Date of Publication: March 1, 2021

Author: John Virdin, Henrik Österblom & Jean-Baptiste Jouffray

Summary:

The volume of goods transported by container shipping each year has quadrupled since 2000. During the same time period, most major discoveries of oil and gas deposits have been made offshore and around 1.4 million square kilometres of the seabed has been leased for exploratory mining. This expansion in the ocean-industry is known as “the blue acceleration”. In 2018, the 100 largest companies took an estimated 60% of all revenues in the ocean-based industries. Powerful companies can more easily lobby governments to weaken social or environmental rules that might otherwise make them limit greenhouse gas emissions or pay higher wages.

Link to Full Reading:

https://theconversation.com/blue-economy-how-a-handful-of-companies-reap-most-of-the-benefits-in-multi-billion-ocean-industries-153165