Climate Change Impacts on Fisheries and Human Welfare

Anthropogenic climate change is considered a major driver of impacts on global marine fisheries that may have huge impacts on economics and livelihoods of our society. The predicted warming related change in ocean condition including ocean warming, acidification, changes in ocean circulation and chemistry will have large effects on the pattern and intensity of fishing activities and result in changes in fishing costs, the values of fisheries catch, and hence economic benefits. The shift in distribution and amount of economic benefits from fisheries may have great implications for the sustainability of fish stocks, marine conservation, food security, local economy, and fisheries management. Particularly, these impacts are unevenly distributed across countries at different geographic locations. In this study, we assess the potential direct impacts of global climate change on the economics of fisheries of all major countries and regions in the world in terms of landed values, fishing costs, sum of wages earned by fishers, profits made by fishing enterprises and economic rent. There are substantial differences in the economic impacts of fisheries by country and region. With these information, we identify countries which are more vulnerable to change in climate and its consequent impact on marine resources. These estimates are crucial in developing policies for avoiding, adapting and mitigating climate change impacts on the fisheries sector.