Introduction

Abstract

Connections between the Arctic and the Earth System, such as the Arctic Haze and the Indian monsoon link, are long established. We have also known for quite a while that the Arctic is warming more than twice as rapidly as the rest of the planet, and that this already does and increasingly will affect the Earth System. However, the Arctic has, at least since the end of the Cold War, also become economically globalized, as a warming Arctic with less ice cover attracts the interest of corporations and other nations, both for its resources and its transport routes. Such globalization of the Arctic can also be identified in its governance, as the Arctic Council—the major regional council and high-level forum for inter-governmental cooperation in the Arctic—has become an important meeting place for both Arctic and non-Arctic states, as well as International and Non-Governmental Organizations, the latter three having the status of observers. In other words, the Arctic has now become global, ecologically, economically, politically and culturally.