Fiddling While the Arctic Burns

With almost 3000 participants from more than 70 countries, and 250 presentations over the course of three days, the Arctic Circle Assembly is the single largest gathering of Arctic residents, researchers, politicians, activists, and observers in the world. Each year, attendees gather in the beautiful Harpa Conference Center in the Icelandic capital of Reykjavik to listen to or participate in briefings and discussions on an almost staggering array of topics. This year’s meeting, from October 14-17, was no exception.

Session topics ranged from the broad-based to the detailed. Afternoon plenary sessions often saw heads of state and other dignitaries discuss big-picture issues such as the Arctic policies of China and the United States or the role of NATO in the Arctic, while smaller morning and evening sessions tended to focus on more nuts-and-bolts topics like regulating Arctic tourism and management of solid waste in remote Arctic communities.

Many of the attendees were from governments and think tanks in Arctic states as well as countries such as Singapore and South Korea that are very far from the Arctic but which, courtesy of their involvement in international shipping, view a warming, melting Arctic with interest. Military uniforms were as common as traditional Sámi clothing, testament to the sheer variety of attendees the conference attracted.

Geopolitics still top of mind

Overall, however, there were two predominant themes to this year’s conference. The first was geopolitics, and it’s worth noting that this year’s meeting was significantly less suffused with anxiety than that of 2022. Then, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was recent and raw, resulting in Moscow’s exclusion from most Arctic forums and raising concerns about what that portended for future cooperation in the region.

That was of particular concern with regard to the Arctic Council, the intergovernmental body that comprises all eight of the region’s nations as well as major Indigenous groupings and is by far the most important forum in the region. Each member country takes a two-year turn as Council chair, and with Russia in that position at the time, the organization’s immediate future seemed grim. Since then, however, the gavel has been in the hands of Norway, and Norwegian ambassador Morten Høglund revealed in Reykjavik that, while political meetings have not resumed, Russian experts have been participating virtually in some working groups.

But concerns over Russia’s behavior, and its potential impact on Arctic governance, remained a constant undercurrent, as did discussions over China’s Arctic ambitions, both of which overlapped with the other overarching theme, which might be summed up simply as infrastructure.

Seeing opportunities in an ice-free Arctic

Alaska senator Lisa Murkowski, a regular attendee at these meetings, spoke openly about the United States suffering “icebreaker envy” at the fact that, despite being an Arctic nation, it has fewer operational icebreakers than China, and far fewer than Russia. In one session, Murkowski argued for the need for more infrastructure for Arctic Alaska, from improved capacity for search-and-rescue operations to a new deep-water port in Nome.

Anyone who has spent time in Northern communities will recognize the absence of so much that the rest of us take for granted, from roads to flush toilets, but much of what Murkowski was advocating was infrastructure to take advantage of a world in which sea ice has retreated enough to allow the development of commercial shipping routes.

It would arguably be irresponsible of Murkowski, and indeed others in similar positions, not to want to prepare for such an eventuality; but by the end of three days in Reykjavik – and after attending three successive Arctic Circle Assemblies – it is hard not to escape the conclusion that governments are doing a far better and more enthusiastic job of preparing for an ice-free Arctic than preventing it. Perhaps it is simply easier for them; perhaps they look at the projections of sea ice retreat and like the opportunities such retreat presents. But several presentations provided a stark reminder of exactly what is at stake.

Runaway warming and tipping points

A new report by the Wilson Center Polar Institute, discussed in a morning session on the first day of the meeting, underlined the extreme importance of conducting research to detect emissions of methane, a greenhouse gas far more powerful than carbon dioxide, which scientists fear may be released from melting Arctic permafrost, causing runaway warming.

The following day, a plenary discussion paid tribute to the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, the first, pioneering study into warming in the Arctic, which was released 20 years ago. When it was published, it estimated that the Arctic was warming twice as fast as the rest of the planet; today, it is reckoned that the true figure is four times as fast. And meanwhile, sea ice levels have continued to fall.

And the meeting concluded with Stefan Rahmstorf of Potsdam University handing a letter, signed by 44 climate scientists, to the Icelandic environment minister Gudlaugur Thór Thórdarson, urging the Nordic Council to support research into and action to prevent the collapse of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), a major ocean current that is considered susceptible to a sudden influx of freshwater from increased rainfall and the melting Greenland ice sheet. Research shows that the circulation is slowing down and may be reaching a tipping point beyond which it is destined to collapse. Should that happen, the consequences could be widespread and severe, from and should it collapse, the consequences could be widespread and massively disruptive: from extreme cold in western Europe to sea level rise along the eastern United States and a change in rainfall patterns in the Amazon.

All of which serves as a potent reminder that not only is Arctic warming increasing at an ever greater rate, but that what happens in the Arctic affects everyone, with consequences that could be catastrophic. It is all very well debating which country is best placed to take advantage of a world of Arctic warming; but it is imperative we bring that warming under control.