Climate change impacts nearly every aspect of the marine environment and life in the seas, primarily, but not exclusively, through rising temperatures. In addition to the impacts of climate change on the ocean, the added CO2 in the atmosphere is having an additional impact on the ocean and life within it, that of ocean acidification.

This IUCN and Natural England report, "The Management of Natural Coastal Carbon Sinks" examines the role of coastal habitats as carbon sinks, the losses of these sinks over time and opportunities to restore coastal habitats to mitigate climate change. The report covers the potential benefits to the climate of restoring mangroves, salt marshes, sea grass beds and kelp beds. It also examines coral reefs. Restoration of these habitats for climate mitigation purposes would all have beneficial impacts on fisheries. Edited by Dan Laffoley and Gabriel Grimsditch, Nov 2009.

This 2009 report, 'The Impacts of the Oceans on Climate Change', identifies a number of vast biological and physical carbon pumps and sinks in the marine environment, dwarfing terrestrial systems, which are reducing climate change by absorbing CO2 from the atmosphere. The report finds, however, that as the seas warm and change due to climate change and ocean acidification, this capacity to buffer climate change can be reduced, leaving more CO2 in the atmosphere to cause additional climate change. In some cases, this seems to be underway already.

Section 1.6, fisheries and aquaculture, of this report gives some useful and inspiring examples of combining aquaculture with enhancing coastal carbon sinks. The approaches differ among and within countries but mainly constitute the integration of mangrove ponds and pens for fish and crabs (Primavera, 2000). Such systems not only sequester carbon, but they are also more resilient to shocks and extreme events and also lead to increased production due to improved ecosystem services. This report also discusses carbon uptake potentials of laminaria aquaculture.

Oceanic production of calcium carbonate is conventionally attributed to marine plankton (coccolithophores and foraminifera). This report finds that marine fish produce precipitated carbonates within their intestines and excrete these at high rates. When combined with estimates of global fish biomass, this suggests that marine fish contribute 3 to 15% of total oceanic carbonate production.

This in-depth report, "Aquaculture Development and Global Carbon Budgets: Emissions, Sequestration and Management Options", examines a suite of diverse mechanisms to promote a reduction in carbon emissions and enhancement of carbon sinks associated with marine and freshwater aquaculture of fish and shell fish.

The Worldwatch Institute has published a report on aquaculture and a short summary of it is available here.

The U.S. Department of Commerce has adopted a policy to increase the value of domestic aquaculture production fivefold by 2025. This report considers how to develop U.S. aquaculture in a more sustainable way, by reviewing work based on manner energy analysis, ecological footprint analysis, and life cycle assessment. It finds that extensive aquaculture systems are amongst the most energy efficient producers of animal protein currently in operation and many forms of intensive aquaculture are amongst the least energy efficient protein producers.