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1) The research will strive to apply a perspective of legal pluralism, keeping a broad social and cultural lens in examining how communities and institutions govern their adaptation to climate change impacts in Canada’s North. Communities in the North are experiencing a period of rapid social and cultural transformation as a result of a confluence of factors – many of which are tied to a changing climate. These changes were explicitly and dramatically exposed in the recent ‘Arctic Climate Impact Assessment’. They include shifting wildlife migration patterns and changes to sea ice which require new hunting methodologies, changes to the land itself which may require amendments to land claim agreements and territorial systems, new infrastructure demands brought on by the melting permafrost, and the opening of the NW passage which promises to bring an influx of external influences. Northern peoples are experiencing profound changes to their way of life. The research will interrogate the overall contribution of law and policy to this process of cultural change, and specifically, to the process of adaptation to climate change in the North. 2) The focus of the research papers will be adaptation strategies. As such, rather than focusing on efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, researchers will examine, for example, the laws and policies governing northern efforts to relocate homes on sliding permafrost or threatened by flooding caused by rising sea levels, the rules governing modifications made to hunting practices and routes to respond to sea ice changes, or changes in land claim agreements that adjust to shifting wildlife ranges and migration patterns. This approach can be justified through an equity analysis, based on the same logic that resulted in the concept of “common but differentiated responsibilities” and the original structure of the UNFCCC obligations. It is recognized, however, that the mitigation of climate change is also a key priority for Northern peoples and cultures. In particular, consultations have indicated that lack of progress on global emissions reductions raises issues of long-term cultural survival (even taking into account fluid, rather than static, conceptions of culture.) The concept of adaptation was largely absent from climate policy and literature in the early stages of serious inquiry around climate change, because scientists and policy makers had been operating under the presumption that climate change could be curtailed through a concerted global effort. Once it became obvious that cooperative global efforts were of limited effectiveness and that climate change was progressing and inevitable, the policy focus shifted to mitigating greenhouse gas emission levels. Mitigation, in climate policy literature, refers to reducing the magnitude of and exposure to climate change impacts. The continued rise of greenhouse gas emissions, and the failure of global mitigation efforts has again prompted the development of new and distinct policy responses that focus instead on reducing sensitivity to, and increasing resilience to the adverse effects of climate change. These strategies fall into the rubric of adaptation. 3) The research papers will be sensitive to specific contexts and places, recognizing that in the North that there are diverse and distinct cultures, and this leads to diverse and different impacts from climate change, especially where geographic distances between communities are great. 4) Attention will be placed on the dynamic between the international legal order, the national legal regime and local adaptation strategies. The research will take note of “encounters” or “interfaces” between global and national regimes designed to tackle the problem of climate change and the locally generated strategies for coping with changing climates. The research papers will consider the extent to which emerging and evolving governance structures draw on “local,” “national” and “global” sources of inspiration in the context of particular communities at particular junctions in time. The research will document the extent to which local governance mechanisms, national law and policy, and global legal norms inform and reinforce each other. It will address both the “uptake” of traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) in international environmental treaty negotiation processes, for example, and the degree to which traditional practices give shape to claims made under international human rights mechanisms. The research will recognize that “the global” can also “provide means for local entities to gain access to, engage with, and draw benefits from global forums and discourses.” Thus, it will investigate what northern communities might stand to gain from the adjudication of a human rights claim made on their behalf in a global or national legal arena, as well as how local adaptation strategies might be shaped, or fueled, by international developments with respect to climate change treaties. In this way, the research will advance a nuanced analysis of both the localizing and the globalizing forces that are influencing the development of adaptation strategies in the face of a changing climate. It will address the interactions between the global, the national and the local in the context of particular communities and the development of their strategies for adapting to climate change. 5) The research will take a pluralist and sociological approach to its definition of governance and to the investigation of the role oflaw in climate change adaptation in the North. “Governance” is intended to encompass forms of rule and authority that emanate from sources other than formal state law. It comprises the traditions, institutions and processes that determine how power is exercised and how decisions are made. Sources of authority are multiple and overlapping: they may be informal and formal, unofficial and official, and they coexist in complex social systems. Behavior is shaped and influenced, and power is exercised, through fluid and changing relationships among multiple interacting authorities operating at all scales and in all domains of human affairs. 6) The research will be interdisciplinary in its approach. It will inevitably draw on geography, political science, anthropology, sociology, and ecology, though the focus taken will be on the analysis of laws and governance structures. Weller, Gunter, Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, ACIA Scientific Report, Ch.18 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), online: ACIA Thomas Wilbanks. “Issues in developing a capacity for integrated analysis of mitigation and adaptation” Environmental Science & Policy No.8 2005 pp. 541–547 at p. 541. Sheila Jasanoff & Marybeth Long Martello, “Conclusion: Knowledge and Governance” in Earthly Politics at 340. |
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