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

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

10.1.1 Regional policy commitments When the Arctic Council was created in 1996, its mandate emphasized sustainable development as an overarching goal, in addition to environmental protection (Arctic Council, 1996). The broad mandate was closely linked to the growing international attention to human development in the 1990s as a necessary complement to safeguarding the natural environment. Sustainable development as an overarching goal is also highlighted in the Kirkenes Declaration that established the Barents regional cooperation (Kirkenes Declaration, 1993). While themeaning of sustainable development has been debated with respect to the content of environmental,social,and economic development since itwas first launched (Owens,2003),the concept remains a common normative base for global and regional policy actions. Recently, 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were adopted as a follow-up of earlier work towards the Millennium Development Goals, with the overarching aim to “ end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure prosperity for all ” by 2030 (United Nations, 2015a). Following increased awareness that human well-being is often linked to functioning ecosystems (Millennium EcosystemAssessment, 2005), several of the SDGs explicitly highlight environmental processes. In parallel, and particularly relevant for the Arctic context, is an increasing recognition of indigenous peoples’ holistic understanding of society-nature relationships and a political commitment to respect traditional knowledge (see Chapter 7). The commitment to sustainable development, the recognition of how closely human well-being and the environment are interlinked, and the increasing recognition of indigenous perspectives form the policy context inwhich theArctic Council project Adaptation Actions for a Changing Arctic (AACA) was developed. However, the more immediate impetus came from an urgent need for manyArctic communities, economic sectors and indigenous peoples to adapt to rapidly changing conditions in society and climate, initially highlighted in theArctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA, 2005), and further emphasized in the Snow, Water, Ice, and Permafrost in the Arctic (SWIPA) assessment (AMAP, 2011) and theArctic Human Development Report II (AHDR II) (Nymand Larsen and Fondahl, 2014). In 2012, the Arctic Council committed to an assessment of adaptation options, with a focus on identifying adaptation actions tomultiple changes in theArctic (Chapter 1).The Iqaluit Ministerial Declaration of 2015 reaffirmed this commitment in the broader context of Arctic change:“ Recognize the importance of risk assessments in relation to climate change, and the need to evaluate the widest possible range of impacts,…and welcome the efforts within the project AdaptationActions for a ChangingArctic to integrate climate projections with knowledge about other drivers of change, in order to inform decisions and develop adaptation strategies ” (Arctic Council, 2015, emphasis in original). The AACA is one of many activities within the Arctic Council that now address the impacts of rapid change. Others include the Arctic Resilience Assessment (Arctic Council, 2016), continued work on the Arctic Marine Shipping Assessment (AMSA), and updates of the SWIPA assessment, plus various initiatives aimed at ensuring food, water and energy security for people living in the region and efforts related to ecosystem- based management. In addition,AHDR II has provided an up- to-date assessment of many social and cultural dimensions of

Arctic change,highlighting the diversity of challenges across the Arctic as well as how the Arctic is connected to the rest of the world (Nymand Larsen and Fondahl, 2014). The overarching commitment of sustainable development is today a matter of navigating a complex and rapidly changing social and physical environment, where vulnerabilities stemming from past developments come to the fore, and where the Arctic is an integral part of global change. 10.1.2 Global climate policy commitments: UNFCCC and the Paris Agreement TheArctic is part of a larger global policy landscape and of direct relevance for the AACA is the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which focuses on mitigation of greenhouse gases and on climate adaptation. Article 4 in the UNFCCC commits all parties to “ (f)ormulate, implement, publish and regularly update national and, where appropriate, regional programmes containing… measures to facilitate adequate adaptation to climate change ” and to “ (c)ooperate in preparing for adaptation to the impacts of climate change ” (United Nations, 1992). While UNFCCC’s specific programs and activities related to adaptation mainly concern support for particularly vulnerable developing countries, the overarching commitment is relevant for all parties, and has also played a role in how Arctic countries have developed their national reporting on adaptation activities (for example from Sweden, see Nilsson et al., 2012) (see also Chapter 9). The agreement from the Paris Conference of the Parties in December 2015 further strengthened the commitment to adaptation action with the goal of “ enhancing adaptive capacity, strengthening resilience, and reducing vulnerability to climate change, with a view to contributing to sustainable development and ensuring an adequate adaptation response in the context of the temperature goal ” (United Nations, 2015b; Article 7, subparagraph 1). In the agreement, the parties also “ recognize that the current need for adaptation is significant and that greater levels of mitigation can reduce the need for additional adaptation efforts, and that greater adaptation needs can involve greater adaptation costs ” (Article 7, subparagraph 4). The agreement highlights the need for a “ gender responsive, participatory and fully transparent approach ” that should“ be based on and guided by the best available science and, as appropriate, traditional knowledge, knowledge of indigenous peoples and local knowledge systems... ” (Article 7, subparagraph 5). 10.1.3 The goals of adaptation While the policy commitment to adaptation is solid at both the global and circumpolar level,adaptation is a strategy and a process rather than an end in itself. There are diverse backdrops against which adaptation can be discussed and assessed. In this chapter, the approach has been to focus on sustainable development and human security, which are perspectives that situate adaptation outcomes within a normative frame. Insights have also been drawn fromstudies of social-ecological resilience (Chapter 8) and adaptation in practice (Chapter 9), which highlights the capacity to live with change. Successful adaptation actions may best be measured against some normative goal. One such example is the globally agreed