Rapid climate change in the Arctic, with wide-ranging consequences for societies and human activities, has become an uncontested point of departure in most of the international scholarly literature on the Arctic future.  At the same time, development of the Arctic – mainly involving resource extraction and associated maritime transportation – is regarded as a cornerstone of Russia’s economic future. The project will seek to understand how this economic development may be impacted by climate change.

We will examine how climate change is interpreted in different sources of knowledge in Russia, scientific, political and societal, and how interpretation of physical climate impacts affects adaptation processes. The project includes two empirical case studies. One is on Taymyr peninsula, the northern part of Krasnoyarsk Kray in East Siberia, where several resource extraction projects are in various stages of development, all situated in permafrost areas. The second is on development of navigation on the Northern Sea Route, where melting sea ice is expected to improve sailing conditions, but where other climate impacts may have adverse effects.

Project period: 2021-2024