Sustainable Development in the Arctic

Abstract

Alaska, the northernmost territory of the United States, offers a unique mix of a carbon-based economy and strong self-government, coupled with critical reliance on federal funding for a large part of its employment and economic activity. The chapter provides a brief overview of Alaska’s experience in promoting sustainable development by analyzing strategic priorities, policies, and the implementation thereof, while tracking sustainable development indicators’ dynamics in the past decade to draw conclusions on the United States Arctic region’s potential to effectively transition to sustainable development path. The United States of America is currently in the process of formulating a sustainable development policy for the Arctic region. The existing documents do not address the main challenges facing Alaska – the state’s high dependence on the natural resource sector and the lack of infrastructure. Changes in the region’s economic well-being reflect natural market processes, geographic location, and climate conditions in Alaska, rather than deliberate sustainable development policy by the government. Despite persistent natural population growth in the state and the Arctic zone, the demographic situation and, consequently, the region’s employment and future economic growth prospects do not look sustainable. Existing trends toward declining natural population growth, as well as the interdependence of migration flows and hydrocarbon energy prices, do not create a solid foundation for increasing the self-sufficiency of Alaska’s socio-economic sphere. Under the existing conditions, volatility in commodity markets inevitably leads to a systemic employment crisis, particularly impacting the most vulnerable Arctic regions, as manifested in the 2013–2018 recession. This trend is only likely to worsen as the state’s resource-based economic growth weakens.

“The article was written on the basis of the RANEPA state assignment research programme.”