A framework for assessing the economic impacts of Arctic change.

The scientific literature on physical changes in the Arctic region driven by climate change is extensive. In addition, the emerging understanding of physical feedbacks and teleconnections between the Arctic and the rest of the world suggests that the warming in the Arctic region is likely to cause impacts that extend well beyond the region itself. However, there is only limited research on how Arctic change may affect economies and individual industry sectors around the world. We argue that there is a pressing need for more research on this topic and present a conceptual framework to guide future research for assessing the regional and global economic impacts of Arctic change, including both possible benefits and costs. We stress on the importance of a transdisciplinary approach, which includes an integration of the natural sciences, economics and social sciences, as well as engagement with a wide range of stakeholders to better understand and manage the implications of Arctic change.

Climate policy implications of nonlinear decline of Arctic land permafrost and other cryosphere elements.

Arctic feedbacks accelerate climate change through carbon releases from thawing permafrost and higher solar absorption from reductions in the surface albedo, following loss of sea ice and land snow. Here, we include dynamic emulators of complex physical models in the integrated assessment model PAGE-ICE to explore nonlinear transitions in the Arctic feedbacks and their subsequent impacts on the global climate and economy under the Paris Agreement scenarios. The permafrost feedback is increasingly positive in warmer climates, while the albedo feedback weakens as the ice and snow melt. Combined, these two factors lead to significant increases in the mean discounted economic effect of climate change: +4.0% ($24.8 trillion) under the 1.5 °C scenario, +5.5% ($33.8 trillion) under the 2 °C scenario, and +4.8% ($66.9 trillion) under mitigation levels consistent with the current national pledges. Considering the nonlinear Arctic feedbacks makes the 1.5 °C target marginally more economically attractive than the 2 °C target, although both are statistically equivalent.

Research priorities for managing the impacts and dependencies of business upon food, energy, water and the environment.

Delivering access to sufficient food, energy and water resources to ensure human wellbeing is a major concern for governments worldwide. However, it is crucial to account for the 'nexus' of interactions between these natural resources and the consequent implications for human wellbeing. The private sector has a critical role in driving positive change towards more sustainable nexus management and could reap considerable benefits from collaboration with researchers to devise solutions to some of the foremost sustainability challenges of today. Yet opportunities are missed because the private sector is rarely involved in the formulation of deliverable research priorities. We convened senior research scientists and influential business leaders to collaboratively identify the top forty questions that, if answered, would best help companies understand and manage their food-energy-water-environment nexus dependencies and impacts. Codification of the top order nexus themes highlighted research priorities around development of pragmatic yet credible tools that allow businesses to incorporate nexus interactions into their decision-making; demonstration of the business case for more sustainable nexus management; identification of the most effective levers for behaviour change; and understanding incentives or circumstances that allow individuals and businesses to take a leadership stance. Greater investment in the complex but productive relations between the private sector and research community will create deeper and more meaningful collaboration and cooperation.

Detecting and coping with disruptive shocks in Arctic marine systems: a resilience approach to place and people.

It seems inevitable that the ongoing and rapid changes in the physical environment of the marine Arctic will push components of the region's existing social-ecological systems-small and large-beyond tipping points and into new regimes. Ongoing changes include warming, freshening, acidification, and alterations to food web structure. In anticipation we pose three distinct but interrelated challenges: (1) to explore existing connectivities within components of the marine system; (2) to seek indicators (if they exist) of approaching regime change through observation and modeling; and (3) to build functional resilience into existing systems through adaptation-oriented policy and to have in hand transformative options when tipping points are crossed and new development trajectories are required. Each of the above challenges is scale dependent, and each requires a much deeper understanding than we currently have of connectivity within existing systems and their response to external forcing. Here, we argue from a global perspective the need to understand the Arctic's role in an increasingly nonlinear world; then describe emerging evidence from new observations on the connectivity of processes and system components from the Canada Basin and subarctic seas surrounding northern North America; and finally posit an approach founded in "resilience thinking" to allow northern residents living in small coastal communities to participate in the observation, adaption and-if necessary-transformation of the social-ecological system with which they live.

Bringing feedback and resilience of high-latitude ecosystems into the corporate boardroom.

This paper discusses the role of companies in high-latitude regions, which are conceptualized as socially and economically mediated ecosystems, and identifies a number of important social actors within the business environment. We present three examples of corporate activity at high latitudes and discuss a variety of common threads. Notably, we argue that business theory and practice needs to move beyond a narrow social or economic concept of organizational resilience and embrace the ecological resilience of high-latitude regions as a business management goal. We also suggest that regional ecosystem resilience needs to become a meaningful measure of sustainable corporate governance, one that corporate boards of directors can review and commit to. The paper concludes with a call for a detailed research agenda on the role of transnational and national companies within high-latitude regions.