The One Planet – Polar Summit will bring together scientists, polar stakeholders and politicians in Paris from 8-10 November 2023. SCAR supported the organisation of the event, which will address issues of climate and biodiversity. The political segment with leaders and figures from the glacial and polar worlds, to be joined by the French President, will take place on 10 November 2023 at the National Museum of Natural History.
Prof Dame Janes Francis (BAS) will be speaking for SCAR at the “Scientific Findings” session on the first day of the summit. Prof Dame Janes Francis and Prof Jefferson Simões (SCAR Vice President for Finance) will also moderate the working group “Glaciers, water and sea level” on the same day.
Participation in the summit will be by invitation only. The entire summit will be available for viewing online on this webpage.
Click here to view the full programme.
Event description from the One Planet website:
The Arctic and Antarctic are today major strategic areas on which the planet’s equilibrium largely depends. Like the oceans to which they are intrinsically linked, the North and South Poles play a central role in climate regulation and the preservation of biodiversity. Actors and first victims of climate change, they are also sounding the alarm.
The state of the world’s glaciers and high plateaus is no less worrying; they show the extent to which the collapse of the cryosphere on a global scale can have effects on populations, ecosystems as a whole, water resources, sea-level rise…
If the phenomenon of cryospheric collapse is irreversible, the world’s leaders must take it into account in order to enable ecosystems and populations to adapt to the challenges and disasters already visible. The effects of climate disruption, which are warming the Arctic and Antarctic very strongly and causing the Greenland ice sheet and sea ice to melt, as well as the Antarctic glaciers and other emblematic glaciers such as the Himalayas and Kilimanjaro, justify an exceptional and concerted mobilisation of the international community.
France has just adopted its first National Polar Strategy in 2022, explained here. It does not only provide new resources for scientific research, but also sets a number of international objectives, including the organisation in France in 2023 of the first international summit for glaciers and poles, in the form of a One Planet Summit.
The November 2023 edition of the Paris Peace Forum “Seeking Common Grounds in a World of Rivalry” will host this One Planet Summit at a time when, subject to growing geopolitical tensions and increasing economic exploitation, the already fragile glacial and polar worlds are under threat to their ecosystems.
For the first time, researchers and scientists from over forty glacial and polar nations will be meeting in Paris to share their findings and observations with IPCC and IPBES experts, as well as with the heads of international institutions, NGOs, representatives of indigenous peoples and local communities, the private sector involved in these regions, and the political leaders of countries present in the Arctic, Antarctic and glacial worlds.
The summit will also involve the remote participation of researchers from the various scientific stations at the poles and glaciers, international polar operators and great figures in polar and glacial exploration.