December 9, 2019 — Countries from Egypt to Mexico could lose 95% of their income from coral reef tourism, and parts of West Africa could see their ocean fisheries decline by 85% by the turn of the century if planet-warming emissions continue to rise, oceans experts warned Friday.
“Action in reducing emissions really needs to be taken, or we will be facing very important impacts” on oceans and people, said Elena Ojea, one of the authors of a new paper looking at the potential impacts of climate change on ocean economies.
The study, released at the U.N. climate negotiations in Madrid, was commissioned by the leaders of 14 countries with ocean-dependent economies, and looked at ocean fisheries and seafood cultivation industries, and coral reef tourism.
It found that reef tourism, a nearly $36-billion-a-year industry today, could see more than 90% losses globally by 2100 under a high-emissions scenario.
Countries particularly dependent on coral reef tourism – Egypt, Indonesia, Mexico, Thailand and Australia – could see income cut by 95%, the paper noted.
Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, an ocean expert at Australia’s University of Queensland and one of paper’s authors, said his country’s Great Barrier Reef tourism industry – worth billions a year a year – was already seeing losses as corals bleached and died.