Call for Abstract: The Second Inter-Polar Conference Connecting the Arctic with the Third Pole 2025

Second Inter-Polar Conference:

Building on the success of the First Inter-Polar Conference, the second edition is being planned for September 2025 in ICIMOD premises in Kathmandu, Nepal, and jointly organized by the Arctic Centre of the University of Lapland, ICIMOD, and OPRI in collaboration with the following institutions: the UArctic Chair in Arctic Legal Research and the UArctic Law Thematic Network. The conference will contribute to the objectives of the International Year of Glaciers’ Preservation (IYGP) 2025.

The special theme for the second edition is proposed as follows: Cryosphere, people, and climate change.

The decline of the cryosphere has numerous negative global effects like climate change acceleration through carbon release and albedo reductions, sea level rise, weather perturbations and intensification of extreme weather events, as well as regional effects related to water and food security, transboundary conflicts, infrastructure challenges, and severe impacts on Indigenous and local livelihoods. Our aim is to promote and share knowledge and understanding on how to best protect and preserve the cryosphere in the Arctic and the Hindu Kush Himalaya region, as well as build resilience in the face of already occurring changes in both regions. We intend to do this by bringing together world experts and knowledge holders to share their perspectives and jointly produce novel insights that can be translated into concrete actions and long-term strategies. Besides this, we aim to build a lasting and durable network of scholars and stakeholders from both regions to continuously engage in dialogue and share experiences and expertise.

Objectives of the conference:

• Explore the effects of climate change on the cryosphere and ecosystems in the Arctic and the HKH region.
• Enhance understanding of climate change impacts and hazards on human communities in both regions.
• Facilitate Inter-polar Knowledge sharing and collaborative solutions for sustainability and resilience.
• Involve early-career scholars, knowledge holders and relevant stakeholders alongside experts in Inter-Polar dialogues.
• Identify key challenges, research gaps and needs, potential regulatory and policy tools, and realistic and practicable solutions.
• Continue efforts to create a global knowledge network on Arctic-Third Pole connections.

For more on the call for abstracts: https://www.arcticcentre.org/EN/Inter-Polar-Conference

Inquiries: 

For inquiries, please email at: interpolarconference2025@gmail.com