Climate Change and Human Security from a Northern Point of View
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Climate Change and Human Security from a Northern Point of View Edited by Lassi Heininen and Heather Nicol © The authors, 2016 Centre on Foreign Policy and Federalism St. Jerome’s University 290 Westmount Road N. Waterloo, ON, Canada N2L 3G3 www.sju.ca/cfpf All rights reserved. This ebook may not be reproduced without prior written consent of the copyright holder. Heininen, Lassi, and Heather Nicol, editors Climate Change and Human Security from a Northern Point of View Issued in electronic format. ISBN: 978-0-9684896-3-5 (pdf) Page design and typesetting by P. Whitney Lackenbauer Cover design by Daniel Heidt Distributed by the Centre on Foreign Policy and Federalism Please consider the environment before printing this e-book CLIMATE CHANGE AND HUMAN SECURITY FROM A NORTHERN POINT OF VIEW Edited by Lassi Heininen and Heather Nicol 2016 Climate Change and Human Security from a Northern Point of View Acknowledgements This book is based on the presentations of the Calotte Academy with the main theme Climate Change Defining Human Security held in May 2008 in Inari, Finland, Kirkenes, Norway, and Murmansk, Russia; and on the workshop Geopolitics, Resources and Security: Asia and the Arctic in the 21st century held in April 2011 in Ottawa, Canada. Although there has been a delay in publishing this collection, the chapters have not been updated substantively. Readers should consider them accordingly. This book has been completed under the auspices of the University of the Arctic and the Northern Research Forum Thematic Network on Geopolitics and Security. Thanks to Whitney Lackenbauer, Daniel Heidt and Corah Hodgson at the Centre on Foreign Policy & Federalism for their assistance with copy editing, layout, and publication of this volume. Climate Change and Human Security from a Northern Point of View Contents Section A: Introduction ............................................................................... 1 Chapter 1. Climate Change as a Challenge for Human Security, and an Excellent Case for the Interplay between Science and Politics (in the North): A Brief Introduction by Lassi Heininen and Heather Nicol ............................................. 3 Section B: Climate Change and Arctic Populations ..................................... 21 Chapter 2. Climate Change & Renewable Energy Prospects in North-West Russia and Energy Security as Part of Ecological Security by Svetlana Touinova ..... 23 Chapter 3. Accepting Uncertainty: The Role of Nonhuman Agency in Shaping Responses to Climate Change by Lisa M. Cockburn ........................................ 39 Chapter 4. Climate Change and Human Rights: Making the Case for Viliui Sakha of Northeastern Siberia by Susan Crate ............................................................ 51 Chapter 5. Impacts of climate change in everyday life in the Nenets Autonomous Okrug by Tuula Tuisku .................................................................................. 63 Chapter 6. Inuit Foreign Policy and International Relations in the Arctic by Nadine Fabbi .............................................................................................................. 77 Section C: Climate Change, Security and International Cooperation ........... 97 Chapter 7. The Formation of Extended Security and Climate Change in the Arctic from 1987-2010 by Willy Østreng ................................................................. 99 Chapter 8. Asian States in Arctic Affairs by Heather Exner-Pirot.......................... 117 Chapter 9. Canada’s Northern Strategy and East Asian Interests in the Arctic by P. Whitney Lackenbauer and James Manicom ..................................................... 127 Chapter 10. Maritime Governance of the U.S. Arctic Region by James Kraska .... 165 Chapter 11. Marine Protected Areas in Russian Waters: Legal Framework for a Climate Change Resilience Tool by Mikhail Kalentchenko ............................. 189 Climate Change and Human Security from a Northern Point of View Section D: Overview and Conclusions ...................................................... 201 Chapter 12. Natural News, Scholarly Discourses and the Arctic: From New Cold War to “Business Is Usual” by Heather Nicol ................................................. 203 Chapter 13. On Climate Change as a Relevant Geopolitical and Security Factor in the Circumpolar North by Lassi Heininen ..................................................... 219 Contributors ...................................................................................................... 251 Section A Section A: Introduction “Climate change as a new discipline for disciplining?” Climate Change and Human Security from a Northern Point of View Heininen and Nicol Chapter 1 Climate Change as a Challenge for Human Security, and an Excellent Case for the Interplay between Science and Politics (in the North): A Brief Introduction Lassi Heininen and Heather Nicol Abstract Climate change is a hot issue in the politics of the early-21st century. It has become a totalizing discourse, in the sense that it compels scientists to write reports and to develop future risk scenarios, or environmentalists to engage in climate change discourses. It has moved populations and individuals from positions of disinterest to one of genuine and shared concern about their (human) security. Even the Nobel Prize Committee was compelled to interpret climate change as a security issue. In the meantime, politicians react, lawmakers plan even stricter regulations as to what human beings are (or are not) allowed to do, citizens recognize these new regulations and modify behaviour according to them, and governments worry about their national security and sovereignty. Consequently, climate change (due to its impacts) has tremendous currency and social relevance and, because of the way in which it represents challenges to environmental security, can be understood as a risk to society, or a component of “risk society,” as Ulrich Beck has defined it. We might even say that climate change has the potential to be a new “discipline for disciplining,” that is to say it has potential to (re)define societal, political and legal impacts of climate change through new regulations and laws. Moreover, it has potential to encourage authoritarian solutions for climate change mitigation (since authoritarian solutions are often required in times of upheaval, since social order comes first), and to support technology-based solutions. Further, if the governing institutions have authority to use power in addressing the environment (for example through new laws), why and when would this kind of authority be needed or justified, and to what extent would the alternative interests of citizens be considered? While there are alternatives to these traditional solutions, what might come from self-sufficiency at the local level, for example, in the use of localized sustainable energy resources? And while there is no “once and for all” solution to ecological problems, an alternative way of dealing with them is to embrace a “non-disciplining” political ecology, where “solidarity” is taken literally and implemented. Climate change thus requires more and varied 3 Climate Change and Human Security from a Northern Point of View human responses at global, regional, national, and local levels. Correspondingly, human responses need new kinds of global and local stages for both inter-disciplinary discourses and open political discussions between relevant stakeholders. This requires more open and comprehensive discussion between relevant stakeholders; the development of institutionalized dialogue-building. Finally, in order to achieve these goals, an interplay and interface between science and politics is necessary to plot the proper path to follow when we are facing this kind of multi-functional challenge and its societal impacts. Introduction During the last decades there has been an “awakening” in terms of the problem of climate change, and particularly the issue of global warming in the North. It is reminiscent of the “environmental awakening” in the 1960s-1970s (e.g. Begley 2007), and is likely to have an equal, if not greater, influence on societal norms, industrial economies, and human security. Climate change itself has strong social relevance because of its many existing and potential impacts on society at all levels and sectors, and in multiple ways (Sairinen 2007). In the early-21st century climate change is indeed a hot issue, and a “sexy” topic in politics, since the events of the Bush administration in the U.S., including the failure of the Koyoto Treaty and the politicization of climate change by Presidential Candidate Al Gore. But the reasons for the interest are greater than U.S. politics, and indeed the driving force for the interest in climate change has been the fact that there is a significant change in the world’s climate due to rapid warming of the climate system in many areas, but particularly in the circumpolar North where the effects are clearly discernable. It is not, however, just in the Arctic region where change will unfold. Global (rapid) climate change will have many new and multiple impacts upon people, society, and ecosystems, and most probably these will be cumulative. Climate change will have a strong economic impact, due to the fact that whatever mitigation is, or is to be undertaken, will be expensive in the short-term, yet without such action, more expensive still in the long-term. The political dimensions of the problem are also significant, since