Authors: Alejandra Mancilla, professor in Philosopy, UiO & Peder Roberts, associate professor in Modern history, UiS & researcher, Division of History of Science, Technology and Environment, KTH
The most recent IPCC report paints a dark picture. Among other things, melting Antarctic ice could put many parts of the world underwater. We therefore want to pose two questions: do we have the necessary tools to preserve Antarctica, and thereby also the world? And can the Antarctic Treaty states (including Norway) claim that they are fulfilling their commitments under the Treaty when they continue to pursue oil-focused policies?
Photo by Derek Oyen on Unsplash
Norway is one of the 29 consultative parties to the Antarctic Treaty, which marks its 60th anniversary in 2021. Many celebrate that the treaty has achieved peace and scientific cooperation. Additionally, it is 30 years since the Protocol on Environmental Protection (widely known as the Madrid Protocol) was agreed. Since then no further legal instruments have been developed to deal with new challenges – above all, the climate crisis. We argue that the Antarctic Treaty does not lack the necessary tools to address this challenge, and that instead it is a matter of more ambitiously interpreting the texts that already exist, and the responsibilities of the individual countries involved.
The Madrid Protocol states that the parties commit to protecting “the Antarctic environment and dependent and associated ecosystems.” This phrase (which occurs nineteen times in the text) leads to the question: what does it mean to protect ecosystems that are dependent and/or associated with Antarctica? The Protocol, like the Treaty itself, covers the area from the South Pole to latitude 60 degrees south, but to attain that goal it is necessary to act further north. Actions outside the geographic boundaries of the Antarctic Treaty should therefore be taken into account when evaluating the extent to which a state fulfills its commitments to protect Antarctica.
The Protocol also asserts that Antarctica has “intrinsic value”. Intrinsic value stands in contrast to instrumental value. Using Antarctica as a laboratory is an example of the latter, where Antarctica functions as a means to achieve the end of increasing scientific knowledge. Intrinsic value, on the other hand, demands that we treat Antarctica as an end in itself. What exactly that means is a discussion that the Antarctic Treaty parties are yet to have, but which could lead to a more ambitious interpretation of the Protocol’s mandate.
The processes that drive climate change and loss of biodiversity do not follow political geographical boundaries. For Antarctica, it is not enough to regulate activities within the Treaty area itself: activities beyond must also be considered. The states that signed the Madrid Protocol committed themselves, in a way, to protect the whole world. It is high time that citizens of the signatory states voiced that demand, particularly in the context of elections. Committing to meet or exceed the targets set in the Paris Agreement would be a good start.
Map of the South Pole Traverse
As a founding member of the Antarctic Treaty that continues to be active in the continent, Norway should take the lead in this process. The country has a self-image as an enthusiastic advocate of human rights and environmental causes at the global level. If it wishes to live up to its reputation, Norway ought to begin by stopping issuing new permits for oil exploration and taking concrete steps toward reducing fossil fuel production. Thus can Norway truly make a contribution to protecting Antarctica.
REXSAC – Resource Extraction and Sustainable Arctic Communities – is a Nordic Centre of Excellence in Arctic research, funded by Nordforsk and led by the Division, together with Stockholm University and Stockholm Environment Institute. Representants in REXSAC from the Division are researcher and LTU Professor Dag Avango, Professor Sverker Sörlin and doctoral students Jean-Sébastien Boutet and Camilla Winqvist. Today the new REXSAC film was launched.
The film “Resource Extraction and Sustainable Arctic Communities” with results and conclusions from the work in REXSAC is availabe and open access. The film highlights how mineral extraction systems combined with other societal activities and climate change exert pressures on Arctic ecosystems & local- and traditional livelihoods. Follow the link to the REXSAC blog below, to read more about why and how the film was made, and also to watch it.
Anusha Batool Sherazi has finished a master thesis with a pressing topic this fall. Under the supervision of Ethemcan Turhan, researcher of our division and new Assistant Professor of Environmental Planning at the University of Groningen, our master student has produced a valuable contribution for the study of climate change, under the challenging conditions of the global pandemic.
