As Director of the All Party Parliamentary Group for the Polar Regions one of my roles is to lead an expedition each year to take Parliamentarians to a part of the Arctic or Antarctic that challenges their understanding of the place and its culture and informs them about why it is such a key area to protect.
For the 2022 expedition the APPG expedition went to Greenland via Denmark and Iceland with several key objectives:
· To see first-hand the impact of ice loss and permafrost melt on a variety of Greenlandic communities
· To see climate science conducted and to understand how the data is gathered, the conditions the research teams face and why the science is of key importance
· To experience the scale, remoteness and beauty of Greenland
· To better understand Greenland/UK/Denmark historic and current relations. This was particularly pertinent because of the UK/Greenland FreeTrade Agreement being finalised this year
· To meet with Icelandic Parliamentarians to understand the UK/Icelandic relationship and how the Russian invasion of Ukraine has changed Iceland’s views on Geopolitics and Defence in the Arctic
· To share UK Government learnings following the publication of the GreenShipping report by the Environment Audit Committee with an Arctic GreenShipping Conference.
