Last month, Canada’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mélanie Joly, announced their new Arctic Foreign Policy (AFP), with one of the key focuses being responding to the acceleration of climate change in the Arctic. The Arctic is warming nearly four times faster than the rest of the world, making it clear that swift action must be taken to protect the region. 

“We know that Arctic sea ice is melting, we know that ultimately the shortest route between Asia and Europe is the Arctic. So what we need to do is to make sure that we work with our allies, particularly the U.S., but also Nordic countries, to protect the Arctic,” said Joly in an interview on the new AFP that aired on CBC News.

The Arctic holds the key to many “green” resources. Critical minerals, such as copper, lithium, cobalt and nickel, are essential for the global renewable energy transition and are abundant in the Arctic. The Arctic is also known to act as a “refrigerator,” helping to cool down the rest of the planet. Warming of the region not only leads to the melting of Arctic sea ice, thawing of permafrost and changing of local vegetation, but can lead to further global impacts. 

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine coincided with their Presidency of the Arctic Council, which put the Council’s work on freeze, thereby restricting the ability of the member states to continue working towards environmental protection of the Arctic until recently. A pause of the Arctic Council meant there has been limited sharing of climate science data with Russia, whose land makes up over half of the Arctic Circle. 

“Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine changed everything. The Arctic Council, at the political level, stopped meeting,” said Joly in the same CBC News interview.

According to Canada’s Minister of Defense Bill Blair, Canada’s Arctic security goes hand in hand with its Arctic climate goals, and he discussed how the speed of Arctic warming is a national defense concern. The 37-page AFP states that “Climate change is both the most pressing and the most proximate threat to Canada’s security in the Arctic and the people who live there.”

Concerns about arctic security came up again last week following Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s announcement that he would resign as prime minister and party leader. The new AFP recognizes various ways that adversaries try to have influence through cyber activities and economic coercion, for example, and the upcoming change in leadership has highlighted such security priorities, among other things. 

As part of the AFP and the issues that need to be addressed, Canada will re-appoint an Arctic ambassador, whom Joly announced would be an Indigenous person, stating, “Those living in the North are best placed to know what's going on in the North.” This ambassador role, which previously ended in 2006, will help Canada to align with its foreign allies on Arctic policy and the protection of the Arctic.

Canada has committed to promoting safe and responsible shipping in the Arctic and developing marine protected areas in the Arctic Ocean. They also promise to continue Arctic Council work on the development of regional assessments of climate change impacts. 

Environmental policy and foreign policy are uniquely integrated when it comes to climate change. The unveiling of Canada’s new AFP sheds light on international climate policy and the geopolitical context on which climate change and climate action are dependent.