While the effects of the current climate crisis are being felt everywhere, the global south has to mitigate its consequences under austere conditions. Sherazi investigates in this study the political dimensions of the pressing need to adapt to a rapidly changing climate in Pakistan. Struck by several severe disasters, this country deserves special attention to learn how adaptations can be framed, financed and realised to the benefit of people affected in a southern Asian context.
We are the victims of a planet that is warming and ice caps that are melting, pushing sea levels higher and swamping the land that we have traditionally occupied.
Commodore J.V. Bainimarama (Prime Minister of Fiji)
Because of climate change, many people around the world face serious consequences, including the threat of losing their homes. One of the most serious inhabited areas now under threat is the nation of Fiji. By discussing the case of the Fijian village Vunidogoloa, we can see the tangible effects now facing thousands of communities that are being displaced worldwide as a result of our burning planet. In addition, we can learn about the current best practices of community-based relocation.
The story of climate change, though widespread, is not common, and, in many ways, must still be told. The gases in the earth’s atmosphere regulate our climate. Nevertheless, the vast majority of global transportation systems and industries rely on burning fossil fuels which increases the proportion of some gases in the atmosphere. For instance, agriculture and meat industries release high levels of carbon dioxide and methane. These gases are responsible for trapping ongoing longwave radiation in the climate system. Through such artificial augmentation (by human activity), the natural greenhouse effect becomes stronger and the earth warms. As a result, forests and oceans that have acted as “sinks,” absorbing part of the emissions of greenhouse gases have become “full.” Their capacity to absorb industrial emissions has failed due to various effects such as acidification, warming and pollution. Consequently, climate change now leads to a global warming of the layers of earth, oceans, a change in precipitation patterns, the melting of glaciers, sea level rise, ocean acidification, and frequency of extreme weather, namely storms and heat waves.
One of the locations most impacted by this changing climate are small islands. Regardless of their location, small islands are particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Due to their limited size, their natural and socio-political resilience to weather natural hazards and external shocks is much lower than other countries, exposing them to greater risks.
Leaving Vunidogoloa
In the case of Fiji, the country is witnessing the worst impacts of climate change such as sea level rise, warmer temperatures, ocean acidification and intensified ‘El Niño’ patterns (interaction of the oceans and atmosphere modifying temperatures). This intensification of weather events due to climate change implies higher risks of drought and floods, endangering drinking water resources. Indeed, due to coastal floods, the incoming saltwater has destroyed crops, augmented water- and food-borne diseases and endangered the nation’s coral reefs. Such an impact on the ecology of the islands and health of its people is further exacerbated by extreme weather events, such as tropical cyclones and heat waves, that have caused injuries and illness namely vector- and water-borne diseases as well as augmented the risk of malaria and dengue fever.
Vunidogoloa was the first Fijian village to experience the impacts of climate change. Located on the island of Vanua Levu, the village was composed of 26 houses in which 32 families lived. Starting as early as 2006, floods and erosion caused by both sea-level rise and increased rains, started to become stronger, reaching homes and destroying crops. The situation was getting worse every day, with water coming in and taking the land away progressively. The mangroves that used to cover the whole coast were absorbed by the sea. Some houses were, in the words of the headman of Vunidogoloa, “like ships in the water.” The community feared for their children, suffered from agony and experienced the worst consequences on their land: crops destroyed, scarcity of drinking water resources, fewer yields from fishing and endangered access to roads. It ceased to be the idyllic spot it used to be decades before.
In order to manage the risks and impacts of climate change, the village undertook several adaptation action programs. Several of the homes most affected early on were moved using Vunidogoloa’s own resources. They also petitioned the Japanese government, who funded the construction of a seawall to protect from sea-level rise and inundations. However, this ended up being more harmful afterwards. Water that breached the seawall could not flow back unobstructed to the sea; the seawall actually exacerbated flooding.
Broken seawall. Tronquet, Clothilde, From Vunidogoloa to Kenani: An Insight into Successful Relocation, found in The State of Environmental Migration.
