EU Arctic Footprint and Policy Assessment: Final Report (original) (raw)
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EU Arctic Footprint and Policy Assessment
The EU Arctic Footprint and Policy Assessment report assesses the EU‘s current footprint on the Arctic environment and evaluates how it could change over time. The effectiveness of the EU‘s current environment-related policies is analysed, including how these policies relate to current and future footprint scenarios. Options for improving EU policy are presented.
The EU Arctic Footprint and Policy Assessment Project
The Arctic is often referred to as the bellwether of global climate change. According to the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment and the most recent assessment from IPCC, the warming rate is twice that of the global average, with predictions of further increases leading to substantial loss of Arctic sea ice and large-scale thawing of the permafrost. The Arctic has also been a bellwether for the impact of long-range transboundary air pollution, both regarding human health and how pollutants affect wildlife. Persistent organic pollutants (POPs) and heavy metals (e.g. mercury) are transported long distances through air and water, are deposited in the Arctic and bioaccumulate through the food chain. Some indigenous peoples have a high exposure to these pollutants, primarily through their diet. Though the people living in the Arctic and the ecosystems that sustain them are enduring the initial brunt of these environmental impacts, the region itself contributes little to the causes of climate change and production of pollutants. In recognition of this inequity, the EU Arctic Footprint and Policy Assessment Project (EU Arctic Footprint) is a first attempt at calculating Europe’s contribution to the impact on the Arctic environment and inhabitants. At the same time, the project also examines the effectiveness of EU policies in mitigating Arctic impacts. Both of these assessments will be considered in relation to possible future scenarios. The overall goal is to improve the effectiveness of EU environmental policies with respect to the Arctic region, especially as relates to the implementation of existing policies and a new Arctic Policy for the EU.
Strategic Assessment of Development of the Arctic: Assessment Conducted for the European Union.
Stepien, A., T. Koivurova and P. Kankaanpää (eds.) (2014), Strategic Assessment of Development of the Arctic: Assessment Conducted for the European Union. Arctic Centre, University of Lapland. The ‘Strategic Assessment of Development of the Arctic: Assessment Conducted for the European Union” report considers the trends and developments taking place in the European Arctic today. That includes a view to 2030, with an emphasis on the uncertainties. The analysis has been conducted on the basis of seven themes focused on change. The implications of Arctic changes for the European Union as well as the role of EU policies and actions in the Arctic are examined. The European Arctic is understood here as the part of the circumpolar Arctic located between Greenland and northwest Russia.
Towards a More Sustainable Arctic. Background Paper 4/2021
2021
In July 2020, the European External Action Service of the European Commission launched a public consultation on the way forward for the European Union’s Arctic policy. The consultation was held to re-examine the role of the EU in Arctic affairs, to revise the priorities of the current Joint Communication on an integrated European Union policy for the Arctic and the actions thereunder, and to identify possible new policy areas to be developed. As part of its work within the NDI Think Tank Action, IIASA responded to this call addressing specific questions of this public consultation. This paper presents the submitted material and provides further reflections on the discussed matters from the Northern Dimension perspective
Strategic Asessment of Development of the Arctic : Assessment conducted for the European Union
2014
The ‘Strategic Assessment of Development of the Arctic: Assessment Conducted for the European Union” report considers the trends and developments taking place in the European Arctic today. That includes a view to 2030, with an emphasis on the uncertainties. The analysis has been conducted on the basis of seven themes focused on change. The implications of Arctic changes for the European Union as well as the role of EU policies and actions in the Arctic are examined. The European Arctic is understood here as the part of the circumpolar Arctic located between Greenland and northwest Russia.
EU Diplomacy Papers, 2018
(With Sofía López Piqueres and Simon Schunz) The Arctic has increasingly become the subject of strategic debates, prompting numerous actors – including the European Union (EU) – to develop Arctic strategies. Importantly, these strategies need to address the ‘Arctic paradox’, that is, the trade-off between pursuing the economic opportunities arising from an increasingly ice-free Arctic and preventing environmental degradation in a region of central importance for the global climate. This paper investigates how the EU has positioned itself in this respect by asking to what extent its emerging Arctic policy has integrated environmental concerns. To do so, it initially conducts a discourse analysis of Arctic strategies of the EU institutions, Arctic and major non-Arctic EU member states. It finds that these three groups each form a ‘discourse coalition’ advocating for strong, weak and moderate environmental policy integration (EPI) in the EU’s Arctic policy respectively. A probe into the Arctic policy practice of typical representatives of these coalitions shows that a multi-level pattern exists which combines an EU-level pro-EPI discourse and action and varying member state-level commitments to EPI. The paper concludes by arguing that the Arctic policy at the EU level is currently ‘green by omission’− avoiding contentious subjects in the discourse as well as in actions − and discusses the implications of this finding.
Activities Affecting Land Use in the European Arctic
The Changing Arctic and the European Union, 2015
Factsheets Factsheets produced as a part of the Strategic Assessment of Development of the Arctic have been primarily designed as a background material for consultations with Arctic stakeholders.