Category: ARKTIKO

Our group’s publication year has officially started. The first article released this year is  ““Barely surviving on a pile of gold”: Arguing for the case of peat energy in 2010s Finland” by postdoctoral researcher Hanna Lempinen. The article is already available online and will be published in print in May’s volume of Energy Policy journal.

While the share of peat in Finland’s energy mix today amounts to only around 4%, peat recurrently returns to the center stage in Finnish energy-related public debates. As an indigenous energy resource, peat is a welcome addition to the energy mix of the heavily energy-dependent country. In addition, the employment impacts of peat production are considered significant. These benefits are, however, contradicted by the environmental impacts and climate emissions caused by peat energy. The conflicting interests revolving around peat have resulted in constantly shifting national peat policies as well as infrequent “explosions” of public and political debates on peat production. This article explores two of the most recent politicizations of peat through an empirical focus on the short-lived promotion campaigns that sparked widespread public debate: the 2010 “2 prosenttia” [2%] internet campaign from the state-majority-owned energy company VAPO and the 2017 “Turveinfo” [peat info] campaign launched by The Bioenergy Association of Finland. Through an analysis of the colorful and provocative promotion campaigns, this article (1) explores the arguments and rhetoric through which political support of peat is being acquired from the Finnish public and (2) examines what crises in the 2010s Finland peat is constructed as the (only) logical answer for.

Our research group wishes everybody Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year and hopes that a lot of quality research will be done this year.

Two  researchers from our team, Karoliina Hurri and Sanna Kopra, wrote a guest column for The Ulkopolitist titled “Puolan ilmastokokouksessa paljon pöydällä: Odottaako maailma Kiinalta liikaa?” (Much on the table at the Poland’s climate conference: does the world expect too much from China?).

From 3 to 14 October The United Nations Conference on Climate Change is organised in Poland, and it is expected to be the most important event after the Paris Climate Treaty. The Polish climate conference is the last chance to negotiate the rules of the Paris Agreement, because it will be implemented in 2020. One big question  for the Polish negotiations is which role that China will take. The world has started to hope that China will take the role of a new leader in international climate negotiations after the United States announced its withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement.

Both Karoliina and Sanna research interests are China’s Arctic policy and its role as a great power. Read their expert opinion on the conference online here.

Liisa Kauppila’s and Sanna Kopra’s article “Pohjoinen on punainen? : Kiina ja Arktiksen uusi alueellistuminen” (The High North is Red? China and New Regionalism in the Arctic) was published in November in Kosmopolis –  academic journal of Finnish Peace Research Association.

This article analyzes the role of China in the transformation of the Arctic from the theory of new regionalism point of view. It emphasizes that the Arctic is a socially constructed area that is defined by processes that are changing in the face of globalization and climate change. The article claims that, especially China’s rise to power transforms the dynamics of the northernmost parts of the globe and promotes both the discursive and material development of the so-called Asian and Arctic operational area. The article also briefly reflects on the wider political, economic and environmental impacts of this ongoing change in the Arctic.

The article can be downloaded online here.

Postdoctoral researcher Hanna Lempinen wrote an article “At the margins of the Barents energyscape” for the latest issue of Barents Studies. The issue covers topics around marginal phenomena, and Hanna’s article is focusing on societal dimensions of energy.

In political, popular, and scholarly debates, the Arctic – and most importantly within
it the Barents region – is portrayed as being on the brink of becoming the “world’s
new energy province”. Growth in global energy demand, dwindling reserves, political
instabilities at existing production sites, warming climate, as well as advancements
in extraction and transportation technologies are pushing energy activities further
towards the previously inaccessible north. In these framings, energy in the Arctic is
mostly understood as synonymous with oil and gas production for international exports
and as a concern of markets and politics, and of technology, science, and economics.
Exploring media representations of the regional energyscape through the “theory-methods
package” (Clarke 2015, 87) of situational analysis, this article highlights the
diversity of regional energy beyond oil and gas production; the simplistic manners in
which the societal dimensions of energy are understood; the absence of everyday life,
ordinary people, and the female gender from the depictions of the regional energyscape;
and the lack of attention to climate impacts of northern energy production.

This and other articles can be found online here.

E-International Relations (E-IR) is the world’s leading open access website for students and scholars of international politics, published a blog post written by Sanna Kopra and titled “With Great Power Comes Great Climate Responsibility”.

In this post Sanna reflects upon her latest book China and Great Power Responsibility for Climate Change, and discusses what is the responsibility of the Great Powers these days, when the need for climate change mitigation is so urgent. Sanna Kopra concludes, that

Without ambitious great power leadership, international climate negotiations remain in gridlock. As an established great power, the United States must renew its great power leadership for climate change at once. If it does not live upon its special responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security, our chances to prevent dangerous climate change from happening look grim.

The full post is available online.