Page - 429 - in Loss and Damage from Climate Change - Concepts, Methods and Policy Options

18 LossandDamage in theRapidlyChangingArctic 429 ties—andinfact,evenlimitadaptationinmanyways.AccordingtotheInternational Commission on Intervention andState Sovereignty, nation state governments have the responsibility to enhance protection of vulnerable groups,minorities, and sup- portwork to advance human rights (ICISS 2001, cited inBronen 2015). But still, theUNFCCCParties arenotmeeting their international legal obligationsunder the Article II (seeCrowley2011; chapterbySimlinger andMayer2018). 18.2.3 UnequalDistributionofRisksandLimits toAdaptation In thecurrentLossandDamagedebateof theUNFCCC, theglobalNorth isconsid- ered to have high responsibility and liability for dealingwith climate-related risks affecting vulnerable communities in the South. In general, countries in the global North are considered to have high adaptive capacity, due to national and regional financial and technological resources that should also support sustainable trans- formation of societies. But as the case in many southern regions too, neither are climate-relatedrisksdistributedequallyamongthepopulationandgeographicallyin thenortherncircumpolarregion,nordothoseinneednecessarilyhaveaccesstothese resources(Larsenetal.2014).Also,consideringunforeseenfutureconditions,Arctic ecosystemscannotadapt toclimatechangenaturally,andthishampers theprovision of ecosystem services, which provide the basis for traditional livelihoods (White et al. 2007;Larsen et al. 2014).Climate change forces people tomakechoices and facesituations that leadtoradical,butnotnecessarilysustainable transformationsof society (Sejersen2012).Marino (2012)haspointedout that federal, state and local authorities in theUS identify todaynearly all 200Alaskannative villages as being “under threat”or “immanent threat”due toerosionand/orflooding.To tackle these kindsofchallengesArcticcommunitieswouldneeddecision-makingpower, access to informationandfinancial resources.Oneexample is relocationactions,whichare costlyandrequirecarefulplanninginordertoleadtopositiveoutcomes(Lopez-Carr andMarter-Kenyon 2015). EspeciallyArctic populations in remote locations need institutionalandfinancial supportandassistance inadaptationplanning(Ford2009; Dengler et al. 2014) to be able to successfully implement adaptation actions that shouldendupwithpositiveoutcomes—forcedorpoorlyplanned relocationactions cannotbeconsideredas such.