Where One Health Meets the Arctic Climate Resilience Reality

Climate change impacts in the Arctic

The impacts of climate change on the Arctic are many and varied, providing a real threat to the health and livelihoods of the Indigenous populations who live there.

Permafrost thaw is often framed as an infrastructure or carbon problem, yet its health implications are equally profound. Around 70 percent of Arctic infrastructure is built on permafrost, and near-surface thaw is projected to place tens of thousands of buildings, roads, and pipelines at risk by mid-century.

These changes create cascading health threats. Thawing ground destabilizes water and wastewater systems, mobilizes legacy contaminants, and alters wildlife habitats. Arctic soils store an estimated 1,400 to 1,600 gigatons of carbon, and thaw-driven microbial activity raises risks linked to both greenhouse gas release and pathogen exposure.

Arctic food systems are among the most climate-sensitive in the world. Average Arctic temperatures are rising at roughly 3 to 4 times the global rate, disrupting subsistence hunting, fishing, and reindeer herding that Indigenous communities have relied on for generations. These shifts directly affect nutrition, food safety, and disease exposure.

Warming seas and thawing coastlines are altering ecological baselines, and harmful algal blooms have expanded northward, whilst higher temperatures remove the ability to store and preserve food in a traditional manner, thus creating an increasing reliance on imported food.