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Climate change has often been framed as a global issue but slow progress in the global climate negotiations and an increasing need to plan for local adaptation have made it increasingly salient to also discuss the potential of other arenas for climate policy and knowledge production. This dissertation analyzes the interplay between science and policy at the international regional level based on a study of an assessment of the impacts of climate change in the Arctic. In this case, the regional arena brought new actors into climate knowledge production and policy with an increased emphasis on the complexity of social and cultural impacts of climate change among indigenous peoples. The dissertation also shows how the structure of regional political cooperation played a role in highlighting the Arctic as a bellwether for global change. Meanwhile, the political negations that were linked to the regional climate impact assessment were ruled by the same political dynamics and policy positions as the global climate negotiations. The process illustrates how the structure of international cooperation can influence knowledge production about climate change. The dissertation emphasizes the role of vertical interplay among political regimes and how new arenas can make an assessment salient, credible, and legitimate to different actors. It also highlights the political dimensions of focusing on particular spatial scales and governance levels in climate knowledge production and policy. ; Klimatförändringarna har ofta gestaltats som en global fråga, men bristen på politiska åtgärder och ett ökande behov att anpassa samhället efter nya klimatförhållanden har gjort det alltmer angeläget att även undersöka vilka möjligheter ett regionalt perspektiv kan öppna för såväl klimatpolitik som kunskapsproduktion. Med utgångspunkt från en studie av en kunskapssammanställning av hur klimatförändringarna påverkar Arktis, analyserar avhandlingen samspelet mellan vetenskap och politik i ett internationellt regionalt samarbete. Studien visar att det regionala sammanhanget gav nya aktörer möjlighet att delta i både den internationella klimatpolitiken och kunskapsproduktionen om klimatförändringar. Det ledde bland annat till en betoning på att det fysiska klimatet är en av många faktorer som påverkar hur Arktis urbefolkningar kommer att drabbas av klimatförändringarna och att även kulturella och sociala faktorer spelar stor roll. Avhandlingen visar också på hur bilden av Arktis som en väckarklocka för de globala klimatförändringarna har vuxit fram ur strukturen för det politiska regionala samarbetet. De politiska förhandlingar som var kopplade till kunskapssammanställningen var däremot färgade av samma intressekonflikter som de globala klimatförhandlingarna. Processen illustrerar hur strukturerna för internationellt samarbete kan påverka kunskapen om klimatförändringar. Avhandlingen lyfter särskilt fram hur nya arenor för politiskt samarbete och det vertikala samspelet mellan politiska regimer på olika nivåer kan göra kunskap om klimatet angelägen, trovärdig och legitim för olika aktörer. Avhandlingen betonar också det finns politiska dimensioner i den skala man väljer för att studera klimatförändringarna.

Arctic Geopolitics, Media and Power provides a fresh way of looking at the potential and limitations of regional international governance in the Arctic region. Far-reaching impacts of climate change, its wealth of resources and potential for new commercial activities have placed the Arctic region into the political limelight. In an era of rapid environmental change, the Arctic provides a complex and challenging case of geopolitical interplay. Based on analyses of how actors from within and outside the Arctic region assert their interests and how such discourses travel in the media, this book scrutinizes the social and material contexts within which new imaginaries, spatial constructs and scalar preferences emerge. It places ground-breaking attention to shifting media landscapes as a critical component of the social, environmental and technological change. It also reflects on the fundamental dilemmas inherent in democratic decision making at a time when an urgent need for addressing climate change is challenged by conflicting interests and growing geopolitical tensions. This book will be of great interest to geography academics, media and communication studies and students focusing on policy, climate change and geopolitics, as well as policy-makers and NGOs working within the environmental sector or with the Arctic region.

The Arctic is changing rapidly, and there are many indications that the region is in the midst of transformational change. While some of the focus relates to impacts of climate change, rapid economic development and the potential for shifts in political and social structures in the region have also been in the limelight. This article looks at the circumpolar Arctic as a potential case of aregime shift in a large-scale social–ecological system that includes reinforcing feedbacks. A special focus is placed on governance structures, as these play an important role in social negotiations on the relationship between societies and the environment. While climate change is often portrayed as a driver of social change in the Arctic, it does not appear that the ongoing changes in the biophysical features of the Arctic region have rocked current circumpolar governance structures out of kilter. On the contrary, the ongoing climate-related changes, in particular sea ice decline, appear to have reinforced political commitment to existing legal structures. Major past social regime shifts have mainly been related to access to resources and national identity ideology, withpolitical dynamics reinforced at times by military security considerations.(Published: November 2016)Citation: A.E. Nilsson and T. Koivurova. ''Transformational Change and Regime Shifts in the Circumpolar Arctic.'' Arctic Review on Law and Politics, Vol. 7, No. 2, 2016, pp. 179–195. http://dx.doi.org/10.17585/arctic.v7.532

