When Katrín Jakobsdóttir became prime minister of Iceland in 2017, she brought to the job an agenda focused on gender equity, social justice, human rights, and climate activism.
As the leader of Iceland’s Left-Green Movement, these issues had long motivated her. But as prime minister of a small country with a big influence on the global stage, the energetic forty-seven-year-old has been able to amplify them.
That’s particularly true with the issues of energy and sustainability, which she has focused on as one of the world’s most outspoken advocates for speeding up the global response to climate change. Jakobsdóttir has pledged to make Iceland carbon neutral by 2040.
In her office in Reykjavik, during a pair of interviews, the most recent in February, we discussed the climate crisis, human rights, the militarization of the Arctic, and a range of other issues.
Q: As part of a book project on how the climate crisis is changing the Arctic, I recently traveled to the northernmost part of Iceland, Grímsey Island, some of which is above the Arctic Circle. It was late winter, yet temperatures were so mild that we barely needed coats. People I talked to said they could see and feel the world changing almost in real time.
Katrín Jakobsdóttir: It’s quite an experience to go there, and be there, and somehow feel the difference. What’s happening with the climate in the Arctic is happening at a double pace compared with the rest of the world. It’s quite shocking.
Q: One point you’ve been making is that the climate crisis is a human rights issue—especially for people who live in vulnerable regions of the world.
Jakobsdóttir: Looking at it from my political point of view, the responsibility we have toward later generations is an issue of human rights—also to those who are here and now faced with the consequences of the climate change that is already happening and so prominent in and around the Arctic.
You already see change happening in the close community in Greenland, where you have more polar bears roaming away from where they used to hang out.
Q: Aren’t there cases of polar bears swimming across from Greenland to Iceland?
Jakobsdóttir: Sometimes. The fishermen here in Iceland say, “We can actually see some changes happening in the ecosystem.” So it’s the ecosystem changing, and we need to make the connection between how those changes are happening and how they will affect our human rights.
Q: Just as you were starting to get traction on some of these arguments, the pandemic hit. That seemed to take several issues off the table, didn’t it?
Jakobsdóttir: It did.
Q: And that worried you regarding climate change?
Jakobsdóttir: Yes, and that’s just one of the things you have to accept, being a politician. I came here with [many] issues and agendas—we’re going to do this and this, and then, oh, a pandemic! You don’t do anything else for two years. You feel a pressure to say, “OK, sometimes you just need to accept the fact that you can’t control everything, and this is the most important thing right now.”
UN Women/Ryan Brown
Jakobsdóttir speaks at the newly created United Nations General Assembly Platform of Women Leaders at UN headquarters in New York, September 2022.
But we did finish a new action plan concerning climate in 2020. We also presented new goals when this government was formed. So we haven’t put it aside. But you could feel that the international pressure had moved to the side, because everybody was just so concerned about the pandemic.
Q: Do you think the pandemic had a major impact when countries gathered in 2021 for the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow?
Jakobsdóttir: I’ve been following this for so long, and I was in Paris (where the Paris Climate Accords were agreed to), in 2015, as a member of the parliamentary opposition. I was pretty thrilled—here we have an agreement, this is great. Now something’s going to happen.
I have been following it ever since, and you could feel in Glasgow, obviously not the same thrill, but still a lot of concrete actions being taken. So that was a difference, because in Paris, we were more about having a vision and saying, “This is the goal. This is what we’re going to do.” Now we’re actually seeing concrete actions.
Q: So it’s practical.
Jakobsdóttir: Very practical, but—
Q: The romantic side is a little bit dialed down.
Jakobsdóttir: Yes, because you’re also faced with a lot of people saying, “But some of these goals are still unrealistic if this doesn’t happen and this doesn’t happen.” So even if we had more concrete, practical proposals, we were also a little bit [frustrated] because things are still moving too slowly.
Q: With COVID-19 and the invasion of Ukraine, it seems there are so many developments that draw attention away from the climate crisis. Is there a way to get people refocused on climate?
Jakobsdóttir: The climate issue is still high on the agenda here in Iceland. There’s a lot of interest from the public sector in working toward a plan, a goal. But the private sector is also stepping up its game, setting its own goals and having a conversation, saying, “How can we transition? Our future is [at stake as well]. How are we going to make the transition over to green energy?”
Q: I hear that from people as I travel around the country.
