Reflections on the Arctic and Climate Impacts

We arrived at the third Arctic Circle Assembly in Reykjavik on Oct. 15, as a group of 11 from the Belfer Center’s Environment and Natural Resources Program and Harvard Kennedy School’s Center for Public Leadership.

At the official conference opening on the 16th, the majestic event hall of Harpa filled with heads of state, high-ranking officials, and up-and-coming leaders in the field. Iceland’s President Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson invited people from all backgrounds to share their perspectives. In the diversity of panels and breakout sessions, the long-term view of climate change was challenged by the immediate needs of local populations. The multiple perspectives seemed to be reflected in the distinct rays of light striking the glass-covered Harpa building bending, hopefully, into a single beam of cooperation.

The questions that reverberated in my brain were: Who really "owns" the Arctic? Is it a world heritage site that belongs to humanity across borders and time? Is it territory divided among eight nations bordering the Arctic Ocean? Or is it the territory of indigenous people who live there today? Can non-regional populations resist development in the Arctic when the local populations support it? These local versus global and short-term versus long-term paradigms emerged as the ones we need to engage in to reconcile climate change and the needs of local populations.

In a final plenary session, Katie Burkhart (Belfer IGA student fellow) reminded us that real security comes from the elimination of root problems through cooperation. The root of the Arctic issue is our lack of knowledge. Despite one’s perspective on who ‘owns’ the Arctic, the Assembly made it clear that more work must be done on the impacts of climate change on the region and the region’s impact on climate change.

Unless we substantially accelerate our knowledge of the Arctic, we risk the Arctic becoming nobody’s—fast.