A speech by Commissioner Joe Borg at the Baltic Sea 2020 conference on achieving sustainable fisheries, included this reference to climate change: “Fisheries can no longer operate in isolation. Instead, its activities must gel with others, such as coastal development and climate change mitigation. One illustration of this trend can already be seen in the environmental pillar of the Maritime Policy, the Marine Strategy Directive, which sets regional quality objectives which will have a direct bearing on the CFP.”

The Marine Climate Impact Partnership 2010 Annual report Card covers the impact of the climate on UK seas and outlines a number of physical parameters of the marine ecosystem which are defined by the climate, coining the phrase, ocean-climate.

This 6 page summary of the issues surrounding fisheries and climate change, "Fisheries and aquaculture in our changing climate ", was prepared as the consensus opinion of 20 agencies in preparation for the UN Climate talks in Copenhagen in 2009. It discusses the link between traditional human impacts on the marine environment, such as habitat destruction to the approaches needed when addressing climate change impacts and adaptation in fisheries. Unusually, it includes gender issues in fishing folk communities and the importance of strategic investment.

This detailed report, "Enhancing the resilience of inland fisheries and aquaculture systems to climate change", is interesting because it explores inland (freshwater) fisheries in wetland and arid areas, particularly in Africa. It examines the relationship between the need for adaptation of inland fisheries to climate change and the development of supportive governance structures.

Vulnerability of national economies to the impacts of climate change on fisheries

This 4 side note, "Fisheries and aquaculture can provide solutions to cope with climate change", holds may useful ideas and advises that aquaculture is an important means of diversifying and improving the productivity of farming systems and for improving food security in many regions, especially in Africa and Asia.

This short briefing document by the World Fish Centre, "The threat to fisheries and aquaculture from climate change", is very useful with some informative maps and tables of summary information on the impacts of climate change on capture fisheries and aquaculture both in marine and freshwater environments. For example, it reports that Lake Tanganyika provides 25-40% of animal protein for the countries which surround it and that temperature driven stratification has reduced planktivorous fish productivity by an estimated 30%. The key messages from the report are below.