Northern Climate ExChange

Projects

Public Education and Outreach Hub

The four central activities of the Yukon PEO Hub are education, outreach, networking and acting as a clearinghouse. Examples of projects include school visits, community visits, media campaigns, events and public presentations, as well as the coordination of the Community Stewardship Pilot. The PEO Hub also produces weekly e-mail news updates, maintains the growing NCE library, edits the Weathering Change newsletter and serves as a central hub for resources and information for educators, students, professionals and others.


Community Stewardship Pilot Program

Arising out of a need for community-driven climate change public education and outreach for the Yukon’s rural regions, the Yukon PEO Hub developed the Community Stewardship Pilot Program. We offered $2500 seed money, in-kind assistance, and program materials for two Yukon communities to run their own climate change programs. Applications from Dawson City and Old Crow were selected out of eight Letters of Interest received from across the territory.

Working closely with the community steward from Dawson City, we developed and delivered a climate change community forum, which included workshops, presentations, school visits, and the development of a climate change local action plan. With the Renewable Resource Council in Old Crow, we worked to design lesson plans for local elementary and high school classes as well as the production of two large climate change themed art murals designed and produced by the schoolchildren. The murals were presented at the 2nd annual Old Crow climate change conference, a community workshop that the NCE helped organize, fund, and facilitate.

These two community workshops, both in Dawson City and Old Crow, were excellent capacity building exercises for the communities, and our office. We partnered with local organizations including Aboriginal and Northern Community Action Program and various First Nations governments, among others.


Arctic Youth Network

The Arctic Youth Network (AYN) is an emerging organization that works to connect young Northerners to the opportunities around them, to their communities, and to the policies that affect their daily lives. The AYN approached the NCE this year to co-host their inaugural meeting. Other partners were the Department of Foreign Affairs and the Walter & Duncan Gordon Foundation. The meeting was held in Whitehorse in August. The first issue that the AYN addressed was climate change. The outcome was for the group to produce a Climate Change Declaration from the Youth of the Arctic, which was delivered to the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Montreal later in the fall. The AYN quickly developed their own mandate and moved forward in independent directions. The NCE continues to provide climate change information for the network.


Canadian Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation Assessment

Natural Resources Canada is directing the Canadian Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation Assessment to be completed in early 2007. The Assessment is broken into Canadian regional chapters, one of which is focused on the Territorial North. Similar to the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, the Canadian Assessment includes consideration of all pertinent existing primary and grey literature on climate change, as well as expert opinion and traditional knowledge whenever possible. To this end, the Northern Node of the Canadian Climate Impacts and Adaptation Research Network (C-CIARN North) in cooperation with the chapter leads, Chris Furgal (Laval University) and Terry Prowse (Environment Canada and University of Victoria) held three consultations in the North, one in each territory. The intent of these were to present an overview of the developing chapter to key groups to allow for review, critique and most importantly, input into the process prior to completion of the full first draft in April of 2006. The consultation meetings were brief but effective. Meeting reports have been published and the author team has expressed the importance that this process has contributed to the chapter.


Innovation Cluster

Over the past year, the NCE, the Yukon private sector, the National Research Council, the government of the Yukon, the Whitehorse Chamber of Commerce and Yukon College worked together to assess the viability of an innovation cluster in the Yukon. The innovation cluster would concentrate on the development, commercialization, and export of technologies and related solutions for cold-weather regions around the world. Included in the cold-weather focus was an interest in climate change variability, risks and adaptation. This year the working group completed its feasibility study. At present a request for proposals has gone out for a Project Director to develop and implement a business plan to attract investment and oversee the development of the Yukon Cold Climate Innovation Centre.


Forest Management in a Changing Climate

Healthy forests are the foundation of the Strategic Forest Management Plan for the Champagne & Aishihik Traditional Territory. It is therefore important to determine how forests in the region might be affected by global warming. Climate-associated impacts such as drought, wildfire, and outbreaks of insects and diseases -- already concerns in Southwestern Yukon -- are projected to become more frequent and severe, affecting forest productivity, ecosystem functioning and habitat values. The development of a sound, knowledge-based decision-making capacity for the region is critical. The NCE, funded by Environment Canada’s Northern Ecosystem Initiative, administered a project to synthesize available information on climate change for the southwest Yukon. The project conducted a preliminary exploration of forest management actions that could be undertaken to reduce the vulnerability of forest ecosystems, and the people and economies that depend on them, to climate change. Intended as the first step in a longer-term process of evaluating climate impacts, assessing risks to ecosystem and community values, and developing scenarios for adaptation, the project aims to support informed forest management decision-making in light of climate change. The project culminated this year with the publication of an overview report and presentations at the very successful workshop Climate Change in Our Backyard.


Arctic Climate Impact Assessment Outreach

The Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA) was released in 2004. In support of the ACIA policy goals to disseminate the results to circumpolar communities, the NCE has begun an extensive outreach promote the ACIA message. We reproduce and distribute the ACIA DVDs (with permission from CICERO in Norway). Due to a lack of ACIA web presence, the NCE developed an informative outreach website with encouragement from the ACIA steering committee chair. All opportunities are taken to incorporate the ACIA graphics and key messages into public presentations.


University of the Arctic Advanced Emphasis on Climate Change

The NCE continued to work in partnership with the Artic Athabaskan Council and the University of the Arctic, to develop an advanced emphasis on climate change for the University of the Arctic Bachelor of Circumpolar Studies (BCS) program. This year we developed the structure of the degree. This included course outlines and identification of topics, modules and learning outcomes. Discussion and development continue on detailed curriculum as well as alternate course delivery methods. Again this year we supported the delivery of an undergraduate class on climate change at the Yukon College, GEOG 290, making guest lectures for the class.


Northern Climate Change Schools Program

We've developed a climate change program aimed at elementary and secondary level students and educators in the North.


NCE database of northern climate change information sources

Looking for information about climate change impacts in northern Canada? From the very specific to the very general, this database allows users to search for references by region, title, keyword, author and more. References are focussed on northern Canada but include records from the rest of the circumpolar north, along with some general climate change information sources.


NCE database of northern climate change contacts

Find out who is in the know with respect to climate change in northern Canada. Users can search this database for contacts by field or region of interest. An easy-to-complete web-based form is provided for you to complete if you do, or have done, work related to climate change in northern Canada.


Gap analysis project

The Northern Climate ExChange has conducted a gap analysis of the northern climate change knowledge base. This analysis describes the level of scientific and anecdotal understanding of the impacts of climate change on northern Canada.


NCE Visioning Session

In April 2001 NCE stakeholders gathered in Whitehorse to assess the first 14 months of the NCE's operations, and to plot a course for the future. The results of the Visioning Session have been summarized in this report.


Exchanging Ideas on Climate Change in the Yukon

The Northern Climate ExChange visited Yukon communities during the summer and fall of 2000. The community visits built upon recommendations from the Northern Climate ExChange May 2000 Workshop, Taking Action on Climate Change in the Yukon. This report explains what we did, how we did it, what we found out, and how we shared what we found. We have also provided some context on climate and climate change science by providing an overview of the Yukon climate, and the latest in climate change scenarios and model projections for the Yukon.