Adaptation Actions for a Changing Arctic: Perspectives from the Barents Area

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Chapter 5 · Future narratives

The oil and gas sector is a large player in the region, and Bourmistrov et al. (2015) developed three future scenarios on international petroleum cooperation in the Barents area, with the aim to increase understanding of the challenges and opportunities forArctic petroleumresource development and for future international cooperation. Taking the Murmansk Treaty signed in 2010 by Norway and Russia as the point of departure, the scenarios included both climate and socio-economic factors, addressing uncertainties in future prices of oil and gas; amount of oil and gas found; future of the Asian population and economic growth; spread of unconventional energy use outside the USA; global climate policy; development of the Lofoten area and its infrastructure; speed and level of Arctic petroleum technology development; development of Russian-Western (andNorwegian) relations; and the extent of Russian orientation towards Asia. 5.2.4 Lessons learned Scenarios have most often been developed by scientific experts or in a process including both scientists and local actors.They have typically been developed at the request of municipal or national policy-makers, industry strategists, or following research calls requesting scenario-work tailored to a region or sector. Depending on the nature of the call or request, experts then disseminated the scenarios to policy-makers, while more localized or sector-specific information was conveyed directly to relevant decision-makers (see, for example, Pilli- Sihvola et al., 2015). Some scenarios were more specifically sector- or industry-driven,and did not directly involve scientific experts or policy-makers as such. Looking at the diversity of scenario processes, three dimensions are particularly relevant for further discussion: the degree to which they include both climate-related and social development, the degree of user participation, and the geographic scale.

transport and tourism from the Finnish perspective. Using participatory workshop methods, three scenario narratives were developed with the conclusion that the role of Finland will depend heavily on the economic development of theArctic region as a whole, particularly in the maritime sector. Climate change can create possibilities for the tourism sector, but to harness the benefits, improved risk assessment, management and marketing is needed (Pilli-Sihvola et al., 2016). Research-driven scenarios development projects typically include a mix of researchers and local actors and/or municipal and sectoral representatives working together in the scenario development process using participatory methods, such as workshops and iterative processes where scenarios are developed with inputs from actors or scientists.An alternative approach was applied in the tourism sector project Sustainable Destination Norway 2025. Models for future tourism in the Norwegian Barents area were fed with varying socio-economic parameters (such as global scenarios for population, economic growth, qualitative and quantitative aspects of tourism development, and technological developments and national policy scenarios).While the models were developed with top- down input climate models contributing to Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) work and regional statistical data, the scenarios also included user-controlled inputs about socio-economic futures (Hille et al., 2011). Some of the best known sectoral scenarios in the region come from the shipping industry, and especially from the Arctic Marine Shipping Assessment (AMSA) scenario workshops (Arctic Council, 2009).With nearly 120 identified factors that could shape the future of Arctic marine activity by 2050, climate change was seen as far from the only driver of change. The scenarios were developed by experts and actors in the field, and also included the views of indigenous and non-Arctic actors.

B&C Alexander / ArcticPhoto

Nenets herder and his children in front of a gas rig on the Arctic tundra near Bovanenko, Yamal, western Siberia, Russia