Search

Recent changes in the Russian Arctic are often unique in terms of their nature and intensity. Fundamentally new production and infrastructure facilities are being launched, the innovative development of external defense facilities is being completed. Furthermore, the territories of corporate management and support zones for the development of Russian Arctic zone are being established. We consider the examples of the project in the South Tambey licensed area (a liquefied natural gas production facility, a large settlement, a seaport and a large airport), the construction of Rosneft’s multifunctional service structure, changes in the nuclear power industry of the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug. Moreover, we demonstrate emerging legal collisions. A new edition of the state program for the Arctic region’s development, and the establishment of eight support development zones on the territory of the Arctic zone was officially announced. We examine the primary changes in the organizational, managerial and legal support for the development of Russian Arctic zone, which are due to the above-mentioned legislative developments. We critically analyse plans to launch a State Governance Body, responsible for the significant part of the support zones, within the St. Petersburg administration. These and other novelties have required the revision of: a) the content of the federal law on the development of Russian Arctic zone, including in the context of foreign practice of implementing the «Arctic law»; b) a set of subordinate acts of the Russian Government, the state program «Socio-economic development of Russian Arctic for the period until 2020» in particular, which has been and will be substantially reconfigured in the near future.

To properly justify the priorities for the Russian Arctic Zone sustainable development is methodologically challenging for two reasons. Firstly, this challenge is due to fast changes of external and internal conditions for the development of the Arctic Zone of the Russian Federation (AZRF). Secondly, the interpretation of the concept of “sustainability” is too wide inconsistent. As the concepts of “sustainability” as well as the concept of “sustainable growth” in this wide sense are frequently used to characterize economic, social and other processes and systems, these key categories are difficult to apply as development’ targets and evaluation criteria practice of public administration in Russia. Using the case of Arctic macro-region, the paper substantiates the concept of spatial systems’ sustainability as their ability to maintain functionality under destabilizing impact of exogenous and endogenous factors. Such an ability is particularly important because of variations in structure and intensity of these negative impacts, including from climate change. Within this methodological framework, we have specified the indicators of sustainability relating to the practice of public management in the AZRF development. The paper has discussed the existing and emerging exogenous and endogenous impacts on the AZRF development sustainability. We set two priorities among the goals and objectives for ensuring the AZRF sustainable functioning under the conditions of climate. In social (socio-economic) sphere, it is necessary to maintain and improve the public health. In economic sphere, the most needed are strengthening of coherency and reliability of the transportation system, energy supplies to distant consumers, and stimulating of investment and industrial activities of the large industrial corporations.

A bunch of papers has been published by foreign and Russian researchers on climate change impact on the environment and regional socioeconomic development. The bulk of them is focused on analyzing drivers and impact assessments for the Arctic region characterized by the most intensive climate change worldwide. The paper puts to the fore a nontrivial issue of considering the climate change impact factor within the methodology and practice of the strategic process of the Russian Arctic redevelopment. The issue above is complicated by the imperative of ranking of the salience of the climate change socioeconomic implications as priorities of the governance and public administration of the comprehensive development of the macro-region under consideration. The lack of the effective tools for consolidation of the needed resources further exacerbates it. The summary of the findings of the national and international researchers in the area of climate change impact on environment, settlements and economic activity in the Arctic Zone of the Russian Federation (AZRF) is introduced to substantiate the policy decisions made. We have specified the methodological issues related to peculiarities and role of the climate change factor plays in policy decisions within the context of contemporary knowledge on patterns of spatial systems transformation, their capabilities of selforganization and adaptation to externalities. The authors have revealed the general regularities and specificity of the AZRF transformation as a spatial system and the impact of climate change produced on this process. We have particularly emphasized the issues of adaptation to climate change of the AZRF indigenous population whose health and economic activities experience increased risks associated with high intensiveness of the climatic fluctuations. Recommendations for using scenario (variation) approach to redesigning strategies and programs of AZRF development are substantiated