Newsletter Welcome to Fall at High North News!
Our journalist Hilde Bye participated in the Arctic Encounter Summit conference in Anchorage, Alaska. (Photo: Hilde Bye)
Dear reader. We are putting an alarmingly hot summer behind us and directing our gaze toward a fall filled with international security policy, Arctic research, business in the North, and not least, the Norwegian election.
The first week in August provides a glimpse into what awaits us in the Arctic in the next months.
We started the fall in Anchorage, Alaska, where our journalist Hilde Bye covered the annual conference Arctic Encounter Summit, which was postponed at short notice in April.
Bye reports that Greenland is a hot topic in the US' Arctic state. Kuno Fencker, member of the Greenlandic parliament, says the island is open to cooperation and investment, but is in no way for sale.
Political analyst Ioanna Liouta writes that the world cannot act like nothing when it comes to Trump's plans for Greenland.
Even if Donald Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act has been heavily criticized, Alaska may benefit from its implementation.
Preparedness and sanctions
The government is planning a national preparedness action zone in Northern Norway, but is criticized for being too late with too small an investment.
A major French shipyard has stopped providing maintenance work for Russian liquefied natural gas carriers. The decision could further complicate Russia’s ability to export super-cooled gas from the Arctic to markets in Europe and Asia.
The U.S. icebreaker program is moving forward. Several U.S. shipyards as well as builders in Canada and Finland, have thrown their hats in the ring to construct the new vessels for the U.S. Coast Guard.
Climate
Continuous wildfires in the Arctic were also a topic at Arctic Encounter.
“I do not think a lot of people in the lower 48 states understand what we are dealing with in Alaska in terms of size”, says Dr. Nettie La Belle-Hamer, Deputy Director of the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute, when meeting Bye.
Read all this and more at High North News! Feel free to share the newsletter with other interested parties.
Arctic greetings from Editor-in-Chief Trine Jonassen