Blue Economy scenarios: final report

Status: Woe

98. Status woe describes a future where government is authoritative and directive and where the prevailing culture is risk averse. Business is focussed on the short term. Society prefers the status quo.

People have no desire to change their behaviour

99. Whatever people might say they believe about the importance of tackling climate change; the evidence of the last 20 years shows that they actually have no desire to change their behaviours.

100. The reality is that most people don’t really care about net zero anymore. They have been ground down by twenty years’ worth of pronouncements that the end of the world is nigh (whether economically, socially or environmentally); by the erosion of public services; and by increasing anxiety over falling wages and rising costs. Over 55% of households receive some form of benefit to get by and mental health problems in the working population have risen considerably over the last two decades. The younger generation in particular suffer from social anxiety in an atomised world where it sometimes seems as if everyone hates everyone else.

101. There is work for many, but high skill, high value jobs are in short supply and few people enjoy much job security. Not many can guarantee they will get consistent hours each week and fewer get the hours they want or need. Home ownership is a pipe dream for many.

102. Poor public transport infrastructure and unreliable and reduced services mean that car ownership and use remain high. The high cost and low availability of public charging points means that electric vehicles remain a poor option for many and so the number of old, polluting petrol and diesel vehicles on the road remains stubbornly high. Low Emission Zones are still in place but have expanded more slowly than was once hoped.

Government has failed to establish any sustained vision.

103. Society might have been willing to change if they had had effective leadership - but they have not.

104. Scotland’s politicians have been locked in firefighting mode for too long now, constrained by limited funds and fear of losing the populist vote. In this climate, decisions that protect the status quo rather than drive long term change (too difficult, too expensive, too unpopular…) are applauded.

105. Policy makers have been encouraged to be cautious over the last two decades and not to rock the boat. Decisions have been made quickly, often as a reaction to politically expedient issues and often without being properly thought through or connected to other policy initiatives. There has been no effort to join up thinking and no long-term vision about the way ahead.

Scotland’s journey towards net zero has slowed

106. The consequences of this approach are finally becoming apparent.

107. The delay in transitioning away from oil and gas has meant that the offshore and on shore renewables sector has been under-developed for too long. While it has continued to grow to some extent, that growth has been too slow and insufficient investment in skills development over that last two decades means the sector now faces real challenges in achieving growth at the pace it requires to be competitive.

108. The absence of any concerted policies driving transition towards net zero has allowed the majority of Scotland’s small businesses - concerned about the costs of transitioning and with limited capability to re-engineer business processes and train staff – to keep doing what they had always done. Now, as the imperative for change builds, the business base has a very high mountain to climb.

109. The failure to make the difficult strategic choices facing Scotland has had a disastrous impact on rural and remote rural areas which have not seen the investment in production and skills they had hoped for. These communities continue to feel peripheral and under threat from the changing climate and from economic instability.

…and its targets have been pushed back

110. Scotland adjusted its target date for net zero to 2050 a few years ago. It did so ostensibly to align with the rest of the world; but the real purpose was to buy the government one more term since it was apparent pretty early on that the target would be missed. It doesn’t look like it will hit the target by 2050 either.

111. It’s no comfort that Scotland is not the only nation failing to achieve its binding commitments to deliver net zero. Continuing mistrust and geopolitical and economic tensions between nations has acted as a brake on achieving global consensus on the protection of environmental commons. This in turn has had an impact on trade. Scotland and the UK remain reliant on imported goods, but the global economy is weak, and supply chains are vulnerable to external shocks.

Scotland’s blue economy vision is fading

112. The last 20 years have not delivered what Scotland’s marine environment needs either. Two decades of firefighting, limited funding and a sustained focus on short term economic gain has meant that delivery of long-term objectives – no matter how important – has suffered.

113. The sustained focus on offshore energy may have been an easy win politically but funding has mainly shored up existing areas and has not been used for strategic skills development to support transition post oil. Blue carbon cycles and stocks (for example) are not well understood and are not adequately managed to support climate mitigation and adaptation. Investment in carbon capture and storage has stuttered and Scotland has lost advantage.

114. The physical infrastructure required to support the energy sector can be repurposed and if done in time, Scotland’s transport, ports and harbours will continue to do well. It cannot rest on its laurels though and investment must continue.

115. Any funding received by other sectors has been inconsistent and nothing more than a sticking plaster. Fisheries in particular have declined significantly over the last decade. Aquaculture is holding its own for the time being – demand is high – but there are new concerns that it will be negatively impacted by declining biodiversity. Scotland cannot, sadly, be said to be at the forefront of growing, harvesting and farming Blue Foods.

116. Scotland’s two biggest losers are marine nature and its coastal and islands communities.

117. Funding allocations have been inadequate and not informed by – or targeted towards improving - social and economic value of marine natural capital. Pressures on habitats and marine nature have not been adequately managed, and the slow uptake of ecosystem-based solutions means that historically negative impacts have not been reversed.

118. Communities’ hopes for an influx of high-quality skilled blue economy jobs have not been realised. What few jobs do exist are mainly not available to locals because of the lack of skills development. The consequence is that coastal and islands communities have continued to decline as outward migration has exceeded inward migration. Worsening weather continues to erode local infrastructure. It feels like communities are locked into a spiral of decline.

119. Key sector performance in Status: woe

A = significantly stronger than in 2024

B = slightly stronger than in 2024

C = about the same as in 2024

D = slightly weaker than in 2024

E = significantly weaker than in 2024