The Arctic Council is an advisory body that promotes cooperation among member nations and Indigenous groups.
At Thursday's meeting, the two-year rotating leadership of the council switches from the United States to Finland, and new chair foreign minister Timo Soini endorsed the Paris deal.
The Arctic is warming at double the rate of the rest of the planet, with average temperatures up 3.5 degrees Centigrade since the beginning of the 20th century, leading to rapid loss of glacial ice and permafrost.
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson signed an agreement recognising the landmark Paris climate accord at a meeting of Arctic nations in Alaska on Wednesday (10 May) but said President Trump was not rushing to decide whether to leave or weaken US commitments to the pact.
Michael LeVine, a lawyer in Alaska for the nonprofit Oceana, said: "We hope that this declaration is a meaningful step in the evolution of the Trump administration's approach to climate change issues". "We're not going to rush to make a decision".
Bill Erasmus of the worldwide Arctic Athabaskan Council, which represents indigenous Athabascan governments in the USA and Canada, said climate change and economic stability were the most important issues in the region. "We are appreciative that each of you has an important point of view", said Tillerson.
"We are unsure what the Trump administration thinks about the Arctic region in general, about the Arctic Council in particular and about its role", said Victoria Herrmann, president of The Arctic Institute, a Washington, D.C. -based group, according to the Associated Press.
Freeland would not comment on Tillerson's apparently contradictory remarks following Thursday's summit, when he said the US will not be rushed into formulating its policy on climate change.
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For starters, the world is a very different place now than it was in 1997. "How to respond to North Korea ... is an urgent issue". The policy got its name from an Aesop fable in which the wind and the sun compete to make a traveler take off his coat.
It does much to recognize the impacts and threats posed by climate change as well as boost best practices for reducing black carbon emissions.
Finland is also emphasizes the implementation of the Paris Agreement on climate change and the United Nations sustainable development goals, something representatives of eight Arctic Indigenous groups, or Permanent Participants, of the Arctic Council, praised during their remarks.
The Arctic Council, he said, will continue to be an important platform as the Trump administration deliberates.
The Arctic Council's goals are sustainable development and environmental protection of the Arctic.
The worst-case scenario feared by some would be that Tillerson used this gathering to announce the US would withdraw from the Paris Agreement. The U.S. highlighted three areas during its two-year chairmanship - improved living conditions and economies for those living in the Arctic, stewardship of the Arctic Ocean and climate change. Soini said Arctic resources and transportation routes may attract interest.
Tillerson came around to the agreement after hours of debate following a dinner the council members ate together on Wednesday night, Denmark's Foreign Minister Anders Samuelsen told Reuters. "And that is science".
He suggested Tillerson "should get away from his cronies in the oil business and start listening to the people of Alaska, for instance, and the people of the world who are so interested in these issues".
It turns out, as Tillerson said in his opening comments at the meeting, the administration has not made up its mind, but pledged to at least listen to the Arctic nations and regional organizations as the administration weighs its options.
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