Arctic Adaptation and Resilience - Building a Bridge Between Science and Community

Ladies and gentlemen,

The Arctic is changing. Fast. This is no longer in doubt. Sea ice has retreated, glaciers are shrinking, shipping routes are opening up. We have seen unprecedented wildfires in recent years. Weather records are shattered. Last year saw the thermometer reach 38 degrees Celcius in Verkhoyansk in Siberia – the highest temperature ever recorded inside the Arctic circle. The Arctic is warming at about twice the rate of planetary average.

The Arctic is not just experiencing climate change, but also contributing to it. With less ice and snow cover, sunrays are not reflected back into space, but heating up the sea and the ground. Thawing permafrost releases methane, a potent greenhouse gas. If we want to understand the dynamics of climate change, the Arctic is the place to watch.

It is, however, not easy to observe the Arctic. Not too long ago, it was seen as a frozen and forbidding realm, out of reach for southerners except the occasional hardy explorer. Modern technology has of course changed that. Ships, planes and satellites bring the eyes and ears of science to all corners of the globe, and have given us a picture of the nature of the high north, and the big changes under way.

Still, polar science faces some unique challenges, and needs support. It is clear that the Arctic Council has played an important role in advancing scientific knowledge and monitoring in the region. As stated in the Fairbanks Ministerial Declaration in 2017, the Council recognizes the need for increased cooperation in meteorological, oceanographic and terrestrial observations, research and services. It also called for well-maintained and sustained observation networks and continuous monitoring in the Arctic.

The Council acts on such words. This can be seen in many of the programmes and projects of the Arctic Council and its working groups. But no less important is the Council’s role simply as a forum for discussion, connecting minds and fostering a culture of understanding. I am delighted to see Ministers from Arctic States meeting here in Iceland at the conclusion of the Icelandic Chairmanship of the Council. It has been a tough job to keep the Arctic dialogue alive in these challenging times of a global pandemic. But I sense that this meeting is a milestone of success and bodes well for the coming period under a Russian Chairmanship.

I am also delighted to see that scientists and experts are meeting here at the Second Arctic Met Summit. And I am happy to see the theme you have chosen for this meeting: Arctic Adaptation and Resilience - Building a Bridge Between Science and Community. It is a fitting and timely heading.

The Arctic is not just a vast icy wilderness, but a place that four million people call home. The Arctic Council is not just a forum of the Governments of the eight Arctic States, but also of the Permanent Participants – associations of indigenous peoples that have lived in the polar north for millenia. Their livelihoods depend on their environment, and they are experiencing unprecedented change and an uncertain future.

We need science not only for expanding our knowledge. We need science for guidance – for political decisions at every level: International, regional and national, as well as for the Arctic communities feeling the winds of change. We must halt catastrophic climate change at a global level, but we also need to adapt to the changes already underway.

Here in Iceland we have recently increased our efforts on adaptation. We have launched work on the first comprehensive national adaptation strategy. We have established a unit within the Icelandic Met Office to deal with issues related to adaptation and climate science.

Now, Iceland has warmed less than the Arctic on an average, but the effects of climate change are very evident here. The most obvious change is the retreat of our glaciers. We have established an educational programme built around this. Visitors to Iceland‘s national parks, especially our biggest one built around the Vatnajökull glacier, are led to see with their own eyes how the world is changing, and how the retreat of the ice in Iceland is a warning sign to the whole world.

Our scientists have warned that climate change may bring more extreme precipitation events, and increase the chance of landslides. We were rudely awakened to this situation this winter. Last December we had landslides in Seyðisfjörður, a town in the East Fjords of Iceland, following unprecedented torrential rains. More than 10 buildings were destroyed or damaged, but thankfully no lives were lost. This ranks as the most damaging landslide on an urban area in Iceland. It is a stark reminder that we need to know how our environment is changing, and how we can prepare ourselves for change.

Ladies and gentlemen,

The theme of this Met Summit is to build bridges. We are building bridges between nations and organizations, partly by coming together and by the work of the Arctic Council and the WMO and other bodies. But what matters even more is to build bridges between science and our communities. The pandemic has clearly shown us the need for good scientific guidance, and the need for clear information and communication.

Few problems are as challenging as catastrophic climate change. The current human-made change is rapid from a geological standpoint, but slow from a human perspective. We can halt a pandemic with the help of vaccines, but there is no vaccine against a climate disaster. Or, is there perhaps some? We are surely moving steadily towards dangerous turning points, such as the irreversible melting of the Greenland ice cap. But the vaccine is what we call action and that action needs to be built on science to understand the dangers ahead, to explain those dangers in a language that politicians and the general public understands and in order to make the correct decisions based on science. Many countries have certainly started their actions, and Iceland is one of them. Actions that have shown to work need to be scaled up, new actions to be made and the courage and political willingness to act needs to be constantly fueled by science and by hope.

I wish you the best of luck in your work, at this meeting and in the future.

Thank you,