Abstract
The diminishing extent of sea ice in Arctic areas brings opportunities for increased shipping activities in the Canadian Arctic. However, it also causes concerns, e.g., related to environmental pollution to vulnerable areas and impacts on ecosystems at local, regional, and global scales, which can further impact human health. Increased shipping activity also causes concerns about safety risks associated with the navigation of vessels, for instance, related to the response to vessels or people in distress. Appropriate risk management strategies, tools, and equipment are essential to successfully mitigate these risks, with due consideration of concerns of rights-holders, stakeholders, and society at large. In this chapter, an exploratory application of key elements of the International Risk Governance Council (IRGC) risk governance framework is presented, focusing on selected risks associated with shipping in the Canadian Arctic. After introducing the IRGC framework, selected shipping risks in the Canadian Arctic are classified in terms of the type of risk problem these represent. Subsequently, a discussion is given on the implications of this pre-screening for selecting appropriate risk governance strategies. The chapter concludes with a discussion on suggestions for future work on risk governance in a Canadian Arctic maritime shipping risk context.
Highlights
The effects of global warming are projected to lead to a significant decrease of the extent of sea ice coverage in Arctic and sub-Arctic marine environments (Barnhart et al 2016; Höglund et al 2017)
Despite the above outlined complexities and uncertainties involved in Arctic maritime transportation and oil spill response, oil spill risks from shipping in the Canadian Arctic can be considered as an ambiguity-induced risk problem
The implications of considering a risk as being representative of one of these problem types are outlined through presentation of the risk governance escalator
Summary
The effects of global warming are projected to lead to a significant decrease of the extent of sea ice coverage in Arctic and sub-Arctic marine environments (Barnhart et al 2016; Höglund et al 2017). Particular attention is given to how risks are characterized during the pre-screening in the pre-assessment phase and the implications that this has for implementing an appropriate risk governance process If the risk is not considered acceptable based on the decision-making mechanisms of the particular context, while the activity is considered worthwhile to pursue, additional measures are required to reduce the occurrence likelihood or the consequence severity. Issues such as the societal needs for the risk to be present, the choice of technology and substitution potential, and the equity-related compensation mechanisms are relevant here as well, that is, issues related to policy-making and societal risk balancing. The involvement of various societal actors ensures appropriate consideration of the plurality of values and interests and seeks to design effective risk management strategies with increased relevance and social license of the decisions
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