2021 Arctic Circle Assembly Begins Today

The 2021 Arctic Circle Assembly begins today at Harpa in downtown Reykjavík. RÚV reports that this is the first major international in-person gathering in Europe since the beginning of the pandemic. Around 1,200 people will convene from over 50 countries in the largest annual gathering focused on the Arctic region.

Over the course of the four-day seminar, more than 400 speakers will participate in over 100 seminars on various Arctic topics and issues.

Prime Minister Katrín Jakobsdóttir and former Icelandic President Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson will deliver speeches at the beginning of the conference. The United Nations Climate Change Conference, which is set to take place in Glasgow, Scotland next month, will be one of several major topics on the agenda.

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Cooperation between Iceland and Greenland will be another topic of interest over the coming days. This follows the release of a report by the Greenland Committee earlier this year, commissioned by the Icelandic Minister for Foreign Affairs, on the interaction between Greenland and Iceland which included 99 recommendations on how to strengthen it.

Other hot topics will include Asian-Arctic scientific diplomacy, the business of Arctic journalism, biotechnology in the Arctic, the prevention of nuclear and radiological incidents in the Arctic seas, climate change in the Arctic, renewable energies and many geopolitical perspectives on improvement for the region in the future.

The entire program can be found here. Be sure to check out their website and Facebook for further information.