Page - 426 - in Loss and Damage from Climate Change - Concepts, Methods and Policy Options

426 M.LandauerandS. Juhola 18.1 Introduction Dangerous climate change increases the need for emergency preparednessmech- anisms, disaster risk responses, and climate adaptation strategies in case of losses and damages. To avoid dangerous climate change, theUnitedNations Framework ConventiononClimateChange (UNFCCC)hascalled for actionwithina time frame sufficient to allow ecosystems to adapt naturally to climate change, to ensure that foodproduction isnot threatenedand toenableeconomicdevelopment toproceed ina sustainablemanner (UNFCCC1992,Article II). Crowley (2011) has criticised this Article II because it does not consider the international human rights principleswhen interpretingwhat “dangerous” climate changemeans.Forexample,theabilityofecosystemstorecovernaturallyhasalready beencompromised inmanyplaces in theArctic, and these changes are threatening foodsecurityandtraditional livelihoodsalready,especially thoseof indigenouspeo- ples. Liability and compensation are under debate in international climate policy discussions (Huggel et al. 2015). Financingmechanisms to support adaptation or transformative actions can be provided from local, national, regional and interna- tional sources. However, this requires consensus between responsible parties and potentialbeneficiaries. It isalsoproblematic that lossesanddamagescannotalways becompensatedby technical orfinancial support, if they include, for example, loss of culture and tradition. In these international debates, little attention and support hasbeengiven toArcticvulnerablecommunities so far.Thesecommunitieshave to findwaystodealwithrapidlychangingenvironmentalconditions,eitherbyadapting or taking actions that can lead to social impacts similarly to global South, such as outmigration (e.g.WolskoandMarino2016). Arctic climate change is happeningmuch faster than the global average (Arctic Climate ImpactAssessment2005; IPCC2007;AMAP2017).According toAMAP (2017:3),“TheArctic…hasbeenwarmingmore thantwiceasrapidlyas theworld as a whole for the past 50 years”.TheArctic has often been referred to as “the canary in the coalmine” (Chinowsky et al. 2010), “climate hotspot” (Hare et al. 2011),or“harbingerofchange”(Carmacketal.2012).TheArcticrepresentsaplace where the impacts of climate change are already visible. Both scientific evidence (e.g.,attributionstudiesandvulnerabilityanalysesofArcticcommunities, including themost recent reports of the IPCC) and traditional knowledge (e.g., indigenous discourses and field observations ofArctic residents) indicate that climate change hassevereimpactsontheArcticandrisksandimpactsalsohaveglobalconsequences. RecentscientificevidenceshowsthatmeltwaterofArcticsourcescontributes tosea- level rise significantly while accounting for 35% of current global sea level rise (AMAP2017).