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

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Chapter 9 · Adaptation options

9.4.3.2 Trade-offs Municipalities are responsible for safeguarding their residents and communities; they are also responsible for addressing pressing tasks required by law.There is a clear lack of financial and human resources whenmandatory andmore tangible tasks, such as those concerning healthcare,schools and education,and care for elderly, are being discussed.This means that long-term adaptation planning, which is not mandatory, is not prioritized when resources are distributed at local government level. Local governments in both Sweden and Norway point to a lack of resources to implement adaptation measures, and the need to focus on mandatory tasks, such as education, healthcare, roads and waste handling (e.g.Dannevig et al., 2013; Keskitalo, 2013). Climate adaptation, for example, only becomes relevant when coinciding with these concerns and tasks. 9.4.3.3 Available and relevant knowledge Studies on adaptation to changing climatic and societal conditions in northern Norway show that the lack of available and relevant knowledge about future climate change and how it will affect communities and sectors, creates a barrier for responding to such changes. Knowledge can only be used if it is available, understandable and relevant for local conditions and activities. Several actors, including local governments and farmers, have been requesting tailor-made climate scenarios to help them understand the potential impacts of climate change for their own activities. In Finnish regional climate strategies, climate scenarios and projections (such as the potential for fewer snow cover days and increased precipitation) have been elaborated with local and practitioners’ and sectorial expert knowledge so as to identify those questions that are most important for the region and to livelihoods.These projections are freely available on websites. Availability and relevance pertain both to whether the knowledge is tailored to local contexts and to whether it is presented in a way that is understandable. Limits to adaptation are created when the knowledge and information providers ignore or are not aware of this dilemma.Therefore the problem is not about lack of knowledge in many cases, but more about relevant and understandable knowledge that is transferable or applicable to local contexts. 9.4.3.4 Lack of resources A limiting factor in the municipal sector is funding and time for municipal employees to integrate adaptation into their daily practice. Municipalities in the Barents area are generally geographically large but sparsely populated, which means a small tax basis from the residents and with some redistribution nationally. However, the headquarters of large companies that may contribute to earnings to several percentage points of gross national product (GNP), are often located in capital cities or outside the country.The real income at municipal level depends on local employment,and is diminished by fly-in fly-out workers (oil platforms or mining) who do not pay taxes at their places of work. In Sweden, taxes are not paid in the locality of second homes, which has increasing disadvantages for northern areas with a high proportion of second homes.For example,Borgafjäll

in Sweden has 75 permanent residents but more than 400 second homes (Robertsson and Marjavaara, 2014). Given these conditions (being sparsely populated andwith commuters),local governments generally have limited resources for integrating adaptation (although exceptions do arise). There is progress in Sweden in terms of dedicated funding for climate change adaptation,which will also affect other adaptive measures,given that climate change impacts are not isolated fromother changes. In Finland, there is a strong tradition of climate change research and impact assessments but this information is mostly oriented tomitigation and to the national level. Transferability to local or regional levels and adaptation needs is not direct, and regional and local climate strategies are developed in order to identify specific regional and local needs. These regional and local climate strategies must also address national goals. Although the transferability of national goals to a regional and local context may be problematic,regional and local decision-makers are requesting better guidelines and support from the national level (Amundsen et al., 2010; Himanen et al., 2012). In Sweden, a fundamental barrier to climate change adaptation is the limitation in the existing framework for adaptation: there is a need for a clearer distribution of responsibilities of different actors and clear and long-termfunding (including to some extent to municipalities) (Keskitalo, 2010a; Andersson et al., 2015).At the Norwegian national level, there has been a reallocation of responsibility relevant to adaptation, both among the ministries and the directorates.The ministerial responsibility for the land- use planning section of the Planning and BuildingAct no longer sits with the Ministry of Climate and Environment, but with the Ministry of Local Government and Modernisation. This shift may have implications for the inclusion of adaptation. As noted in Section 9.4.2, the directorate responsible for adaptation was transferred from the Norwegian Directorate for Civil Protection to the Environment Agency, which was already responsible for mitigation. This shift has caused some ambiguity regarding responsibility for adaptation, especially because the Norwegian Directorate for Civil Protection retains responsibility for adaptation within the areas under its jurisdiction, including risk analysis.The effects of the national level changes on adaptation are yet to be seen. With respect to resource management (such as fisheries and agriculture), adaptation will have limited success if the measures do not include a combination of scientific knowledge, regulations and implementation. Lack of cross-sectoral measures is a tangible barrier to adaptation. 9.4.3.7 Ignoring local and traditional knowledge Local and traditional knowledge play a significant role in developing efficient and relevant adaptation measures (see also Chapter 7). Its use in local adaptation plans within the Barents area varies widely, from Finnish Lapland where such 9.4.3.5 Transferability of national goals and guidelines to local concerns 9.4.3.6 Unclear responsibilities and insufficient frameworks