The Aquaculture and Fisheries sector scenarios (PDF, 3.86 MB)[Aotearoa Circle website] were developed with the Aotearoa Circle and the government, iwi, corporate, and civil society partners.
These scenarios are intended to challenge conventional assumptions about New Zealand’s future and provide stakeholders with a means of stress-testing policy and investment decisions, as well as potential trade-offs associated with their decisions.
- One scenario explores the extreme physical risks of climate change from failed action.
- The other explores the extreme transition risks of climate change following strong efforts to reduce emissions.
Narrative describes anticipated climate change impacts under each scenario
These include projected increases in:
- air temperature
- sea surface temperature
- ocean acidity
- sea level rise
- reduction in dissolved oxygen levels.
Socioeconomic trends explored
These include:
- global population
- economic growth
- carbon and oil pricing.
Anticipated impacts on the aquaculture and fisheries sector are discussed throughout the scenarios. This gives a picture of the anticipated changes in species abundance and fish stocks, alteration in fishing methods, reliance on aquaculture, and impacts on wild capture fisheries.
These scenarios focus on anticipated climate change impacts and risks that are relevant to marine environments and industries and were developed for use by stakeholders in New Zealand’s fisheries and aquaculture sector.
Given the focus on physical and transition risk extremes, the two scenarios are intended to challenge conventional assumptions about the future and offer a means of stress-testing policy and investment decisions and associated trade-offs.
Some public sector entities may find aspects of sector scenarios, such as the Aquaculture and Fisheries scenarios, useful for testing policies or strategies. This will depend on the nature of your organisation and focal question.
The scenarios report presents only two possible future scenarios for the Aquaculture and Fisheries sector. Ideally, climate scenarios are applied in sets of three or more to test a wide range of plausible outcomes.
Entities using these scenarios should ideally develop and apply a third alternative scenario in addition to the two existing scenarios.
There are a total of two aquaculture and fisheries scenarios, each with a different narrative and emissions trajectory.
Kahawai
The ‘Kahawai’ scenario describes a world in 2050 that has succeeded in implementing the Paris Agreement and is likely to keep total warming below 2°C over the course of the century.
Climate-related risks are predominantly transitional with cascading impacts on governance and market structures.
The Kahawai scenario favours sustainable economic growth, but there is pressure to demonstrate agility and flexibility to meet evolving consumer preferences.
Māko
The ‘Māko’ scenario describes a world in 2050 that has failed to curb emissions and is struggling to navigate the physical and socioeconomic consequences of significant climate disruption.
Under this scenario, warming is on-course to exceed 4oC by 2100. Climate-related risks are predominantly physical with cascading economic and market impacts.
The Māko scenario constrains adaptive resilience in the face of deteriorating marine ecosystems due to weak global cooperation.