Inter-Polar Conferences Connecting the Arctic with the Third Pole
On September 06-09, 2023, the first “Inter-Polar Conference: Connecting the Arctic with the Third Pole,” was held in Kathmandu, Nepal and the second was September 3-5, 2025.
Background
On September 06-09, 2023, the first “Inter-Polar Conference: Connecting the Arctic with the Third Pole,” was held in Kathmandu, Nepal. The Arctic Centre of the University of Lapland and the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) jointly organized the Conference in collaboration with the UArctic Chair in Arctic Legal Research and Education and the Law Thematic Network. With approximately one hundred selected participants from the Arctic and the Third Pole Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH), including early-career scholars and indigenous voices, the Conference marked a ground-breaking initiative to study the Arctic and the Third Pole together and from an interdisciplinary perspective.
The Arctic and the Third Pole HKH region both contain important elements of the cryosphere, the near-permanent presence of water in a frozen state. However, as temperatures in both regions are increasing disproportionately compared to the global average, these areas are rapidly thawing, and several elements of the cryosphere have possibly already crossed climatic tipping points. Changes in the cryosphere will have major impacts on local communities and ecosystems and also lead to larger-scale changes: the rapid melting of the Himalayan glaciers and changes in the snowpack will have significant regional effects, such as those related to infrastructure, water supply, and ecological health. A quarter of humanity relies on freshwater supply from the Himalayan region, and the melting of the cryosphere will contribute significantly to the rise of the global sea level, with the Greenland ice sheet alone holding enough water to raise global sea levels by up to 6 meters.
The interlinked aspect of the cryosphere thaw and climate change has been evidenced as crucial in promoting polar science. However, the Arctic and Third Pole are almost always considered separately, demonstrating little knowledge about the commonalities, links, and differences between both regions, especially concerning geo-political, socio-cultural, environmental, and legal dynamics of effects of and responses to these changes. The first conference highlighted interlinkages between the Arctic and the Third Pole HKH around the effects the decline of the cryosphere is having on people and communities from a range of academic disciplines and other knowledge systems (e.g., local and traditional).
Objectives of the 2025 conference were:
- Explore the effects of climate change on the cryosphere and ecosystems, resulting in multiple hazards for human communities and ecosystems in the Arctic and the Third Pole HKH regions.
- Identify key challenges and response mechanisms, research gaps and needs, potential regulatory and policy tools, and realistic and practicable solutions.
- Facilitate interpolar knowledge sharing and collaborative solutions for sustainability and resilience by involving early-career scholars, knowledge holders, relevant stakeholders, and experts.
- Continue efforts to create a global knowledge network on Arctic-Third Pole connections.
Contacts and Inquiries
For inquiries, please email at: interpolarconference2025@gmail.com