Abstract
The energy transition of the fishing sector has gained increasing attention in recent
years. With focus on Nordic countries, status, trends, opportunities and challenges are
summarized to provide recommendations for how to effectively enable an energy
transition towards carbon-neutral fisheries. Key challenges include inadequate data
collection and reporting of greenhouse gas emissions, low uptake of available
technologies, reversed financial incentives fostering use of fossil fuels, and obstructing
fishing regulations. Further, emissions are increasing in some countries, and even with
decreasing trends in fuel use intensity (litre of fuel per kg landing), rising fuel costs are
still affecting profitability. To foster an effective energy transition, short term actions
(before 2030) include improved data collection and analysis, improved fishery
governance with possibly a revised fleet policy to avoid maladaptation with climate
targets, support of availability and innovations in alternative technologies, upskilling
fishers, and revision of current financial conditions to enable a just transition. Long-
term actions (before 2040) call for creating the required conditions in society, such as
decreasing costs for and availability of alternative energy sources compared to marine
diesel – calling for major investments by different actors. Overall, co-developing
effective roadmaps for the energy transition of a highly diverse sector will be essential.