Climate Change and Globalization in the Arctic

by Keskitalo, E. Carina H.

• ISBN13: 9781844075287
• ISBN10: 1844075281
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-05-30
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Climate change vulnerability assessment'to assess people's overall vulnerability and adaptive capacity to climate change'is a rapidly developing field. However, despite the fact that major trends such as globalization and the changing characteristics of the political and economic governance systems are crucial in impacting and shaping a community's capacity to adapt to climate change, these trends are seldom included in climate change vulnerability assessments. An applied methodology and framework for qualitative assessment of vulnerability based in the present and on people's own perceptions of their realities has so far largely been lacking. This book addresses these shortcomings in that it first develops a methodology and framework for qualitative vulnerability assessment in "multiple impact" studies (of climate change and globalization), and then applies the framework to several cases of renewable natural resource use across scales. The book draws upon case studies of forestry and fishing'two of the largest sectors that rely on renewable natural resources'and reindeer herding in the European North, and includes data from some sixty semi-structured interviews and seven stakeholder meetings. The study represents a bottom-up view, originating with the stakeholders themselves, of the degree to which stakeholders find adaptation to climate change possible, how they conceive of climate change, and how they evaluate it in relation to their other concerns, notably economic and political ones. It illustrates that local vulnerability and adaptive capacity are to a large degree a result of international and national governance, that much of the adaptive capacity for local areas lies at higher, even international, levels (which the local level has limited or no influence on) and that not even a "traditional" practice such as indigenous reindeer herding can be understood outside of international market systems. Moreover, the approach and research results include features that could be broadly generalized to other geographic areas or sectors characterized by renewable natural resource use. The book constitutes highly informative reading for professionals, academics and students concerned with the human dimensions of global environmental change, environmental governance and natural resource management.

Author Biography

E. Carina H. Keskitalo is Associate Professor of Political Science at Umea University, Sweden.

Table of Contents

List of figures and tables	p. ix
Acknowledgements	p. xi
Introduction: Vulnerability Assessment in the Context of Multiple Levels and Impacts	p. 1
Understanding change and societies in flux	p. 1
Research questions	p. 3
Organization of the book	p. 6
Structuring the Conceptions of Change	p. 9
Vulnerability assessment	p. 9
The concepts of vulnerability and adaptive capacity	p. 9
The history of vulnerability assessment	p. 12
The extension of climate change vulnerability assessment to social vulnerability	p. 14
Community-based and double-exposure approaches	p. 17
Assessing vulnerability and adaptive capacity	p. 19
Adaptation as a political process	p. 23
A focus on multi-level governance for vulnerability assessment	p. 26
Analysing, organizing and understanding large-scale change	p. 29
Conceiving of multiple impacts: Definitions of economic and political globalization	p. 32
Economic globalization	p. 32
Political globalization	p. 35
A framework for assessing vulnerability and adaptive capacity to multiple stresses	p. 37
A Methodology for Vulnerability Assessment	p. 39
The approach to vulnerability assessment in this work	p. 39
Stakeholder-defined nested scale levels and stressors	p. 40
Relation of the study to participatory and modelling-focused vulnerability assessment	p. 42
A structure for vulnerability assessment	p. 44
Overview of the methodology	p. 44
Case study selection	p. 44
Case study areas	p. 46
Methodology and material	p. 48
Identification of governance networks and norms	p. 52
Synthesis of climate change scenario and impacts literature	p. 53
General impacts of climate change	p. 54
Impacts of climate change on forestry	p. 57
Impacts of climate change on reindeer herding	p. 58
Impacts of climate change on fishing	p. 59
Understanding change	p. 59
Perceptions of Change, Vulnerability and Adaptive Capacity among Forest Industry Stakeholders in Northern Sweden and Finland	p. 61
Introduction: The organization of forestry in Sweden and Finland	p. 61
Socioeconomic change in the industry	p. 62
Rationalization and technological change over time	p. 63
Impacts on smaller actors: The example of small sawmills	p. 65
The mobility of larger actors and dependence on resource access	p. 66
The changing role of the state	p. 68
The political network influencing the forest industry	p. 69
Support possibilities at the local and regional levels	p. 70
National legislation and support	p. 71
International normative changes: Environmental protection as a priority	p. 74
Nature reserves	p. 75
Certification: Socioeconomic and political globalization?	p. 78
The governance network as perceived by local forestry	p. 80
Climate and climate change	p. 84
Climate impacts on forestry in autumn and winter	p. 85
Spring and summer	p. 87
Conclusion: Vulnerability and adaptive capacity in forestry	p. 92
Adaptations at the company level and in employment	p. 92
Adaptation in the context of administration and policy	p. 94
Particular adaptations to climate: Climate change as an addition to an increasing resource problematique	p. 95
The nature of adaptation	p. 96
Perceptions of Change, Vulnerability and Adaptive Capacity among Reindeer Herding Stakeholders in Northern Norway, Sweden and Finland	p. 99
Introduction: The organization of reindeer herding in Norway, Sweden and Finland	p. 99
Reindeer herding organizations and practices	p. 100
Socioeconomic changes in reindeer herding	p. 103
Increased mechanization, costs and supplementary feeding	p. 104
Supplementary feeding	p. 107
The meat market, meat prices and profitability	p. 110
Solutions to the meat market problem: Refining and marketing to increase consumption	p. 112
Political change in the sector: Legislation and support	p. 114
National systems for financial support and stabilizing the number of reindeer	p. 115
Impacts on reindeer herding from multiple use of forests	p. 120
International norms and regulation impacting reindeer herding	p. 123
The governance network perceived by reindeer herding	p. 127
Climate change	p. 131
Autumn and winter	p. 132
Spring and summer	p. 135
Conclusion: Vulnerability and adaptive capacity in reindeer herding	p. 138
Adaptations at the individual level to economic changes	p. 139
Adaptation within the governance and political regulatory framework	p. 140
Adaptation to climate change	p. 141
The vulnerability of reindeer herding	p. 142
Perceptions of Change, Vulnerability and Adaptive Capacity among Fishing Stakeholders in Northernmost Norway	p. 145
Introduction: Fishing organizations in Norway	p. 145
The socioeconomic change in fishing	p. 148
Change over time	p. 148
The quota system and fishing economy	p. 152
Market adaptations: Different types of fish processing	p. 154
Political and organizational change in fishing	p. 156
Contested fishing rights	p. 156
Local and regional-level support for fishing	p. 159
National-level state and interest group decision-making and quota allocation	p. 161
The impact of international norms and the international and EU levels	p. 164
The governance network perceived by local small-scale fishing	p. 165
Environmental and climate change in fishing	p. 168
Environmental influences on fish populations	p. 168
Climate change	p. 169
Autumn and winter	p. 170
Spring and summer	p. 171
Conclusion: Vulnerability and adaptive capacity	p. 175
Individual adaptations	p. 175
Larger-scale adaptation within the governance network	p. 176
Adaptations to climate change	p. 177
The vulnerability of local fishing	p. 178
Conclusion	p. 179
Economic, political and environmental changes	p. 179
Economic globalization?	p. 180
Political globalization? The pattern of governance and the role of traditional policy actors	p. 182
Interaction between economic and political globalization: Governance by the state and the market	p. 184
Is globalization a key determinant of change?	p. 186
Is globalization a key determinant of social vulnerability and adaptive capacity?	p. 188
Climate change	p. 190
Conclusion: Summary of vulnerability, adaptive capacity and types of adaptation in the areas	p. 192
Notes	p. 197
References	p. 231
Index	p. 247
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