How can marine fishery enable low carbon development in China? Based on system dynamics simulation analysis

As an ingredient of the marine economy, the marine fishery has the dual attributes of carbon source and carbon sink. Marine fisheries are vital to the sustainable development of the marine economy and pivotal to the dual carbon goals. To explore the new mode of low carbon development of marine fishery, this paper utilizes system dynamics to establish the simulation model of low carbon development complex system of Chinese marine fishery for 2010 to 2019. Then, the carbon emission process of Chinese marine fishery is characterized from the perspectives of mariculture, marine fishing, marine processing industry, and marine shellfish carbon sink. This paper also performs policy simulation applying the system dynamics model to forecast and analyze marine fishery carbon emission development trends in adjusting GDP growth rate, fishery industry structure, and marine employment ratio. The simulation results indicate that the socio-economic system can influence marine fishery system development, which is an essential factor driving marine fishery carbon emissions. The number of marine fishery employment is associated with the scale of marine fishery development, which is the primary positive driving factor of carbon emissions from the marine fishery. Under the premise of excluding the heterogeneity of aquatic products, the energy consumption of the marine fishing industry is significantly higher than that of the mariculture industry in producing a unit of marine products, i.e., adjusting the structure of the marine industry can cause an inhibitory effect on the carbon emission of the marine fishery. Our findings contribute to policy implications for policymakers to reasonably restructure the marine fishery industry and the ratio of marine capture to mariculture to facilitate the low-carbon development of marine fishery.