23.01.2012

Vulnerability and Adaptation to Climate Change in the Arctic

Vulnerability and Adaptation to Climate Change in the Arctic (VACCA): Implementing Recommendations

Reducing vulnerability and implementing adaptation to climate change represents a significant challenge for the Arctic region. This report provides recommendations aimed towards Norway's government, suggesting how concrete climate change adaptation activities may be implemented and applied to policy and practice. The Arctic Council supported VACCA (Vulnerability and Adaptation to Climate Change in the Arctic) project, approved in 2007, was designed to provide practical, useful knowledge and information sharing at different governance levels and for different sectors, so that these lessons learned could be incorporated into policies and decision making.

This report follows up recommendations from the first VACCA project, in particular the third recommendation: "Produce a series of analyses and assessments to promote and facilitate Arctic climate change related action".

The suggestions presented in this report are based on in-depth interviews with Arctic peoples and people involved in the Arctic, combined with desk-top studies of relevant literature. Interviewees from all Arctic countries except from Greenland have been consulted, resulting in a total of 27 interviews, conducted face-to-face, via telephone/Skype or in the form of email consultations.

Based on the consultations, four Arctic contexts have been defined within the dividing lines coastal/non-coastal and urban/non-urban. This report provides up to five concrete recommendations within each context, as well as a list of recommendations for cross-contextual action.

The recommendations include involving Arctic peoples in decision-making processes; using traditional, local, and indigenous knowledge; improving conflict resolution mechanisms; supporting research on climate change adaptation in the region; increasing climate change adaptation awareness among Arctic peoples; increasing the opportunities to gain from the Arctic region becoming a more important resource base, combined with increased shipping activities; and implementing measures to increase understanding and cooperation between Russia and the other Arctic states.

The main goal of the project is to inform Norway's authorities on a national level about what people in the Arctic are experiencing, what they recommend and prioritize regarding climate change. The advice in this report is thus based on responses from interviewees who may have differing interests and different levels of knowledge. As such, the recommendations provided cannot be taken to represent the views of the report authors or funders, and some inconsistencies within the recommendations might be evident.

Further research priorities have been identified as mapping out the needs and actions for local climate change adaptation in Norwegian communities, including risk and vulnerability analysis in already developed areas; assessing how to support local Russian climate change adaptation projects; coordinating and linking observational networks; engagement of youth; and evaluating measures for conflict resolution in the Arctic.

The project has been carried out in cooperation with CICERO (Center for International Climate and Environmental Research - Oslo).

For more information, contact Julia P. Loe:

The full report can be downloaded here:

R-2011-059_VULNERABILITY_AND_ADAPTATION_TO_CLIMATE_CHANGE_IN_THE_ARCTIC.pdf (PDF 658 kb)