UBC study warns climate change could cost fishing industry billions
Posted September 11, 2016 7:49 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – We’re learning more about some of the potential economic pain ahead if climate change isn’t slowed down. A new UBC study is warning the fisheries industry could lose out on billions of dollars’ worth of revenue in the coming years.
“We haven’t really looked at the economic part — the impacts on revenue,” says Vicky Lam, lead author the study published in the journal Scientific Reports. “So this is the first ever study at a global level to look at revenues.”
Overfishing has already depleted stocks in certain parts of the world.
Add in rising temperatures and ocean acidification and it’s a formula for a major financial hit — perhaps as high as $10-billion in annual revenue losses by 2050 for the worldwide fisheries industry.
“In our study, our results show that global revenue will decrease by about 10 percent in the 2050s from the current status,” says Lam.
Lam says reducing emissions and otherwise working to protect fish populations will be essential to addressing the situation.
