scholarly journals Arctic Futures–Future Arctics?

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (16) ◽  
pp. 9420
Author(s):  
Oran R. Young
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Driving Forces ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Multiple Perspectives ◽  
Arctic Council ◽  
The Future ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
The One ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Socioeconomic Consequences

Is the Arctic sufficiently distinctive and uniform to justify adopting a holistic perspective in thinking about the future of the region? Or do we need to acknowledge that the Arctic encompasses a number of different subregions whose futures may diverge more or less profoundly? In the aftermath of the Cold War, a view of the Arctic as a distinctive region with a policy agenda of its own arose in many quarters and played a prominent role in shaping initiatives such as the launching of the Arctic Environmental Protection Strategy in 1991 and the creation of the Arctic Council in 1996. Yet not everyone found this perspective persuasive at the time, and more recent developments have raised new questions about the usefulness of this perspective as a basis for thinking about the future of the Arctic. As a result, some observers take the view that we need to think more about future Arctics than about Arctic futures. Yet, today, climate change provides a central thread tying together multiple perspectives on the Arctic. The dramatic onset of climate change has turned the Arctic into the frontline with regard to the challenges of adapting to a changing biophysical setting. Ironically, the impacts of climate change also have increased the accessibility of massive reserves of hydrocarbons located in the Arctic, contributing to a feedback loop accelerating climate change. This means that the future of the Arctic will reflect the interplay between efforts to address the biophysical and socioeconomic consequences of climate change on the one hand and the influence of the driving forces underlying the political economy of energy development on the other.

The Futurists. Experts in World Futures

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jenny Andersson
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
The Other ◽  
Futures Studies ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Status ◽  
The One ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Images Of The Future ◽  
The Way

Alvin Toffler’s writings encapsulated many of the tensions of futurism: the way that futurology and futures studies oscillated between forms of utopianism and technocracy with global ambitions, and between new forms of activism, on the one hand, and emerging forms of consultancy and paid advice on the other. Paradoxically, in their desire to create new images of the future capable of providing exits from the status quo of the Cold War world, futurists reinvented the technologies of prediction that they had initially rejected, and put them at the basis of a new activity of futures advice. Consultancy was central to the field of futures studies from its inception. For futurists, consultancy was a form of militancy—a potentially world altering expertise that could bypass politics and also escaped the boring halls of academia.

scholarly journals How Does the Arctic Council Support Conservation of Arctic Biodiversity?

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (12) ◽  
pp. 5042
Author(s):  
Tom Barry ◽  
Brynhildur Daviðsdóttir ◽  
Níels Einarsson ◽  
Oran R. Young
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Environmental Protection ◽  
Indigenous Communities ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Arctic Council ◽  
National Interests ◽  
Conflicting Demands ◽  
Agent Of Change ◽  
Insight Into

The Arctic Council is an intergovernmental forum promoting cooperation, coordination and interaction among Arctic states, indigenous communities, and peoples on issues of common importance. The rising geo-political importance of the Arctic and the onset of climate change has resulted in the Council becoming a focus of increasing interest from both inside and beyond the Arctic. This has resulted in new demands placed on the Council, attracting an increasing number of participants, and instigating a period of transformation as Arctic states work to find a way to balance conflicting demands to improve the Council’s effectiveness and take care of national interests. This paper considers whether, during this time of change, the Council is having an impact on the issues it was formed to address, i.e., environmental protection and sustainable development. To provide answers, it looks at how the Council reports on and evaluates progress towards the implementation of recommendations it makes regarding biodiversity, how it identifies where activities have had impacts and uncovers the mechanisms through which they were successful, to provide an insight into how the Arctic Council can be an agent of change.

scholarly journals Arktisk politik og regimedannelse i 2010'erne

Nordlit ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 151
Author(s):  
Nikolaj Petersen
Keyword(s):  
Final Section ◽  
Oil And Gas ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Outer Continental Shelf ◽  
National Authority ◽  
Arctic Council ◽  
Regime Formation ◽  
International Shipping ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
The Unclos

