New Internationalist – September 2019

BLUE ECONOMY
$24 trillion – the ocean’s total asset base.
$2.5 trillion – the ocean’s annual global GMP (gross marine product).
But two-thirds of the ocean’s GMP depends on healthy seas.^8
90% of global trade is sea-borne.^4
Air freight creates 100 times more CO 2 than shipping per kilometre and
weight of cargo.^4

Much more of our power could come from the sea:

The numbers of tourists vacationing
on ships has grown rapidly^4

FUTURE PROSPECTS?

$6.4 billion – estimated global market in marine biotech by

2025.^9
10% of the world’s minerals could come from sea floors by
2030.^10

Metal reserves in millions of metric tons^4

MARINE PROTECTION

ALERT!

Falling short

4.8% of the world’s oceans are protected in 2019.^11

10% is the modest UN target for 2020.^11

30% by 2030 is what’s needed.^12

1 Smithsonian, ‘Census of Marine Life’, July 2019, nin.tl/census-overview

2 Esther Gonstalla, The Ocean Book: How Endangered are our Seas? oekon,

2018 3 National Geographic, ‘Half the Barrier Reef is Dead’, August 2018,

nin.tl/barrier-reef 4 Heinrich Böll Stiftung, Ocean Atlas: Facts and Figures on

the Threats to Our Marine Ecosystem, 2017, nin.tl/ocean-atlas

5 IUCN, Red List of Threatened Species, iucnredlist.org 6 Marine Insight,

‘10 Endangered Ocean Species’, 15 February 2019, nin.tl/endangered

7 Eunomia, ‘Plastics in the Marine Environment’, 1 June 2016,

nin.tl/plastic-in-sea 8 WWF, Reviving the Ocean Economy Report 2015,

nin.tl/Ocean-economy 9 University of British Columbia Institute for Oceans

and Fisheries, ‘Vast majority of patents on marine genetic sequences linked

to corporations’, 6 June 2018, nin.tl/marine-genes 10 Frontiers in Marine

Science, ‘An Overview of Seabed Mining’, 10 January 2018,

nin.tl/seabed-mining 11 Atlas of Marine Protection, mpatlas.org

12 Greenpeace International, 30x30: A Blueprint for Ocean Protection,

4 April 2019, nin.tl/Blueprint

THE FACTS

25

20

15

10

5

0

1980

Total in millions

1990

= 2 million passengers

2000 2010 2020

Q UK
Q Germany
Q Canada
Q Belgium
Q China
Q Netherlands

Q Portugal

Q Sweden

Q South Korea

Q Denmark

Q USA

Q On land

But the potential damage to the ocean ecosystem of seabed

mining is incalculable.

Q In the sea

(sum of estimated metal reserves in the Prime Crust

Zone (PCZ) and the Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ)

Oceans of Energy – approved
projects, by country,
in 1,000kW^4

Wind

power

Wave

power

Tidal
power

427

9 5

3

3 0.8

0.71.4

202

712

5,067

102

44

41

3,295

1,271

1,015

20

11

5,830

7, 0 7 6

230

306

5.4

0.0011

31

260

94

20.5

Manganese (Mn)

Cobalt (Co)

Rare Earth

Oxides

Thallium (T)

Nickel (Ni)

SEPTEMBER- OCTOBER 2019 25