Jakobsdóttir: It has become a mainstream issue. Everybody’s talking about climate, albeit a little differently. What I’m thinking about now is how we can ensure that the changes we need to make are going to be socially just, because I’m always focused on the three pillars of economics, society, and the environment. We are planning to have a special project on a just transition [by] following in the footsteps of [recent climate agreements].
Q: Then can you lead by example?
Jakobsdóttir: Hopefully!
Q: For the world? I mean, again, it’s that kind of renewing energy around climate as we move forward.
Jakobsdóttir: I have to tell you about one project that we’re working on with Scotland, New Zealand, Finland, and Wales.
Q: You’re mentioning a lot of countries that have had—or currently have—women in top leadership positions.
Jakobsdóttir: Yes, true!
Q: Tell me about the project.
Jakobsdóttir: It’s called “well-being economies.” This is something I’m very focused on. How can we actually use the public budget to improve well-being?
“The climate issue is still high on the agenda here in Iceland. There’s a lot of interest from the public sector in working toward a plan, but the private sector is also stepping up its game.”
We developed well-being indicators, so now we don’t just have gross domestic product and economic growth. We also ask, “Does this action and investment increase the balance between work and private life?”
We’re thinking more about whether we are spending money in ways that promote well-being. For instance, we prolonged parental leave in 2020 up to twelve months, and we think of that more as an investment in well-being. We are giving young families the chance to stay with their kids for the first twelve months. And with gender equality, the father takes six months and the mother takes six.
It’s an interesting project. We’re learning a lot from New Zealand. They are pioneers when it comes to this well-being ideology.
Q: And when investments in well-being also address the climate crisis, it’s a way to show people that there is a benefit to society beyond just saving the planet.
Jakobsdóttir: Absolutely. You have to somehow combine environment and well-being, as the environment is part of our well-being. Part of the well-being of every person is having the opportunity to be in unspoiled nature, to have clean water and air.
Q: So how do we save the Arctic?
Jakobsdóttir: Taking concrete actions against climate change is the most important step. But also . . . many people are interested in traveling through the Arctic, [which is] quite risky when it comes to these sensitive ecosystems. We need very clear regulations on that.
We also have to think about keeping the Arctic a low-tension area. We don’t want to see increased militarization, which is highly relevant right now because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It’s going to be a very challenging project for the coming years.
Q: There is an intersection between the commercialization of the Arctic and the threat of militarization. Commercialization is a challenge by itself, but it also opens the door for militarization because, throughout history, protecting shipping lanes has been a focus for military planners.
Jakobsdóttir: [It is] one of the main goals of every nation’s military. This is a challenge. We’ve had the Arctic Council. There was a meeting here in Reykjavik, in 2021, and we agreed on a ten-year vision. We were all happy about that. Obviously the high tensions right now put that into a new perspective, but there is still a strong will around the table to try to keep the Arctic out of the warfare of the world.
Q: This becomes especially significant with regard to nuclear weapons.
Jakobsdóttir: Yes, because they are in submarines sailing around the world’s oceans.
Q: Of the countries that border the Arctic, at least two are major nuclear powers.
Jakobsdóttir: Russia and the United States.
Q: Can Nordic countries lead in that regard? Can they wedge in and say, “Look, we’re also up here, and we would like to make sure that this is a non-nuclear, nonmilitarized region?”
Jakobsdóttir: We talk about a low-tension and nonmilitarized area, and this is something you can feel quite a harmony about between the Nordic countries.
But it also reminds us of the fact that we have seen a lot of disarmament and nuclear proliferation agreements [being abandoned]. Their time has run out in the last few years. All of a sudden, now the nuclear specter is here again, [which is] something I grew up with.
Q: You got into politics in part because of these concerns.
Jakobsdóttir: Yes, because this was one of the specters of my childhood. We had a phone book in Iceland—because we’re so small, we had all the phone numbers in just one phone book. Then there was Reykjavik, and then there was (the northern city of) Akureyri. You just found Katrin—oh, she’s here. And then in the back of the phone book there were some pages [about] what to do when confronted with a nuclear bomb. It said, “Go down to the basement and stay there” . . . . When I was growing up, every month a warning signal would go off. This hasn’t happened for many years, but it was the first Wednesday of every month. A crazy siren [and announcement] would warn, “This is the sound you’ll hear if there will be a nuclear attack.”
Now I feel the specter has reappeared on the [world] stage and reminded us of the importance of arms control and of reviving those agreements, even though it seems [a remote possibility] because of the war.