leaders signed up to a long list of sustainable development goals, among them an agreement to limit government subsidies that contribute to overfishing. Negotiators at the World Trade Organisation were told to finish the job “by 2020”. They have missed their deadline.
Overfishing is a tragedy of the commons, with individuals and countries motivated by short-term self-interest to over-consume a limited resource. By one measure, the share of fish stocks being fished unsustainably has risen from 10% in 1974 to 33% in 2015. Governments make things worse with an estimated $22bn of annual subsidies that increase capacity, including for gear, ice, fuel and boat-building.
Negotiators are trying to devise a system that would alert governments to offending boats, which would become ineligible for future subsidies. That is tangling them up in arguments about what to do when a boat is found in disputed territory, how to deal with frivolous accusations and how to treat boats that are not associated with any country offering subsidies.
When it comes to legal fishing of overfished stocks, it is easier to spot the subsidies in government budget lines, but no easier to agree on what to do about them. America and the European Union, for example, have been arguing over whether to allow subsidies up to a cap, or whether to ban some subsidies and take a lenient approach to the rest. Thefavours the second option, arguing that where fisheries are well-managed, subsidies are not harmful.
China, both the world’s biggest fisher and biggest subsidiser of fishing, has proposed capping subsidies in proportion to the number of people in each country who work in the industry. But it is the world leader here, too, with 10m at the last count . Other countries fear such a rule would constrain China too little.. Ms Tipping thinks this could be helpful, since the issue will not end up hostage to other, even more fraught, trade rows.
You're right, but under an alternative system which has tried and failed spectacularly such as communism, do people not fish or eat fish? Or is it just that they're so inefficient at everything that overfishing isn't an issue? Or that tractors sink?
Capitalism's core principles are contrary to sustainability.
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