Climate Resilience of Arctic Tourism: A Finnish Perspective on the Post-Paris Agreement Era

The Arctic is more globalised than ever and, in the Anthropocene, the Arctic region should be recognised as the laboratory of the future of industrial civilization (GlobalArctic, 2020). The actions taking place in the Global Arctic today may indicate how climate change impacts our future (see Finger & Heininen, 2019). Therefore, an analysis of the Arctic can provide a ‘road map’ for the post-Paris Agreement era (see Wu et al., 2018). In the Arctic, where the effects of climate change are the strongest, we see the importance of climate resilience, a concept highlighted in the Paris Climate Agreement. Arctic tourism in Finland is an illustrative example of climate resilience, as the industry has to respond to many different changes at the same time. Finland’s government has set the goal of achieving carbon neutrality as the first industrialised society in the world by 2035. Global warming and the changing business environment is increasing the vulnerability of the tourism industry. Simultaneously, dramatic impacts following COVID-19 restrictions may halt the first-rate success of this locally essential livelihood. Unless we are able to effectively coordinate efforts to develop climate resiliency, the implementation of necessary measures will be delayed.