Innovation and advances in clean green energy present a “pivotal turning point in human history”, First Minister Alex Salmond said yesterday.
He urged private finance leaders to seize the multibillion-pound opportunities in renewable and low carbon technology.
Mr Salmond opened the Scottish Low Carbon Investment conference in Edinburgh, where more than 450 leading figures from international finance, energy and other sectors have gathered to explore opportunities and help accelerate private investment in a global market that is forecast to grow to £4.3trillion by 2015.
The first minister also unveiled an industry-led Offshore Wind Route Map, setting out key actions required in the coming years to fully realise the huge potential around the coast of Scotland, which is estimated to have a quarter of Europe’s potential offshore wind and tidal capacity and a 10th of its wave resource.
He said: “This is more than a once-in-a-generation opportunity. Until now, mankind has largely been reliant on carbon-based energy for fuel. Ever present was the realisation that finite resources must eventually run out.
“More recently has been the realisation that our overuse of carbon and dependence on petrochemicals threatens the climate itself.
“The move to renewable energy is fundamentally different from the move from wood to coal or coal to oil and gas. That was just moving from one form of carbon-based energy to another. The wind and the waves will be with us forever. Once we make that shift to renewable energy, there will be no going back.
“This is a pivotal turning point in human history, on a par with the move from hunter-gathering to settled agricultural communities or the discovery of the new world in 1492. This new world of energy will be gained not by force and conquest but by innovation and ingenuity.”
Mr Salmond said that in Scotland up to 60,000 new green jobs could be created across the low-carbon sector by the end of this decade, with 28,000 of them directly servicing domestic and worldwide offshore wind markets.
He told conference delegates: “Capital may be difficult to get but the renewable resources of our land and sea are scarcely touched and now opening up.
“While we won’t find all of the financing solutions this week, we know that it has been done before with North Sea oil and gas a generation ago. And we can do it again on the same scale. Let’s get down to work and bring our renewables revolution closer to reality.”
The conference continues today.
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