Page - 427 - in Loss and Damage from Climate Change - Concepts, Methods and Policy Options

18 LossandDamage in theRapidlyChangingArctic 427 AccordingtoCarmacketal.(2012)examiningtheArcticisparticularlyimportant for four reasons. First, understanding change in the Arctic may reveal lessons of how change happens in complex systems and improve our understanding how to deal with these. Second, changes already taking place in the Arctic are likely to have irreversible impacts regionally and locally, leading to limited possibilities of communities to adapt, and significant consequences to theglobal economyaswell. Globally,Arcticclimatechangehasbeenestimated tocostbetween9and70trillion U.S.dollarsover theperiod2010–2100 (AMAP2017:13).Third, climatechange is advancing faster in theArctic than anywhere else, andfinally, responses to climate change throughadaptation aremanifold, and canbe tested in theArctic in the face of rapidlyapproaching tippingpoints. Inthischapter,weexaminewhat“dangerousclimatechange”meansintheArctic context, by identifying critical risks and impacts in the region in general, and then presenting cases from the literature that are beyondArctic communities’ capacity to adapt, in particular. The examples provide evidence onArctic regions’ need for institutionalsupport tocopewith theconsequencesofclimatechange,despitebeing partofdevelopedcountries.Sofar,neither theUnitedNationsClimateChangeCon- ference of the Parties (COP) nor the subsidiary bodies under the UNFCCC have discussedArctic climate changes in detail (Duyck2015a, b).Yet, changes already affectArcticcommunities,questioningwhethertheyareinfactbearinga“dispropor- tionateorunderabnormalburden”(cf.UNFCCC,ArticleII).Examplesoflossesand damagesmorebroadlyareclimatechangeaffectingcritical infrastructureand tradi- tional livelihoods (Bronen2015) as these harms can affect societies across genera- tions(Sejersen2012;Himes-CornellandHoelting2015).Similaractualandpotential lossesanddamagesareunderdiscussionindevelopingcountriestoo.Theircapability toadapt tochangeor transformtheir livelihoods to something that still allows them tomaintain their land, livelihoodsandculture, iscritical toaffectedcommunities. If this is not possible, and the residents have to leave and abandon their livelihoods, they are faced byLoss andDamage in its “narrow” sense. Thus,we reviewArctic studies tounderstandwhat lossesanddamagesmean in theArcticcontext,whatare globalconsequencesofArcticchange,andwhat implicationsthesechangeshavefor the internationalLossandDamagedebate. 18.2 Rationale for Including theArctic in theLoss andDamageDebate Internationally, the debate on Loss and Damage has predominantly concentrated on discussing the risks and impacts of climate change on developing countries so far. International climate negotiations havebeen themain arena and as other chap- ters in this volume show, a consensus on the definition ofLoss andDamage is yet