Ávarp Katrínar Jakobsdóttur forsætisráðherra við opnun þings Hringborðs Norðurslóða 19. október 2023

Ministers, excellencies, dear friends.

Allow me to welcome all of you to Iceland and to this year´s Arctic Circle, which yet again is filling up the floors of Harpa.

What started as an ambitious gathering of Arctic enthusiasts is now an enormously important meeting place for politicians and policy makers, academics and practitioners, businesspeople, students and everyone else interested in the Arctic.   

It´s been amazing to see this forum expand and mature, and I would like to congratulate President Grimsson and his co-workers on this achievement.

The Arctic’s significance lies in its far-reaching influence around the globe.

By the same token, the progress and well-being of the region are intertwined with global development.

And sadly, the state of world affairs is becoming more serious by the day.

Russia´s illegal invasion of Ukraine is not only catastrophic in itself, but also sets a dangerous precedent in international relations.

It is a violation of the international order and an outright invitation to chaos and lawlessness.

The terrible aftermath of the Hamas attack on Israel, followed by the ensuing warfare in and around Gaza – with all its death, destruction and danger to the broader region – serves as a stark reminder of the cascading cycle of war and conflict. Ultimately, the use of arms will always hurt innocent people.

At an international peace conference, held last week here in Harpa, we learned that there are currently 70 ongoing conflicts around the world. This shows us the constant need of peaceful solutions.

It is always essential to safeguard and promote peace, arms control and disarmament, also here in the Artic.

This has been a year of climate disasters.

We no longer find ourselves in an era of global warming, but in a period of global boiling, as UN Secretary General Guterres has rightly pointed out.

This summer, the island of Maui turned into a hellish inferno, and the desert city of Derna was the victim to a catastrophic flood, costing thousands of lives. Global sea surface temperatures are at record highs. The sea ice around Antarctica is at an all-time low.

Here in the Arctic, the ice cap and glaciers continue to melt. And we know that climate change is happening at a much faster pace here in the Arctic than many other parts of the world.

According to the a new report from the Icelandic Scientific Committee on Climate change that was launched yesterday glaciers in Iceland have retreated and lost 19% of their area since they reached their maximum size at the end of the 19th century and several glaciers have already disappeared. Calculations based on climate change scenarios indicate that even if the Paris Agreement holds the glaciers in Iceland will still lose 40-50% of their area.

Nonetheless, we are witnessing a concerning climate backlash, not only with populist political factions dismissing climate science but also some political forces suggesting we move much slower.

This underscores the pressing need for a clear message about the urgency and importance of phasing out fossil fuels at COP28 in December.

The third alarming global trend is the systematic erosion of fundamental human rights, most visibly women's rights as evidenced in two ongoing human rights crises in Afghanistan and Iran.

Gender persecution and gender apartheid are a somber reality.

This aligns with the troubling fact that SDG5 on achieving gender equality is progressing so slowly that according to estimates it will take 300 years to ensure equal rights between women and men.

300 years ago it was the year 1723.

Are we really going to wait another three centuries for gender equality?

During discussions at last month´s SDG Summit in New York, it was clear that progress on other sustainable development goals also falls short on expectations.

Inequality, hunger and poverty remain prevalent in many parts of the worlds, creating social unrest, forced migration and a fertile ground for authoritarian rule.

We need to step up the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals and that must be the primary outcome of next year´s Summit of the Future.

Dear friends,

All of this bears significance for the Arctic.

The good news is, that a region like the Arctic can serve as a model for effective multilateralism, scientific research, environmental protection, responsible use of resources and sustainable development with the Artic Council at its core.

The Arctic should be an area where low tension and high situational awareness go hand in hand, a region of peace and prosperity.

To achieve this, Arctic cooperation must continue to build on the norms and values anchored in international law.

We need not agree on everything. But we must resolve our differences in a respectful, rules-based, and above all peaceful, manner.

Ten years ago, we would not have foreseen a large-scale war erupting in the heart of Europe, killing hundreds of thousands and forcing millions to flee.

We did not anticipate the undermining of human rights, democracy and the rule of law, both within democracies and in the face of growing autocracies. 

And we certainly did not imagine that women´s rights could be rolled back in many parts of the world, including in mature democracies.

So, our collective mission continues:

• Maintaining peace and security.
• Ensuring meaningful climate action and environmental protection.
• Strengthening research and science collaboration.
• Facilitating mutually beneficial business development, digital opportunities and people-to-people contacts.
• Guaranteeing gender equality, health and wellbeing.

This is our task in the Arctic. 

I wish all of us fruitful deliberations in the coming days.