Progressively, the severity of floods and erosion made relocation the only hope for the citizens of Vunidogoloa. Considered a last resort, relocating the village seemed their only remaining hope. Hence, the villagers asked the help of their government in 2006. Unfortunately, steps towards a relocation plan were not taken until 2012, when the National Summit for Building Resilience to Climate Change was held. From the beginning, the relocation process was driven by equality concerns and based on consultation, consensus and participative decision-making process. As a result, 30 identical houses were built in accordance with the villagers’ choices, which treated all residents equally. Counting with the works of qualified volunteers provided by ILO (Edwards, 2012), the own villagers and unemployed people, a more sustainable concept of residences was promoted. This included the insertion of solar panels and natural system of draining water. In 2014, the relocation process started, transferring the villagers from the coast to a nearby location (also in Cakaudrove Province) further inland and at higher altitude. The residents named their new home, Kenani, from the biblical word Canaan, meaning promised land.
Satellite view of Vunidogoloa and Kenani. Tronquet, Clothilde, From Vunidogoloa to Kenani: An Insight into Successful Relocation, found in The State of Environmental Migration.Houses under construction in August 2013. Tronquet, Clothilde, From Vunidogoloa to Kenani: An Insight into Successful Relocation, found in The State of Environmental Migration.
Adapting to Kenani
But the move to the promised land is not all honey and locusts. Relocation is difficult, with significant economic, social and psychological impacts on those making this journey. For instance, relocating a village is expensive. In the case of Vunilodogoa, the move cost a total of 980,000 USD. The Fijian government paid approx. 740,000 USD, and the community paid out approx. 240,000 USD in the value of the logs used to construct the new houses and taken from Vunidogoloa. For the villagers, relocation was also described as “the saddest event of their lives.” Fijians consider their land as part of their identity, as something belonging to their ancestors and in need of care to ensure its prosperity as a dwelling space for future generations. To lose it constitutes a physical, emotional, and psychological ordeal. Leaving the village led the villagers to make the traumatic decision to exhume the remains of their ancestors. Luckily, the local church provided the transfer of the burial site. Now, the cemetery is closer and more convenient according to one elder villager.
In addition, resident diets and food practices changed with the move. They started planting bananas and pineapples tops provided by International Labour Organization. Additionally, as direct fishing from the ocean was no longer feasible, a shift to fish ponds was made, with the contribution of the Ministry of Fisheries who provided the fish and prawns. In addition, the relocation project aimed to “improve” the lifestyle of the villagers, providing them with separated kitchens, bathrooms and individual taps for washing. Likewise, access to the hospital is not any longer a challenge thanks to the village’s proximity to the main road.
Such changes affected, in particular, women, the elderly, and children. Regarding women, moving impacted them negatively at the outset. Whereas they used to fish daily in Vunidogoloa, men used to work in the farms. However, in Kenani, the sea is not nearby the village, which means that going fishing would involve an extended period of time. Thus, their husbands—decision-makers in their patriarchal society—would not allow them to go fishing but rather focus on household labor. This made women more dependent on their husbands to subsist in an early stage. However, as fish farms started to be installed, women were able to resume fishing activities. Moreover, having individual taps for washing allowed women to spend less time waiting at the community tap and socialize with other women or recreational activities such as mat weaving. Likewise, many rural women received empowerment training in solar engineering provided by a female villager who completed a UN Women-funded programme on solar engineering. For the elderly, the new location reduced their movement due to its higher position and terrain. Their social daily activities, walking, going to the church, or visiting relatives, were reduced. Children are now able to attend school daily, as they no longer have to cross a tidal river (dangerous under bad weather conditions) and can use the local bus to get to school instead.
Final Thoughts
In the National Climate Change Policy (NCCP) approved in 2012 by the Fijian Government, the report mentions a need for post-relocation monitoring and consultation to identify any long-term issues for relocated or host communities. In an interview, the climate change unit of the ministry of foreign affairs and international co-operation responded that this was to ensure the sustainability of the relocation process for the affected community. However, it remains unclear the consideration of the psychological or social impacts of relocation in such a monitoring program.
Nevertheless, in many respects, relocation has been a temporary lifesaver for this community that—although having contributed very little to climate change—has been severely affected by it. As noted earlier, this process involves losses and damages; yet, overall, the sources I’ve analyzed outline its success. Some former villagers of Vunigodoloa have even defined their lives as “easier” than before. It seems that women were impacted mostly at the beginning of the relocation process. Still, in a source from 2017, the situation of the elderly did not seem to be improved. Hopefully, we all can learn from Vunidogoloa a lesson of endurance. Moreover, may it serve as a call for action to industrialized countries and future decision-makers the timeliness and urgency for addressing the loss, damage and traumas that come as a result from relocating due to climate change.
