25. Transatlantic Policy Options to Address the Rapidly Changing Arctic

Impacts from rapidly occurring climate change in the Arctic region are creating shifts in economic priorities, especially in the energy, transport, fisheries and tourism sectors. Economic expansion combined with escalating environmental stress poses unique management challenges for these vulnerable socio-economic and ecological systems. This shifting economic landscape brings new challenges that threaten fragile Arctic ecosystems and the survival of indigenous communities and their way of life. Results from a multi-stakeholder transatlantic dialogue conducted through the Transatlantic Policy Options for Supporting Adaptations in the Marine Arctic (Arctic TRANSFORM) project in 2008–2009 reveal both sectoral and cross-sectoral regulatory gaps and present a set of policy options. Progress to ensure environmental security in the Arctic depends on the development of resilient, adaptable, and coherent governance regimes capable of protecting terrestrial, freshwater and marine ecosystems. However, the current governance framework is more a patchwork of legal instruments, ranging from soft-law arrangements to bilateral and multilateral agreements, supra-national, national and sub-national arrangements. In addition, most of these instruments and related institutions focus on global issues, rather than specifically targeting the Arctic. Thus, there is need for coordination in an integrated governance and regulatory system both among Arctic states and at the international level to manage the Arctic region.