Halla Logadóttir, former director of the Iceland School of Energy at Reykjavík University and co-founder of the Belfer Center’s Arctic Initiative, speaks with Aroop Mukharji (@aroopmukharji) about the future of the Arctic region, sustainability in Iceland, and how Icelanders get their names.

Halla Logadóttir, former director of the Iceland School of Energy at Reykjavík University and co-founder of the Belfer Center’s Arctic Initiative, speaks with Aroop Mukharji (@aroopmukharji) about the future of the Arctic region, sustainability in Iceland, and how Icelanders get their names.

The Arctic is region is growing rapidly in global prominence, due in large part to the environmental changes caused by global warming. Rising temperatures and the receding sea ice reveal untapped natural resources and lucrative new trade routes. Non-Arctic nations, including China and India, are joining in the discourse on the region as new economic opportunities open up. Meanwhile, the four million human residents of the land north of the Arctic circle, many of them Indigenous peoples, are facing the reality of dramatically changing life because of human-caused climate change and an uncertain future.

For Halla Hrund Logadóttir, the challenges posed by rapid climate change in the Arctic truly hit home. Growing up on her grandparents’ sheep farm in Iceland, Logadóttir could see the crags of a massive glacier on the horizon. While sheep grazed on sloping volcanic fields of emerald green grass, she learned to drive tractors and fix engines. Today, she’s using that hands-on experience to protect the world’s most fragile ecosystem.

Across the Arctic, rapid climate change is taking its toll. Melting ice and sea level rise are threatening entire communities. Areas rich in oil and gas are opening up to exploration, but the economic benefits often do not reach Arctic populations. For many, life in the Arctic is becoming more difficult each day.

This article discusses the climate challenges the Arctic region is facing, and the Arctic Initiative's new Arctic Innovator's program, committed to training new leaders and spearheading new research in the Arctic region.

During his keynote address at the 2017 Arctic Circle Assembly in Reykjavík, Iceland on October 13, John P. Holdren announced the establishment of The Arctic Initiative: Science, Technology, Education, and Policy Innovation for a Sustainable Arctic at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center. The Arctic Initiative is a joint project of the Belfer Center’s Environment and Natural Resources Program (ENRP), headed by Henry Lee, and the Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program (STPP), co-directed by Holdren, who led  the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and served as President Obama’s Science Advisor from January 2009 until January 2017. 

An event held in the Kennedy School's Bell Hall Nov. 15 challenged students in the Arctic Initiative's Arctic Innovators program to present their ideas to improve the region in a two and a half minute pitch.

A dozen international graduate students identify ways to address some of the most pressing problems facing the Arctic now and in the future—and turn them into opportunities.  

The ongoing rapid changes in the Arctic pose significant dangers to its natural and manmade environments, and to the people who live there. To address these daunting challenges, a dozen graduate students from universities in the United States, Iceland, and Greenland launched the Arctic Innovation Lab to identify possible solutions that could establish a sustainable and secure Arctic.