Photo credit Robert Olsen

Welcome to the Arctic Energy Summit website!

An International Polar Year project of the Institute of the North, the Arctic Energy Summit is an initiative of the Arctic Council’s Sustainable Development Working Group.  Through its three components the Summit brings focus to the areas of developing resources while addressing the need for affordable energy in rural areas throughout the Arctic:

1. An educational outreach program designed to be implemented through an Arctic energy bilingual (English/Russian) website.  The site, www.arcticenergysummit.org, is populated with specific information on Arctic energy, the technology conference and action team recommendations.  Upon securing adequate levels of funding, other educational activities may include funding undergraduate and graduate research work in the areas of Arctic energy and power; a graduate level Arctic energy course through the University of the Arctic; and the development of a web-based and interactive Arctic energy atlas that will include traditional extractive energy resources, as well as non-traditional renewable energy sources.
   
   
2. A technology conference in Anchorage, Alaska 15-18 October 2007, brought together more than 300 researchers, academics, government leaders, industry representatives and residents from 14 countries for presentations of technical papers on significant Arctic energy research, panel discussions and keynote addresses on major policy areas of concern and/or interest.
   
   
3. The creation of an international Arctic energy action team charged with developing a roadmap for the enhancement of extractive energy recovery in the Arctic and the deployment of economical and environmentally sensitive energy sources to rural Arctic communities.  As directed in the 2006 Salekhard Declaration of the Arctic Council, action team recommendations, including the identification of activities that the Arctic Council could consider for future attention, are to be presented at the 2009 Arctic Council Ministerial.

The Arctic Energy Action Team, convened at the technology conference and working electronically through GoogleGroups, has identified the environmentally friendly development of coal, the potential use of tidal power and the challenge of reducing transportation costs in rural villages as Arctic themes to be address during 2008.  This international team of experts is charged with creating a business plan for each of the themes which will include the technologies needed, as well as addressing policy issues, the required human resources needed, environmental concerns, infrastructure, impacts of energy development upon the people of the North and energy security.

If you would like an invitation to join the team, please email project coordinators

Jim Hemsath (jhemsath@institutenorth.org) or Ben Ellis(bellis@institutenorth.org) and you will be notified by email as to how to access the group.

The International Polar Year 2007-2008

The International Polar Year 2007-2008 “is an international program of coordinated interdisciplinary scientific research and observations in the Earth's Polar regions to explore new scientific frontiers, to deepen our understanding of polar processes and their global linkages, to increase our ability to detect changes, to attract and develop the next generation of polar scientists, engineers, and logistic experts and to capture the interest of school children, the public, and decision-makers.”

The Arctic Council

The Arctic Council, established in 1996, has marked its 10-year anniversary. It is a high level intergovernmental forum for sustainable development, mandated to address all three of its main pillars: the environmental, social and economic. Its Member States are: Canada, Denmark (including Greenland and the Faroe Islands), Finland, Iceland, Norway, the Russian Federation, Sweden and the United States. The Council is a unique forum for the cooperation between national governments and indigenous peoples. Six organizations representing many Arctic indigenous communities have the status of Permanent Participants of the Arctic Council and are involved in the work of the Council in full consultation with governments. The work of the Arctic Council gains a global scale thanks to the wide range of observers -from non-arctic states and intergovernmental organizations to NGO's.