Arctic Council Arctic Council The Arctic Council is a high-level intergovernmental forum that addresses issues faced by the Arctic governments and the indigenous people of the Arctic. Eight member countries constitute the council: Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden, and the United States as these are the eight countries with sovereignty over the lands within the Arctic Circle. Outside these, there are some observer states. The first step towards the formation of the Council occurred in 1991 when the eight Arctic countries signed the Arctic Environmental Protection Strategy (AEPS). The 1996 Ottawa Declaration established the Arctic Council as a forum for
Arctic Circle (organization) discuss Arctic matters. Speakers to have attended the Arctic Circle Assembly have included Ban Ki-moon, Nicola Sturgeon, Aleqa Hammond, Lisa Murkowski, Philippe Couillard, and François Hollande, who delivered a keynote speech at the 2015 Assembly as President of France. During his speech, Hollande discussed the importance of the Arctic as an arena for international climate action. Situating the Arctic on the front lines of anthropogenic planetary warming, President Hollande expressed optimism that global leaders would make an agreement on the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions at the then-upcoming 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference, and urged global leaders to strengthen