Climate Manifesto:
Policies to deliver action and justice

Establish sustainable fisheries objectives

Establish low emission and sustainable fisheries objectives in fishery legislation and report on annual fisheries emissions.

The Scottish Government should develop and adopt climate-determined fishery regulation, to include emissions as a criterion in allocation of fishing opportunity, establish licence conditions on the basis of emissions and mandate annual emissions reporting requirements.

Global annual emissions from fuel use alone in fisheries is estimated to be 179MtCO2e.³⁰⁶ ‘Heavier’ forms of fishing which catch fish and shellfish by towing bottom trawls or dredges (as opposed to placing static traps on the seabed) produce disproportionately higher emissions.

Emissions reductions can be achieved in several ways. Firstly, by recovering fish stocks so that catch per unit effort increases. Secondly, by switching from fuel-inefficient to fuel-efficient forms of fishing (i.e. mobile to static gear). For instance, the fuel needed to catch and land a kilogram of Nephrops can be reduced from 9 litres to 2.2 litres by switching from trawl to creel gear. Numerous other approaches exist including replacement of diesel fuel with electric power, improved hull design and limits on vessel speed. In addition the current licensing system encourages the use of fuel-inefficient, short, wide boats. If updated to focus less on length there could be significant energy and emissions reductions.³⁰⁷

There is also evidence that depletion of marine finfish stocks may be disrupting the functioning of the marine carbon cycle, with the removal of the biological pump mechanism: it is estimated that around 18% of marine carbon fluxes, even with greatly reduced fish abundance, are driven by vertical diurnal migrations of fishes and other marine organisms.³⁰⁸

For further information:

• Climate change and fishing, Marine Conservation Society, 2022, https://www.msc.org/uk/what-weare- doing/oceans-at-risk/climate-change-and-fishing
• The carbon footprint of fisheries, European Commission, https://stecf.jrc.ec.europa.eu/c/ document_library/get_file?uuid=924c1ba8-94af-440d-94cb-f9cb124d2d57&groupId=12762