Facing an uncertain future

The Arctic is teetering on the edge of a cliff—and the speed of climate warming is threatening to push it over the edge. Because of human activities around the globe, Arctic temperatures have increased almost four times faster than the global average over the past 40 years, faster than anywhere else on the planet.

The extent of summer sea ice is now shrinking by 13 per cent each decade, and the sea ice cover continues to become younger and thinner. Even if the world somehow gets its act together and reduces carbon emissions sharply, the first ice-free summer could be as soon as some time in the 2030s—a decade sooner than previous projections indicated.

If we don’t limit the global temperature increase to 1.5°C, not only will we lose important biodiversity, communities and industries in the Arctic itself, but as the Arctic melts and releases more carbon emissions, the entire world will face the consequences of continuously rising sea levels and accelerated warming. In fact, we are already seeing the effects of human activity on our natural world in the form of more severe droughts, extreme weather events, and larger and more frequent wildfires, such as those that are devastating parts of North America and Russia this summer.

At the Bonn Climate Change Conference in June, negotiators made some advances towards addressing the climate crisis. But the conference revealed a concerning lack of progress on achieving our climate goals and limiting warming to 1.5 degrees. This apathy doesn’t match the urgency of the situation. It does put more pressure on delegates to the COP28 UN Climate Summit in December to bring about the changes needed to avoid catastrophe.

Unless we plan, enable and implement climate- smart conservation—and do so under conditions that ensure success—we will lose not only nature, but everything we value that is linked to it.

– Vicki Lee Wallgren, Director, WWF Global Arctic Programme

The time for action is now. We need to provide nature the space it needs to adapt to changing conditions so we can strengthen the Arctic’s resilience. Unless we plan, enable and implement climate-smart conservation—and do so under conditions that ensure success—we will lose not only nature, but everything we value that is linked to it.

We don’t have time for delays. That is why WWF is calling on countries to commit to phasing out all fossil fuels and fossil fuel subsidies and to agree on a target to rapidly expand renewable energy, energy efficiency and energy access at COP28.

While I have more than two decades of experience working on conservation in the south, I am a newcomer to the Arctic. It has been an eye-opener for me to see how tangibly and concretely people and ecosystems in the Arctic are being affected by climate change. The Arctic is the epicentre of the climate crisis, and the changes taking place there now are uprooting communities and ecosystems as we speak.

Some of these changes will be irreversible. But many others can still be mitigated or avoided. Over the next seven years, we have a small window of opportunity to work with everyone involved, particularly Indigenous Peoples, to prepare the Arctic for an uncharted future. The stakes are high, and we cannot afford to fail—for the sake of the Arctic and the planet.