Recent developments have placed the High North on the international agenda. These include global warming, the prospects of major oil and gas finds, the opening of the Arctic Ocean to international shipping and the ongoing partition of its outer continental shelf between the five coastal states. In the so-called Ilulissat Declaration of 2008 these "Arctic Five" promised to play according to the UNCLOS rules and to shoulder their responsibility as coastal states. Despite this, the future may see both cooperation and conflict in the Arctic. The aim of the article is to discuss the possibilities of cooperative schemes, regimes, to regulate the problems which increasing shipping and extraction industries and fisheries may cause. First, a survey of future Arctic actors and fora is presented. While Arctic politics isstill dominated by the eight members of the Arctic Council, other actors, most clearly China, South Korea, Japan and the European Commission, are pressuring for influence. Furthermore, the Arctic Council is pressured by the "Arctic Five" and has reacted by establishing a secretariat and by adopting its first binding decision, anagreement on cooperation in search and rescue operations. Other relevant fora are the IMO, the WMO and UNCLOS. Next, an inventory of future "tasks" facing the Arctic nations is presented. They include defence tasks, sovereignty tasks, national authority tasks, and tasks, which can only (or best) be handled in regimes. Such regimes seem most needed with respect to international shipping. In the final section the discussion on possible regimes gets more concrete. Many tasks can best be handled by the IMO, but the Arctic Council, the WMO and UNCLOS have also roles to play. In particular, the five Arctic costal states have acrucial role as providers of specific regime services. Without their participation Arctic regime-formation is a non-starter,

The Role of the Arctic Council from an International Law Perspective: Past, Present and Future

2014 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 349-374 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yoshinobu Takei
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Essential Role ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Arctic Council ◽  
Treaty Negotiations ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Law Making

Established in 1996, the Arctic Council has played an essential role in promoting pan- Arctic cooperation on various issues concerning the Arctic. Increasingly, its activities have contributed to the development of international law relating to the Arctic in terms of law-making and implementation. Recent developments make it pertinent to investigate the possibilities and challenges faced by the Arctic Council in developing legally binding instruments and otherwise contributing to the development of international law relating to the Arctic. How has the Council been engaged in activities that contribute to the development of international law? What factors have affected these activities? This article describes the structure of the Arctic Council and its status under international law; analyzes important developments relating to this issue in the period before the 2009 Ministerial Meeting held in Tromsø, Norway; examines the processes in which two legally binding instruments were negotiated and eventually adopted as well as elements common to these agreements; and discusses Arctic Council processes relevant to the development of international law other than treaty negotiations under its auspices.

8. Arctic futures

2021 ◽  
pp. 137-142
Author(s):  
Klaus Dodds ◽  
Jamie Woodward
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Genetic Diversity ◽  
Economic Development ◽  
Environmental Changes ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Small Community ◽  
Arctic Amplification ◽  
Arctic Council ◽  
Svalbard Archipelago ◽  
Governance Model

‘Arctic futures’ discusses the future of the Arctic that starts in the Norwegian territory of Svalbard wherein the Global Seed Vault functions as an Arctic sanctuary for the genetic diversity of crops. The Svalbard archipelago is a hotspot of Arctic amplification as rapid warming has been keenly felt by the small community. However, the environmental changes, no matter how stark and widespread, will not dampen interest in economic development and strategic posturing. Arctic states and northern peoples remain eager to improve their social and economic conditions as well as adapt to ongoing climate change. The Arctic is a haven of international peace and cooperation as the Arctic Council is cited as a governance model that others could emulate.

The Paris Agreement and the Future of the Climate Regime

2019 ◽  
pp. 189-205 ◽  
Author(s):  
Annalisa Savaresi
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
International Law ◽  
Paris Agreement ◽  
Global Mean Temperature ◽  
The Future ◽  
International Climate ◽  
The One ◽  
Global Mean ◽  
Important Objective ◽  
Climate Change Governance

This chapter discusses how international law has responded to climate change, focusing on the challenges that have faced implementation of existing climate treaties, and on the suitability of the Paris Agreement to address these. Expectations of this new treaty could scarcely be greater: the Paris Agreement is meant to provide a framework to improve international cooperation on climate change, and to keep the world within the global mean temperature-change goal identified by scientists as safe. Yet, whether and how this important objective will be reached largely depends, on the one hand, on the supporting political will and, on the other, on the redesign of the international architecture for climate governance. This chapter specifically reflects on international law-making and on the approach to climate change governance embedded in the Paris Agreement, drawing inferences from the past, to make predictions on what the future may hold for international climate change law.

scholarly journals Is It Time for a Reset in Arctic Governance?

