Arctic Encounter 2023: An Exchange of Polar Perspectives

Delegates also heard about Alaska’s potential as a technology testing ground, particularly for renewable energy. “Alaska presents an incredible opportunity… for pilots of technologies in a demo phase,” said Kiera O’Brien, a public policy representative from the Washington, D.C. office of French oil company TotalEnergies. She’s originally from Ketchikan, but she did express one reservation about her home state: “What’s not quite there yet, from a state policy standpoint, is the market [scale] deployment.”

Arctic Encounter is a chance for Alaskans to learn how the state’s problems might be solved using models from elsewhere, just as visitors witness the Alaska way of doing things.

Humble guests hardly came to Anchorage to tell their hosts what’s what, but Alaskans are drawing inspiration from Arctic Encounter delegates, borrowing solutions to mutual problems. Jennifer Spence, senior fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Arctic Initiative, listed several interests that circumpolar nations have in common. “We see the need for better energy security. We see the need for more reliability and sovereignty, the ability for communities to make their own decisions. And the question of sustainability,” she said. “Part of that is learning from the different communities who’ve had these experiences.” Spence’s home community is Canada, and she cited Iceland as another example.

Gwen Holdmann, UAF associate vice chancellor of research for innovation and industry partnerships, spent time in Iceland as a Fulbright fellow studying geothermal energy. “They’re using affordable energy, based on local resources that they have available, to really drive local economic development. A lot of that is around innovative small businesses or processes that feed into a broader global economy,” Holdmann said.

What Alaska can contribute, Holdmann suggested, is pioneering work in distributed isolated electrical microgrids. “I think there’s opportunities to learn and look at what Alaska is doing to see the applications for other markets as well,” she said.

Those markets might be far from the Arctic Circle. Japan sent its ambassador for international economic affairs and Arctic affairs, Keizo Takewaka, to the conference. He reminded the gathering, “What happens in Asia has many things to do with the world and the Arctic,” given the continent’s growing population and greenhouse gas emissions.

Conversely, “What happens in the Arctic doesn’t stay in the Arctic,” said Sam Tan, Singapore’s special envoy for Arctic affairs and non-resident high commissioner to Canada. His home country is near the equator, but oceans abide no boundaries. “The rising sea level doesn’t stay in the Arctic; it actually overflows to many other parts of the world. Coastal states like Singapore are particularly vulnerable to rising sea levels,” Tan said.

The city-state packs more than 5 million people into 280 square miles, or less than one-fifth the land area of the Municipality of Anchorage.

Meanwhile, Anchorage’s population is five times that of Greenland, an island one-third again as large as the state.

Geography shapes the diverse perspectives that Arctic Encounter brings together. Minister Motzfeldt said in her welcome, “I see many opportunities to increase cooperation among us. As Arctic peoples, we have much to learn from one another.”