Climate change policy responses for Canada's Inuit population: the importance of and opportunities for adaptation
Global environmental change, volume 20, issue 1, February 2010, pages 177-191, Adaptive capacity to global change in Latin America, doi:10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2009.10.008:
This paper identifies and examines how policy intervention can help Canada's Inuit population adapt to climate change, on the basis on an understanding of the determinants of vulnerability identified in research conducted with 15 Inuit communities.
It features case studies using a consistent approach where vulnerability is conceptualized as a function of exposure-sensitivity to climatic risks and adaptive capacity to deal with those risks. It identifies conditions to which each community is currently vulnerable, characterize the factors that shape vulnerability and how they have changed over time, identify opportunities for adaptation policy, and examine how adaptation can be mainstreamed.
The paper synthesizes findings consistent across the case studies and documents significant vulnerabilities, a function of socio-economic stresses and change, continuing and pervasive inequality, and magnitude of climate change, highlighting Inuit's considerable adaptive capacity. It gives recommendations to realize this adaptive capacity and overcome adaptation barriers through policy intervention to: (i) support the teaching and transmission of environmental knowledge and land skills, (ii) enhance and review emergency management capability, (iii) ensure the flexibility of resource management regimes, (iv) provide economic support to facilitate adaptation for groups with limited household income, (v) increase research effort to identify short and long term risk factors and adaptive response options, (vi) protect key infrastructure, and (vii) promote awareness of climate change impacts and adaptation among policy makers.