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U.S. backtracks on climate change proposals

Arctic Council stymied in recommending policy revisions

JANE GEORGE

The United States has changed its mind about supporting any policy recommendations from the Arctic Council on how to curb climate change in the Arctic.

"Climate change is not an issue on which all governments see eye to eye, and you don't have a document printed up from within the council framework ... that is not the way international work is done," said an uneasy senior official in Washington, D.C. who was willing to comment on the promise on anonymity.

"You would set up a situation that could be very divisive.... When you're talking about the future of the Arctic Council, we would do it harm, honestly, by setting up a process, letting a process go that was potentially going to set a lot of conflicts. That is not good for the council."

The Arctic Council was set up in 1996 to help circumpolar states cooperate on common issues, especially environmental issues. The members include Canada, the U.S., Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden and Russia, with indigenous peoples as non-voting permanent participants. The council is intended to work on a consensus basis.

As a result of the U.S. stance, the Arctic Council has decided to put "on hold" the drafting of any policy recommendations with respect to climate change in the Arctic.

The council's permanent participants are disturbed by this development because it's a detour from the original plan. The Barrow Declaration, adopted by the ministers of the Arctic Council's member states when they met in Alaska in October 2000, states these policy recommendations would be released next November at their meeting in Iceland.

In the Barrow Declaration, the Arctic Council endorsed an Arctic Climate Impact Assessment that would contain three documents: a science assessment, a summary document and a policy document. All three would be produced simultaneously.

At the time, the U.S., then under the liberal-leaning administration of President Bill Clinton, was enthusiastic about the ACIA process and even offered to place its secretariat at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks.

"It's true everybody approved it, but people have come to realize that we were embarked on a process that wasn't quite sensible, quite frankly ... the mood in Barrow was very excited and positive that the council was finally going to move ahead on this project," said the U.S. State Department official. "I think we didn't necessarily think through about the details of developing policy recommendations."

Last December, the permanent participants, including the Inuit Circumpolar Conference, the Arctic Athabaskan Council, the Gwich'in Council International, the Russian Association of Indigenous Peoples of the North and the Saami Council, signed a letter to Gunnar Palsson, the Icelandic chair of the Arctic Council, urging the council not to freeze the recommendation drafting process.

"Over the past few years, the Permanent Participants have repeatedly stated ... that the ACIA process demonstrates that the Arctic Council is a unique model of international cooperation ... throughout the Arctic, indigenous peoples are waiting for the outcome of this important work."

The ACIA report has input from 250 scientists and is already, in its draft form, a 1,500-page document, nicknamed "the brick."

"It's not finished yet ... there are sections that are still being edited. The work isn't done on it - what it finally is going to say isn't available to policy makers yet," said the U.S. official. "You don't start writing your policy conclusions before the experts finish their work."

That's why in August, the U.S. said it wouldn't support any policy document dealing with climate change next November.

Its statement on the policy document says "these policy recommendations should be developed only after the governments have had an opportunity to consider the scientific document on which they are based and draw their conclusions."

The U.S. statement was distributed at a policy planning meeting on a plain sheet of paper that had no identifying logo.

"The arguments there still hold true, and nobody's changed their minds about what we said there," said the official. "That isn't all there is to say, but it's not like we're going to take anything we said in that paper back."

The ACIA confirms global climate change is "amplified" in the Arctic and says what happens in the Arctic will occur elsewhere in the world a decade or so later.

The ACIA says Arctic marine mammals will be "pushed to extinction" by 2070-90 as a result of a serious depletion of sea ice. It also signals an opening of the Northwest Passage for general cargo vessels by the end of this century, at the very latest.

"Of course, it's controversial," said ACIA secretariat's executive director, Gunter Weller, in a telephone interview from Fairbanks, Alaska. "We have documented major impacts on the environment, on people and the economies ... not all the findings are absolutely negative or bleak. Some of the effects are not so bad, some are beneficial, it depends on your point of view."

Based on the draft ACIA scientific document, a policy committee, led by two working committees within the Arctic Council, met several times, adopted a framework and produced draft policy recommendations.

The draft recommendations say, among other things, that Arctic Council member states should:

• Adopt climate change strategies to reduce greenhouse gases and develop alternative energy sources.
• Work closely with affected communities to help then adapt and manage the impacts of climate change.
• Develop new economic opportunities in a sustainable way.
• Revise conservation polices.
• "Manage and regulate" risks associated with melting of the permafrost, erosion, etc.

"There are some obvious politics involved with the policy statement," Weller said. "[But] I think the suppression of a document that comes up with recommendations isn't a very good thing."

The U.S., under President George W. Bush, has not supported the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, either.

Since the Arctic Council was established, the U.S. has also blocked several other council initiatives.

The U.S. opposed adopting any overall framework or set of principles for its sustainable development program, in favour of a project-by-project approach.

The U.S. has also been against any sharing of the council's expenses. Every two years, one member country hosts the council's secretariat, assuming the costs of its operation. Denmark and, to a lesser extent, Canada are the only two countries that support the Indigenous Peoples' secretariat in Copenhagen, which offers support to the indigenous participants.

Due to U.S. pressure, the Arctic Council doesn't deal with any defense or military issues affecting the Arctic.

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