UC San Diego

Abstract: Climate change is expected to profoundly affect key food production sectors, including fisheries and agriculture. However, the potential impacts of climate change on these sectors are rarely considered jointly, and when they are, it is often at a national scale, which can mask substantial variability in how communities will be affected. Here, we combine socioeconomic surveys and intersectoral multi-model simulation outputs to conduct a sub-national analysis of the potential impacts of climate change on fisheries and agriculture in 72 coastal communities across five Indo-Pacific countries. Our study reveals three key findings: First, we find that the overall potential losses to fisheries is higher than potential losses to agriculture, but there is substantial within-country variability. Second, while more than two-thirds of locations will bear a double burden of potential losses to both fisheries and agriculture simultaneously, mitigation could reduce the proportion of places facing a double burden. Third, lower socioeconomic status communities are more likely to experience potential impacts than higher socioeconomic status communities.