The Arctic Council: Challenges to the “Science” in Science Diplomacy

Introduction and context

As part of her participation in the Fulbright Arctic Initiative, Rachael spent two months in Washington DC at the Wilson Center, until it was abruptly shut down by the US Department of Governmental Efficiency (DOGE).

During this period, she was invited to speak on Science Diplomacy and the Arctic Council at the Science Diplomacy Summit organised by Johns Hopkins University. Below are the remarks that she delivered. They reflect Rachael’s personal views and do not necessarily reflect the views or values of the Fulbright Commission, the Wilson Center, or the University of Akureyri.

The Arctic Council: Challenges to the “Science” in Science Diplomacy

The Arctic Council is currently facing the biggest challenge to its existence in its nearly 30-year history – and things can still get worse. I want to outline some procedural, practical and political roadblocks to its success as a forum for science diplomacy and suggest some alternatives.

The first procedural challenge: The Arctic Council works on a consensus-basis. All eight Arctic State members must accept every project. To put it another way, it is a veto system; any Member State can block any activity or refuse to adopt any report.

The Arctic Council emerged from the Arctic Environmental Protection Strategy (AEPS) and has, from the very beginning, been focused primarily on environmental science and increasingly on Indigenous wellbeing. Nearly everything they do is coloured by the reality of anthropogenic climate change.

However, today, one Member State rejects the established climate science; and, moreover, rejects the scientific method as evidenced in rapid changes to healthcare research and public policy. Artificial Intelligence (AI) flagging of trigger words, including “climate change,” “indigenous community,” “equity,” and “gender”, puts at risk many of its central projects, not just the many ostensibly focused on climate research, but also sustainable development activities like the keystone, Icelandic-led, Gender Equality in the Arctic project.

A related practical challenge that is not new but is worsening, is funding capacity. All States have limited funding, but the situation is particularly acute in Russia and is rapidly worsening in the United States: the former because of an expensive war and occupation of Ukraine; the latter owing to political choices to cut science funding and exclude unfavoured topics.

This is worsened by a political challenge: a securitisation of science-funding. Increasing instability in the High North pushes all Arctic States to pivot funding towards hard security topics. Money is redirected to military security and corporate security, away from human and environmental security.

This takes us back to another procedural limitation: the Arctic Council cannot replace this funding with external financing, e.g., from the EU, China or India. All projects must receive at least half of their funding from the eight Arctic States. This is a policy measure to prevent powerful observers with deep pockets from dominating decisions about research priorities. But this means that unless the eight Arctic States can finance a project to at least 50%, it cannot go ahead within the Arctic Council.

A more fundamental political challenge facing the Arctic Council is that for the first time in its history, one Member State is openly calling to annex the territory of another Member State and refusing to rule out the rule of force to achieve its ends. The Kingdom of Denmark will take the chair of the Arctic Council in May 2025. Experienced Greenlandic diplomat Kenneth Høegh will act as Arctic Ambassador and Chair of the Senior Arctic Officials; longstanding politician and current Greenlandic Minister for Foreign Affairs Vivien Motzfeldt will chair the Ministerial meeting. Alongside Greenlander Sara Olsvig, Chair of Inuit Circumpolar Council, they make a formidable team. However, it comes at a time when the Arctic Council is under existential threat. Holding high-level meetings between the Senior Arctic Officials and Indigenous Permanent Participants’ leadership, not to mention the Ministerial meeting, in Greenland or Denmark, will become increasingly difficult. In fact, the May ministerial meeting will be held entirely virtually and not live-streamed. It remains to be seen if the customary declaration will be agreed at this meeting. The 2019 Rovaniemi precedent of stalemate, at which US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo vetoed any declaration that acknowledged climate change, and the other States and Permanent Participants refused to sign a declaration that ignored this reality, does not give cause for hope, at least for a declaration with any meaningful content.

So what other options are available?

The Arctic Council might limp on, continue a few, less controversial projects, and wait for better times. But there is still a need for science, and even more so for diplomacy, in the Arctic.

There are alternative options to host – and fund – essential Arctic research, e.g., on climate change causes and impacts, biodiversity, plastics, Indigenous Peoples’ rights, and gender equality. These include shifting focus to large EU Horizon grants, or applying a “Nordic Council plus” model – i.e., the five Nordic States plus willing partners, such as Canada. Research into fish stocks in the Central Arctic Ocean is ongoing, albeit slowly, under the Central Arctic Ocean Fisheries Agreement, which consists of nine States Parties and the EU, with Indigenous involvement in the scientific programme. Ad hoc coalitions can be set up to continue essential work in other areas.

Quite often, it is the same scientists conducting the same research under a new banner.

However, this is not a “risk free” option: the Arctic Council has centralised the Indigenous Permanent Participants in its decision-making, something that will be harder to ensure in other fora. This is the first time that the Arctic Council will be directed from the top by Indigenous (Inuit) leaders, and a major win for Indigenous Peoples since Greenland’s premier Aleqa Hammond refused to participate in the 2013 Kiruna ministerial meeting, in protest at Denmark’s insistence on holding the first chair on behalf of the Realm. Permanent Participants have been left out in the cold – literally and figuratively – in ad hoc policy-making, such as through the so-called “Arctic Five” Ilulissat declaration of 2008 on the Central Arctic Ocean. One cannot simply assume that scientists are sufficiently informed, conscious or concerned about Indigenous engagement. Much of the great work that has been done in the last few years could easily get lost.

To conclude briefly: the Arctic Council enjoys name recognition but we should not overstate its importance. It has always suffered from scant funding and limited capacity to conduct the science at the heart of its diplomacy. It does not in fact conduct a great deal of original research but has played an important role in collating research and raising its profile, especially on Arctic climate impacts. The same work can be continued, even expanded, under different fora, but attention is needed to Indigenous inclusion.

Ultimately, the future of the Arctic Council is, as an international forum rather than a treaty-based international organisation, a matter of political will – as it always was. But that political will might be lacking in the short term.

Rachael Lorna Johnstone, Professor of law, University of Akureyri, Iceland

Remarks at the Science Diplomacy Summit 2025, Johns Hopkins University, Washington DC, 14 April 2025

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