Building climate resilience, social sustainability and equity in global fisheries

The Paris Agreement adopted by the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference (PA), aims to limit global warming, and establish provisions for engaging in international cooperation, including carbon market mechanisms. Little research has been done in developing universal operational tools to reach the benefits of achieving the PA climate targets. To fill this key research gap, CO2 permit markets are used towards a global market-based solutions scheme to implement blue carbon climate targets for global fisheries. The scheme creates a scarcity value for the right to not sequester carbon, generating an asset of carbon sequestration allowances, based on the past landings of the fishing industry. The scheme identifies fishing activities that could be reduced because they are biologically negative, economically inefficient, and socially unequitable. Results show that 17% to 76% of the global landings can be socially inefficient, with an unequal distribution of this inefficiency among countries and fishing areas.