Charan, D; Kaur, M; Singh, P, “Customary Land and Climate Change Induced Relocation—A Case Study of Vunidogoloa Village, Vanua Levu, Fiji” in Leal, W, “Climate Change Adaptation in Pacific Countries” [2017].
Giulia Borsa is an International Human Rights jurist. Giulia has been working as a postgraduate researcher for the past two years, and this blog entry is the outcome of her collaboration with the project CLISEL – a Coordination and support action of Horizon 2020. She was one of the participant to the Environmental Humanities Training School that the KTH EHL, organised in Naples in December 2018 on “Loss, Damage, and Mobility in the context of Climate Change.” She holds a bachelor’s degree in law from the University Autonoma of Barcelona and an LLM in International Human Rights Law from Oxford Brookes, with a dissertation written on climate change related displacement. She has also been coordinating the division on Climate Change and Human Rights of the International Organization for Least Developed Countries (IOLDCs) in Geneva, and she is currently working at Ecovadis. She has won several awards, including the Ideas that Change the World Competition in Oxford in 2018.
This was a summer to remember! Swedes are normally not spoilt with sunshine and we know how to complain about too much rain and too many mosquitoes. But this year most of us got more than we bargai…
Lokala initiativ kommer knappast att räcka för att klara vår del av Parisavtalets mål om högst två graders uppvärmning orsakad av människan. Det n saknas en stark global makthavare. Ett stort ansvar faller därigenom på den nationella nivån.
Petter Wulff, tidigare doktorand vid avdelningen, skriver en replik till Staffan Laestadius i debatten om klimatförändringar : DN.Åsikt
Considering the current state of global and American affairs re the environment in general and climate in particular, I think we can humbly hope that this special issue has come out when it did to contribute to the debate about mediating and narrating environmental issues through popular communication (from film, music and literature to FB, news and TV). /Miyase Christensen
(2018). Environmental Themes in Popular Narratives. Environmental Communication: Vol. 12, No. 1, pp. 1-6.
You better not miss that Environmental Communications recently published an article with big represenation from our Division. Our guest professor and researcher Miyase Christensen is the author of the article together with co-editors Anna Åberg, who defended at the Division in 2013, researcher Susanna Liström who is currently on parental leave in San Diego and researcher Katarina Larsen who among other things is in charge of our Higher Seminars.
instead of studying the resilient subjects, we should “identify the actors and processes that produce the need to build resilience in the first place” (ibid.)
Northwest Washington, Washington, United States Shot on Pennsylvania Ave near the Capitol. Source: https://unsplash.com/photos/cpAKc-G6lPg
We are happy to announce that the KTH Environmental Humanities Laboratory recently received a positive message from Formas. The project Occupy Climate Change!, proposed by Marco Armiero, is awarded almost 900.000 euros over three years.
“OCC! explores how urban communities can respond to Loss and Damages by investigating new and insurgent citizenship practices and new types of knowledge. Focusing on the practices and experiments of grassroots organizations across different cases (New York, Rio, Istanbul, Naples, Stockholm), it aims to identify how these diverse, dynamic, self-organised responses to loss undo or embrace damage. This endeavor requires a critical appraisal of the highly contested narratives of societal resilience (Kaika, 2017). As Kaika argues, instead of studying the resilient subjects, we should “identify the actors and processes that produce the need to build resilience in the first place” (ibid.), engaging critically with the material basis reproducing injustice.” Summary taken from the project application, written by Marco Armiero.
To kick off this project a coffee talk together with Doreen Stabinsky is planned for late November this fall. Please visit the lab’s Facebook page for more news, event updates and interesting articles.
Lokala initiativ kommer knappast att räcka för att klara vår del av Parisavtalets mål om högst två graders uppvärmning orsakad av människan. Det n saknas en stark global makthavare. Ett stort ansvar faller därigenom på den nationella nivån.
17). Arctic sea ice and the communication of climate change. Popular Communication: Vol. 15, No. 4, pp. 249-268. doi: 10.1080/15405702.2017.1376064