Editing IPCC:AR6/SROCC/Chapter-3 (section)

=== 3.5.1 The Polar Context for Responding ===

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Human responses to climate change in the Arctic and Antarctica are shaped by their unique physical, ecological, social, cultural and political conditions. Extreme climatic conditions, remoteness from densely populated regions, limited human mobility, short seasons of biological productivity, high costs in monitoring and research, sovereignty claims to lands and waters by southern-based governments, a rich diversity of indigenous cultures and institutional arrangements that in some cases recognise indigenous rights and support regional and international cooperation in governance are among the many factors that impede and or facilitate adaptation.

The social and cultural differences are an especially noteworthy factor in assessing polar responses. Approximately four million people currently reside in the Arctic with about three quarters residing in urban areas, and approximately 10% being Indigenous (AHDR, 2014). Regions of the Arctic differ widely in population, ranging from 94% of Iceland’s population living in urban environments to 68% of Nunavut’s population living in rural areas. And while there has been a general movement to greater urbanisation in the Arctic (AHDR, 2014), that trend is not true for all regions (Heleniak, 2014). About 4400 people reside in Antarctic in the summer and about 1100 in the winter, predominantly based at research stations of which approximately 40 are occupied year-round (The World Factbook, 2016).

For most Arctic Indigenous peoples, human responses to climate change are viewed as a matter of cultural survival (Greaves, 2016) (Cross-Chapter Box 3 in Chapter 1). However, Indigenous people are not homogenous in their perspectives. While in some cases Indigenous people are negatively impacted by sectoral activities such as mining and oil and gas development (Nymand and Fondahl, 2014), in other cases they benefit financially (Shadian, 2014), setting up dilemmas and potential internal conflicts (Huskey, 2018; Southcott and Natcher, 2018) ''(high confidence).'' Geopolitical complexities also confound responses.

Together these conditions make for complexity and uncertainty in human decision making, be it at the household and community levels to the international level. Adding to uncertainty in human choice related to climate change is the interaction of climate with other forces for change, such as globalisation and land and sea-use change. These interactions necessitate that responses to climate change consider cumulative effects as well as context-specific pathways for building resilience (Nymand and Fondahl, 2014; ARR, 2016).

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