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Regional context and priorities


Table 1.2.1: Categories for regional priorities Environmental challenges


• Land fragmentation • Water security • Biodiversity loss


Cross-cutting challenges


• Climate change • A rapidly changing Arctic • Energy transition • Non-point-source contaminants • Contaminants of emerging concern


Foundational responses • Natural capital accounting


• Sustainable consumption and production


• Adaptive governance


• Environmental information and analytics


• City-level innovation


disappearing as biotic ranges shift and species dwindle in number; rising sea levels and increased storminess are consuming the shorelines and piers of villages and towns along the coast; and unprecedented flooding is tearing away at inland settlements.


They also have global implications. Climate change impacts, such as the loss of summer sea ice cover, are driving weather systems and climate extremes that reach far south of the Arctic Circle into Europe and Asia, as well as North America. Rising temperatures are also thawing the frozen ground at an accelerated rate, releasing carbon dioxide and methane that lead to further warming.


For more information, see the State and Trends chapter— particularly subsections 2.7 and 2.9.2—and subsection 3.2 in the Policy Response chapter.


1.2.2 Climate change


Outside of the Arctic, climate change has been widely viewed in North America as something that will happen in the future. In the past decade, however, the region has experienced climate change impacts such as intense and enduring regional droughts; ecosystem and species migration that can disrupt livelihoods and lifestyles; hurricanes leading to loss of life and infrastructure damage; and temperature and precipitation extremes that damage the built environment, challenge regional and global food security, and threaten the livelihoods and opportunities of American and Canadian citizens.


Recent studies have proposed and demonstrated new mechanisms by which the changing Arctic may be affecting weather patterns in North America and globally, resulting in more extreme weather. As long as greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions continue unabated, Arctic warming and its wide- ranging impacts are also expected to continue.


Climate change research has increasingly focused on assessing impacts that would occur under different warming scenarios and how economies might adapt to changing climatic conditions. Meanwhile, efforts to address climate change have aimed to mitigate its impacts and adapt to those that are unavoidable. Mitigation efforts include, for example, no-till


farming; forestry conservation; carbon


taxes; renewable energy sources; and resource efficiency. Adaptation efforts range from changes in infrastructure design; behaviour patterns; and zoning restrictions to ecosystem-based approaches.


For more information, see subsections 2.8 and 2.9 in the State and Trends chapter and the Land, Water, and Biodiversity analyses in the State of the Environment chapter and the Policy Response chapter.


1.2.3 Energy transition


The recent Paris Agreement marks significant progress towards strengthening the global response to climate change and shifting to a sustainable energy system. However, emissions from the use of fossil fuels continue and contribute significantly to the historic increases in atmospheric GHG concentrations (IPCC 2011).


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