up ocean research and setting up early warning weather systems.
a. It addresses ocean development activities such as services, technology, resources, observations and science and provides necessary scientific and technological background required for implementation of various aspects of Blue Economy.
G20 and Ocean related initiatives:
● G20 Action Plan on Marine Litter,
● Osaka Blue Ocean Vision,
● Coral Research and Development Accelerator Platform.
G20:
● The G20 is an informal group:19 countries and the European Union, with representatives of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
● The G20 Presidency rotates annually: according to a system that ensures a regional balance over time.
● For the selection of the presidency: 19 countries are divided into 5 groups, each having no more than 4 countries.
● The presidency rotates between each group.
● Every year the G20 selects a country from another group to be president.
● The G20 does not have a permanent secretariat or Headquarters.
● The G20 countries together account for around 45% of the world’s coastlines and over 21% of the exclusive economic zones (EEZs).
Role of G20 in blue economy:
1. India’s commitment to prioritizing oceans and the blue economy under its presidency would ensure continued discussions on this crucial subject and pave the way for future G20 presidencies.
2. Interconnectedness of oceans implies that activities occurring in one part of the world could have ripple effects across the globe.
Therefore, the responsibility of their protection, conservation and sustainable utilization lies with all nations.
3. Since the blue economy involves a range of stakeholders and affects several other sectors of the national economy, effective and efficient ocean and blue economy governance also presents a significant challenge.
4. India’s G20 presidency would play an important role in promoting individual and collective actions to facilitate the transition towards a sustainable blue economy.
5. The G20 forum presents an excellent opportunity to build effective communication with all stakeholders to share best practices, foster collaborations for advancements in science and technology, promote public-private partnerships and create novel blue finance mechanisms.
6. The international negotiations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee on Plastic Pollution, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, etc are closely interlinked.
7. The stewardship of oceans is an investment that will sustain future generations.
8. The spirit of ‘One Earth, One Family, One Future’ must unite the global community for the well-being of our ocean commons.
WAY FORWARD:
● The Blue Economy is poised for significant growth in the next few years. Transitioning away from an agricultural industry towards a bluer economy will be demanding. This means that governments must work together to make blue economies sustainable, share research and know-how.
● In India, The sector is the sixth dimension of the government’s ‘Vision of New India by 2030’; with the Blue Economy policies aiming for long-term economic advantages in order to achieve the greater goals of growth, job creation, equity, and environmental protection.