The Northern Institute for Environmental and Minority Law of the Arctic Centre, University of Lapland and collaborators invit e abstract submissions for an Inter-Polar Conference& nbsp;in Kathmandu, Nepal, from 6-9 September 2023.
The Arctic and the Third Pole-Himalayan region both contain important elements of the cryosph ere, areas of the world that are defined by the near-permanent presence of water in a frozen state. However, as temperatures in both regions are curre ntly warming at several times the global average, these areas are rapidly t hawing, and several elements of the cryosphere are said to be tipping point s in the global climate system. This will have major impacts on local commu nities and ecosystem, and also lead to larger-scale changes: the melting of the Himalayan glaciers will have significant regional effects related to t he provision of water to a quarter of humanity, and the warming of the Arct ic will lead to the large-scale release of methane from thawing permafrost, and the melting of the Greenland ice sheet could lead to several meters of sea level rise. The interlinked aspect of the cryosphere thaw and climate change has been evidenced as crucial in promoting polar science. However, t he Arctic and Third Pole are almost always considered separately, demonstra ting very little knowledge about the commonalities, links, and differences between both regions, especially concerning (geo-) political, socio-cultura l, environmental and legal dynamics of effects of and responses to these ch anges.
To remedy this deficiency, the Northern Institute for Environm ental and Minority Law (NIEM) of the Arctic Centre, University of Lapland, in collaboration with the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Deve lopment (ICIMOD), the UArctic Chair in Arctic Legal Research and Education, and the UArctic Law Thematic Network, is organising an Inter-Polar Confere nce in Kathmandu, Nepal, from 6-9 September 2023. This Conference is meant to be an initial starting point for a durable network that will bring toget her experts from both regions and explore Arctic and Third Pole topics from an inter-polar perspective. We hope that this shift can not only help unde rstand the climate change-driven effects on the two Poles but also help pre pare scholars and stakeholders in both regions to develop an in-depth under standing of sustainability in a changing climatic and geopolitical landscap e. This Conference's focus will be inter- and cross-disciplinary, underlini ng broad areas of social and legal sciences. But there will also be ample r oom for scholars to bring knowledge from natural and life science disciplin es.
X-EXTRAINFO:https://www.arcticcentre.org/EN/Inter-Polar-Conference DTSTAMP:20260424T095341Z DTSTART;TZID=UTC;VALUE=DATE:20230906 DTEND;TZID=UTC;VALUE=DATE:20230910 SEQUENCE:0 TRANSP:OPAQUE END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR