Description
Climate change and global warming result in melting ice in the Arctic, both ice sheets and sea ice. This opens up opportunities of natural resource extraction and possibilities of new shipping routes that open up opportunities for increased maritime activities. However, with these opportunities come also the challenges of increased maritime activities that result in several risks in the Arctic such as the risk of pollution and the risks of accidents, which produce a need for preparedness towards oil spill and preparedness for search and rescue operations (SAR) and institutions for SAR. Therefore, from the perspective of a comprehensive concept of security, these developments will create problems for traditional security and not least for societal security and human security at different levels in society. Locally, SAR operations will pose governance problems that cannot be handled locally or even nationally and, hence, need regional or global attention. Since the Arctic is such a vast territory with very diverse stakeholders, there is a need for trans-border cooperation within the Arctic states and between the Arctic states and states outside the Arctic that recently gained access to the Arctic Council activities as observer states. Under the auspices of the Arctic Council, at the ministerial meetings in 2011 and 2013, the Arctic member states of the Arctic Council made agreements on SAR and on oil spill preparedness. However, as an intergovernmental body, and with additional participation of indigenous peoples’ organizations and NGOs, the implementation of these agreements are left with the Arctic states themselves. The paper will focus on mapping and assessing actual trans-border risk management cooperation and partnership building in the Arctic region, investigating possibilities of cooperation between the Arctic states and Asian states that recently gained access to the Arctic Council activities as observer states to see the impact of these new observer states on human security in the Arctic region, and discuss gains and losses of a transformation of the Arctic Council from an intergovernmental forum of deliberation to a legally binding decision making organization.| Period | 29 May 2015 |
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| Event title | The 3rd China-Nordic Arctic Cooperation Symposium 2015: Arctic Synergies: Policies and Best Practices |
| Event type | Conference |
| Location | Shanghai, ChinaShow on map |