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (16) ◽  
pp. 4497 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oran R. Young
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
The United States ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Peripheral Region ◽  
Great Power ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Arctic Council ◽  
Ground Zero ◽  
Regime Complex

Conditions in the Arctic today differ from those prevailing during the 1990s in ways that have far-reaching implications for the architecture of Arctic governance. What was once a peripheral region regarded as a zone of peace has turned into ground zero for climate change on a global scale and a scene of geopolitical maneuvering in which Russia is flexing its muscles as a resurgent great power, China is launching economic initiatives, and the United States is reacting defensively as an embattled but still potent hegemon. This article explores the consequences of these developments for Arctic governance and specifically for the role of the Arctic Council. The article canvasses options for adjusting the council’s membership and its substantive remit. It pays particular attention to opportunities for the council to play a role in managing the increasingly complex Arctic regime complex.

Can the Arctic Council and the Northern Forum find common ground?

Polar Record ◽  
2002 ◽  
Vol 38 (207) ◽  
pp. 289-296 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oran R. Young
Keyword(s):  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
Bureaucratic Politics ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Arctic Council ◽  
Global Issues ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Voice ◽  
Two Bodies

AbstractThe Arctic Environmental Protection Strategy (the forerunner of the Arctic Council) and the Northern Forum are both products of the sea change in Arctic politics occurring in the wake of the end of the Cold War. Both are soft law arrangements and both are lightly institutionalized. Yet these similarities have not provided a basis for collaboration between the Arctic Council (AC) and the Northern Forum (NF). For the most part, the two bodies have behaved like ships passing in the night. This article seeks to explain this lack of collaboration and to evaluate future prospects in this realm. The lack of collaboration is attributable in part to a number of sources of tension or fault lines, including issues relating to core-periphery relations, the concerns of indigenous peoples, divergent constituencies, the Russian connection, and bureaucratic politics and the complexities of political leadership. In part, it stems from ambiguities about the status of the AC and the NF combined with restrictions on the roles these bodies can play. There is little prospect of combining the two bodies into a more comprehensive Arctic regime. But there are opportunities to devise a realistic division of labor and to develop useful coordination mechanisms. The AC, for example, is the appropriate vehicle for efforts to strengthen the voice of the Arctic regarding global issues; the NF is well-suited to dealing with matters of community viability. Ultimately, the two bodies might consider creating a joint working group on sustainable development or organizing occasional joint meetings of the AC's Senior Arctic Officials and the NF's Executive Committee.

scholarly journals Biden Administration's Arctic Policy Outlook

2021 ◽  
pp. 0
Author(s):  
Nikita Lipunov
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Infrastructure Projects ◽  
Arctic Council ◽  
White House ◽  
Multilateral Cooperation ◽  
Arctic Policy ◽  
Rules Of The Game

The goal of US Arctic policy today is to consolidate its status as an Arctic power. To that end, the Biden administration has reshuffled personnel and institutions, stepped up the fight against climate change, initiated infrastructure projects in Alaska, and emphasised multilateral cooperation, including through NATO and the Arctic Council. The White House is not interested in excessive confrontation with Russia in the region and recognises the need for clear 'rules of the game' in the Arctic.

scholarly journals Eco-utopia or eco-catastrophe? Re-imagining California as an ecological utopia

Elem Sci Anth ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ronnie D. Lipschutz
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Good Deal ◽  
The Other ◽  
Nuclear Threat ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Neal Stephenson ◽  
The One ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Trump Administration

In this article, I explore four California-based eco-utopias: The Earth Abides (George Stewart, 1949), Ecotopia (Ernest Callenbach, 1975), Pacific Edge (Kim Stanley Robinson, 1990), and Snow Crash (Neal Stephenson, 1992). All four novels were written during, and deeply informed by, the Cold War (Although published in 1992, Snow Crash was clearly written toward the end of the Cold War and in the shadow of Soviet implosion), against a backdrop of imminent nuclear holocaust and a doubtful future. Since then, climate change has replaced the nuclear threat as a looming existential dilemma, on which a good deal of writing about the future is focused. Almost 70 years after the appearance of The Earth Abides, and 40 years after the publication of Ecotopia, eco-utopian imaginaries now seem both poignant yet more necessary than ever, given the tension between the anti-environmental proclivities of the Trump Administration, on the one hand, and the tendency of climate change to suck all of the air out of the room, on the other. And with drought, fire, flood, wind and climate change so much in the news, it is increasingly difficult to imagine eco-utopias of any sort; certainly they are not part of the contemporary zeitgeist—except in the minds of architects, bees and futurists, perhaps. But does this mean there is no point in thinking about them, or seeking insights that might make our future more sustainable? This article represents an attempt to revive eco-utopian visions and learn from them.

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