Green Economy in a Blue World-Full Report

Marine-based renewable energy offers the greatest potential for small island developing states, where land is often at a premium. By developing infrastructure in the marine environment, a feasible scale can be achieved, as well as avoiding conflicts with other land users. Investments are being explored in the Pacific Islands and the Caribbean (IPCC, 2011). 2.3.3 Interactions with other users Given safety concerns around infrastructure, the areas around sites are often rendered no fishing zones. While this may serve to create benefits for biodiversity, it can cause potential conflicts with other marine users, including tourism, shipping, extractive industries and fisheries. If not addressed up-front, this conflict can cause delays to potential developments; further increasing investment costs (Wilhelmsson, et al., 2010). Governments can also assist in preventing such conflicts through proactive marine spatial planning and zoning, ensuring that concessions are granted in zones that avoid ecologically- sensitive sites and minimize interaction with other marine users. Any type of energy production – even clean and renewable options – can impact on the local and global environment. When assessing the impacts of marine-based renewable energy options, it is important to consider local impacts in the context of broader, global impacts. Climate change is an increasing threat to biodiversity. Energy generated from the oceans can substantially reduce greenhouse gas emissions, thus combating climate change. In addition, toxic pollutants associated with, for example, the burning of fossil fuels, or the local environmental impacts of large hydropower developments, could be avoided by developing wind power. These global and local advantages must however be balanced against the specific adverse effects MBRE may exert on the local marine environment. Whilst acknowledging that research in this sector is still in its infancy, experience from other offshore sectors such as oil and gas, and alternatives such as hydropower and onshore wind indicate that the marine-based renewable energy options could have significant impacts on the marine environment. It is important to take them into account early in the planning and design phase of a development in order to reduce the risk of causing conflict with marine users who depend on the environment (see above). 2.3.4 Environmental risks and opportunities

power station to be built across the Bristol Channel in the UKwould have generated around 8 600MWduring flow and 2 000MWon average, with a potential of creating a total of 35,000 jobs during the peak period of construction and a further 40 000 permanent jobs during the life of the project (DECC, 2010). The plan has now been shelved due to environmental concerns with destruction of marine habitats and political preference for nuclear, clean-coal and wind energy. Moreover, the ocean wave-energy resource has considerable potential for energy production and hence contributing to economic development through employment generation. The countries with potential for wave energy such as Scotland (western coasts), northern Canada, southern Africa, Australia, and the US (northwestern coasts) have carried out roadmap scenarios for wave energy based on a few pilot projects available, to determine wave energy’s approximate potential for jobcreation. InScotland, for instance, the latest roadmap developed by the FREDS Marine Energy Group estimated in 2009 an overall expenditure of US$3.75 billion to achieve 1 000 MW installed in Scotland by 2020, generating 5 000 direct jobs (Freds Marine Energy Group (Meg), 2009). At EU level, the European Ocean Energy Association (EU-OEA, 2010) roadmap reference scenario projects total installed capacity of 3 600 MW in Europe by 2020, leading to investment of around €8.5 billion a year, which will generate 40 000 jobs. Similarly by 2050, achieving 188 000 MW could lead to an investment of €451 billion a year and the creation of about 471 000 jobs (EU-OEA, 2010). 2.3.2 Energy for development The IPCC (2011) concluded that most theoretical renewable energy potential lies in developing countries where demand for sustainable access to energy is greatest for development needs. This is also true for marine-based renewable energy sources. However, due to the current scale and investment requirements for existing technologies, it is unlikely that marine-based renewable energy will be able to serve local community needs; other renewable energy options, such as solar and biogas, are more suitable in both scale and up-front investment. However, electricity generated from marine- based sources could feed into the national grid of developing countries and help to offset increasingly volatile and expensive fossil-fuel imports to power the grid. This is of particular relevance for oil-importing countries in Africa, which spend on average 30 per cent, sometimes over half, of their export revenues on oil (UNEP, 2011).

in a Blue World

68