page_title: Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson
section_title: Other achievements
hierarchical_section_title: Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson / Other achievements
caption_attribution_description: English: President of Iceland, Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson, with Headmaster of The Doon School, Peter McLaughlin, in April 2013
context_page_description: Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson is an Icelandic politician who was the fifth President of Iceland from 1996 to 2016. He was first elected in 1996, and was elected unopposed for a second term in 2000. Ólafur was re-elected for a third term in 2004, for a fourth term in 2008, and for a record fifth and final term in 2012.
  Ólafur announced in his New Year's message on 1 January 2016, that he would be stepping down from the presidency at the end of his fifth term on 1 August 2016, after twenty years in office. However, he announced in a press conference on 18 April 2016 that he would be running for re-election, in light of the political instability caused by the release of the Panama Papers two weeks earlier. After Guðni Th. Jóhannesson and Davíð Oddsson announced their candidacies, he again changed his mind and on 9 May declared he would not run.
  Since the end of his presidency, Ólafur has been serving as Chairman of the Arctic Circle, a non-profit organization, and as Chairman of the International Renewable Energy Agency's Global Commission on the Geopolitics of Energy Transformation.
context_section_description: In recent years the President has been outspoken on the issues of renewable energy and global climate change. He initiated a Global Roundtable on Climate Change with the participation of a large group of companies and individual opinion leaders. Ólafur strongly advocates the use of geothermal energy, which is renewable, economically viable and reliable resource, as proven convincingly by the case of Iceland.
  In relation to his efforts on these issues, Ólafur has participated in the Global Creative Leadership Summit, organized by the Louise Blouin Foundation, in 2007 and 2008. He was also awarded the Louise T Blouin Award for Creative and Cultural Achievement. In 2008, as a delegate at the Summit he delivered the Keynote Speech on Climate Change versus Globalization.
  On 15 April 2013, at the National Press Club in Washington, he announced the formation of the Arctic Circle, an organization to facilitate dialogue among political and business leaders, environmental experts, scientists, indigenous representatives, and other international stakeholders to address issues facing the Arctic as a result of climate change and melting sea ice.
caption: Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson during his visit to The Doon School in India, seen here with the school's headmaster Peter McLaughlin
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