Responding to the publication of the ‘Physical Science Basis for the Sixth Assessment Report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which unequivocally states that unprecedented CO2 emissions are leading to widespread, rapid and intensifying changes not seen for thousands of years, Our Fish Programme Director Rebecca Hubbard said:
“This latest IPCC report is the wake-up call to beat all wake-up calls. The EU must now take this as their go-button to deliver every climate action that they can, including ending destructive fishing and overfishing – this is crucial for the ocean, which has been key to slowing global warming by absorbing so much excess heat and CO2 emissions.”
“The warming that humans have generated has already locked in changes for hundreds to thousands of years to come – especially for the ocean, with rising sea levels, and the melting of glaciers and sea ice.”
“The frequency and intensity of marine heatwaves – such as that which recently killed a billion marine animals in the Pacific northwest – will also become larger. So the impact on the ocean from climate change will also have increasingly worse consequences for fishers.”
“Scientists are certain that within twenty years we will reach 1.5 degrees of warming, but that if we urgently decarbonise and achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, we can stop the warming. Therefore, every ton of CO2 matters and activities damaging ecosystems that store carbon, such as the seabed and fish populations, must be halted and the environment restored.”
“In the ocean, the EU must fast-track the transition away from the most carbon-emitting activities such as bottom trawling; they must eliminate all fuel subsidies for the fishing industry; and they must comprehensively minimise all climate impacts caused by fishing, so that our ocean ecosystems can be restored and continue to mitigate and adapt to extreme climate change”, she added.
