Seychelles Encourage the Importance of Blue Economy during APEC Summit 2013

Nico Barito (centre) with Herman Daniel Indonesia National Energy Council, Marzan Iskandar Chairman of Indonesia Agency for Assesment and Application of Technology, Helen Bennelt from Australian Departement of Resources & Energy and Takato Ojimi President

For the small island communities the importance of energy security is not associated only to the Green Economy but also on Blue Economy. In order to sustain our planet we must better engage with our oceans as spaces for connection and development rather than space for exploitation, Nico Barito, Special Envoy of Seychelles, expressed during THE APEC Summit 01 to 08 October 2013 in Nusa Dua Bali.
Mr. Barito, who is R20, Director of Asia Pacific is invite to speak on Energy Security for Small Islands Communities at the Plenary Session of Asia - Pacific Economic Cooperation Conference on Clean, Renewable and Sustainable Use of Energy on 1st October 2013. R20 (Regions 20) is an intergovernmental organization founded by former Governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger. R20 members are local governments, countries, private sectors and academics focus on Climate Change Action – renewables toward the sustainable development goals.
He mentioned that to many nations who have access to natural resources and energy modalities there is always concern and solution to compromise the green economy and the use of renewable and sustainable use of energy.
In contrary the small island communities has no significant impact on global CO2 emissions. Taking Seychelles as an example, is a relatively energy efficient country in an international context. Even without formal obligations to abate greenhouse gases, the Republic of Seychelles has a clear interest in decreasing its almost 100% dependency on petroleum products for energy.
The economy of small islands are dominate by the service sector. For Seychelles especially, tourism continues to grow in importance and the consumption of electricity is expect to grow at a tremendous pace in the future.
Despite that offshore oil fields remain dominant energy source for many decades to come – the ocean offers enormous potential wave power, ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) for generation of renewable energy.
For the small island developing states, so do Seychelles which are surrounded by and heavily dependent on the ocean, it is not possible to map the way forward on eradicating poverty and achieving sustainable development without focusing special attention on ocean based economies – or what we call the Blue Economy, said Mr.Barito.
He reiterated that talking about green economy for small islands – the world economy should ensure the smooth transitions from MDGs to SDGs and its essential given to the sustainable development of oceans at small islands developing state such Seychelles.