On the 20th anniversary of the Ottawa Declaration, which established the Arctic Council, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation hosts a two-day international event dedicated to the Arctic on 10 and 11 October, 2016.
The event will start on 10 October with the international conference “The Arctic Council and the Italian Perspective”, which will open with greetings by Secretary-General Elisabetta Belloni, opening remarks by the Undersecretary of State for Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Benedetto Della Vedova.
The Conference, organised by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation in conjunction with the Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI), the National Research Council (CNR) and the Società Italiana per l’Organizzazione Internazionale (SIOI), aims to illustrate, through contributions by Italian and foreign experts, the political, scientific and business aspects of international cooperation initiatives in the Arctic region of interest to Italy. The event will especially focus on the activities of the Arctic Council, the region’s major intergovernmental forum in which Italy is an Observer Country, with surveys on the ecosystem and on the political, economic and scientific opportunities that are opening following the current climate change.
On 11 October the Foreign Ministry will host the Final Conference of the ARCA Project (Arctic: present Climatic change and pAst extreme events), financed by the Ministry of Education, University and Research (MIUR) and coordinated by the National Research Council (CNR) in conjunction with the National Institute of Oceanography and Experimental Geophysics (OGS) and the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV). The Conference will present the Project’s principal results and open a debate on how to support long-term cooperation between national science institutions, also with a view to highlighting Italy’s research projects in the Arctic.