Fewer countries reap the benefits of a future ocean
Climate change; marine fisheries; Bayesian models; species distribution modeling; future projections
Climate change-induced redistribution of fish stocks is anticipated to have global implications for marine fisheries. For instance, it is expected that fish catch potential will increase in higher latitudes, while declining in tropical regions. However, how different countries and fishing gears will respond, and whether they will be able to redistribute their catches spatially in response to these changes remains unknown. We built fisheries distribution models and projected their occurrence globally, across 82 countries and 13 fishing gears in 2100, under two climate scenarios: the low and high levels of greenhouse gas emissions. Globally, fisheries occurrence is expected to significantly increase at the poles, whereas vulnerable fishing-dependent tropical regions like the Indo-Pacific and Western Africa are projected to experience significant declines. We also show that countries already engaged in polar fishing are likely to be the primary beneficiaries of the newly available and favorable fishing grounds, with eventual benefits of climate change being limited to a select few nations, resulting in both winners and losers. East Asian and Pacific nations with fleets predominantly composed of drifting longlines experienced negative impacts, whereas European countries equipped with trawlers and other polar gears reaped benefits. Our findings emphasize the importance of prioritizing the low-emission scenario to reduce the increasing disparities in the future of marine fisheries, given that changes in occurrence were more than twice as high under the high-emission scenario.