The Arctic is changing rapidly, and there are many indications that the region is in the midst of transformational change. While some of the focus relates to impacts of climate change, rapid economic development and the potential for shifts in political and social structures in the region have also been in the limelight. This article looks at the circumpolar Arctic as a potential case of aregime shift in a large-scale social–ecological system that includes reinforcing feedbacks. A special focus is placed on governance structures, as these play an important role in social negotiations on the relationship between societies and the environment. While climate change is often portrayed as a driver of social change in the Arctic, it does not appear that the ongoing changes in the biophysical features of the Arctic region have rocked current circumpolar governance structures out of kilter. On the contrary, the ongoing climate-related changes, in particular sea ice decline, appear to have reinforced political commitment to existing legal structures. Major past social regime shifts have mainly been related to access to resources and national identity ideology, withpolitical dynamics reinforced at times by military security considerations.(Published: November 2016)Citation: A.E. Nilsson and T. Koivurova. ''Transformational Change and Regime Shifts in the Circumpolar Arctic.'' Arctic Review on Law and Politics, Vol. 7, No. 2, 2016, pp. 179–195. http://dx.doi.org/10.17585/arctic.v7.532

Since the global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were adopted in 2015, efforts are underway to identify indicators for monitoring progress. However, perceptions of sustainability are scale and place specific, and there has also been a call for Sustainable Development Goals and indicators that are more relevant for the Arctic than the global perspectives. Based on earlier and ongoing efforts to identify Arctic Social Indicators for monitoring human development, insights from scenario workshops and interviews at various locations in the Barents region and Greenland and on studies of adaptive capacity and resilience in the Arctic, we provide an exploratory assessment of the global SDGs and indicators from an Arctic perspective. We especially highlight a need for additional attention to demography, including outmigration; indigenous rights; Arctic-relevant measures of economic development; and social capital and institutions that can support adaptation and transformation in this rapidly changing region. Issues brought up by the SDG framework that need more attention in Arctic monitoring include gender, and food and energy security. We furthermore highlight a need for initiatives that can support bottom–up processes for identifying locally relevant indicators for sustainable development that could serve as a way to engage Arctic residents and other regional and local actors in shaping the future of the region and local communities, within a global sustainability context. ; This research was funded by the NordForsk-funded Centre of Excellence "Resource Extraction and Sustainable Arctic Communities" under the programme Responsible Development of the Arctic: Opportunities and Challenges—Pathways to Action. J.N.L.'s work on the publication is also part of the Nunataryuk project, funded by the European Union's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under grant agreement no. 773421. ; Peer Reviewed

The Svalbard Archipelago has experienced a rapid increase in tourism-related activities over the past few decades. The Norwegian Government's ambition to develop the Archipelago's tourism industry offers multiple socio-economic opportunities. The development and scope of these tourism activities is affected by a complex governance system that entails strict environmental regulation and preparedness considerations. To understand the balance of goals across the national and international policy levels, we have mapped, reviewed, and analyzed the national and international regulations and agreements that affect tourism activities on Svalbard. The document analysis reveals the framework of natural and environmental consideration, access to areas and passage, requirements for organized outdoor activities, and regulatory tools. We discovered conflicts and internal inconsistencies in the way that Svalbard tourism has developed. It has been shaped by both economic growth and environmental preservation, without any specific business development objectives and goals or acceptable limits of environmental and social change in place. For tourism stakeholders, this might complicate any rational assessment of the balance between economic development and environmental status. The challenges we have identified are specific to Svalbard, but are likely to be similar in many other Arctic locations involved in tourism.

A major challenge in planning for adaptation to climate change is to assess future development not only in relation to climate but also in relation to social, economic and political changes that affect the capacity for adaptation or otherwise play a role in decision making. One approach is to use scenario methods. This article presents a methodology that combines top-down scenarios and bottom-up approaches to scenario building, with the aim of articulating local so-called extended socio-economic pathways. Specifically, we used the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) of the global scenario framework as developed by the climate research community to present boundary conditions about potential global change in workshop discussion with local and regional actors in the Barents region. We relate the results from these workshops to the different elements of the global SSPs and discuss potential and limitations of the method in relation to use in decision making processes.