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Arctic Council bows to U. S. pressure

Working group to replace strict policy recommendations based on climate change report

JANE GEORGE

Geir Tommy Pedersen (left), president of the Saami Council, isn’t optimistic the Arctic Council will endorse a strong policy against climate change. Bob Corell (right), chair of the Artic Climate Impact Assessment, is willing to give the U. S. more time.

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That’s because a last-minute round of negotiations will probably fail to produce a strong climate change policy that the ministers can adopt when they meet on Nov. 24.

Last week’s resignation of Colin Powell, the United States’ Secretary of State, and the top foreign affairs voice in the U. S. was another blow to any hope for the policy that Sheila Watt-Cloutier, the chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference, wants to see.

Watt-Cloutier said she would like to see a set of “robust” policy recommendations, based on the science and grim projections in the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment report, Impacts of a Warming Arctic.

But the United States is unlikely to support anything that appears to support a reduction of the industrial emissions it produces.

These emissions largely contribute to heat-trapping greenhouse gases.

President George W. Bush has refused to support the Kyoto Protocol, an international pact to curb emissions, because the U.S. estimates that compliance would cost their economy up to $400 billion and five million jobs.

So, the Arctic Council’s long-awaited policy document will focus on the creation of yet a new working group — this time, to develop Arctic climate projects and continue research into climate change.

The only other alternative for the council is to reject consensus, with seven members and the permanent indigenous participants lining up against the U.S. This dissent could cause the eight-year-old body to collapse — something most of its members don’t want to see happen.

The Nordica Hotel in Reykjavik, Iceland is where ministers from around the circumpolar world will be meeting on Wednesday. (PHOTOS BY JANE GEORGE)

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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 international indigenous peoples’ organizations as non-voting permanent participants. The council is intended to work on consensus.

The Barrow Declaration, that was adopted by the ministers of the Arctic Council when they met last time four years ago in Alaska, said policy recommendations on climate change would be released at their next meeting in Iceland.

Watt-Cloutier has taken heat for speaking out against efforts by the U.S. to stall the tabling of a policy document on Arctic warming.

“I would say to the Arctic Council: now fulfill the mandate you have been asked to do,” she said at a press conference in Iceland during the ACIA symposium last week.

A tired and discouraged Geir Tommy Pedersen, president of the Saami Council, which represents Saami from Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia, had a hard time mustering any optimism that the Arctic Council would agree to adopt policy guidelines to, for example, limit gas and oil development in the Arctic.

“Let’s hope we can succeed,” Pedersen said.

The permanent indigenous participants want the Arctic Council to:

• adopt climate change strategies to reduce greenhouse gases and develop alternative energy sources;
• • work closely with affected communities to help them 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.

The policy document may touch on some of these points.

It will likely support the establishment of an international Circumpolar Monitoring Network, a sort of “environmental DEW-line,” manned by indigenous peoples, that would keep an up-to-date eye on warming in the Arctic.

It will also come out in support of the International Polar Year, from March 2007 to 2009, and the University of the Arctic as two ways to promote research and education.

And it may even sponsor an amendment to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which would acknowledge that climate change is amplified in high latitudes.

But the recommendations probably won’t go much further than this.

Since the Arctic Council was established, the U.S. has 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 sharing 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 which 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.

When pressed, Watt-Cloutier said she had “believed” in the Arctic Council, but now wants it to carry out its mandate on developing a policy to curb climate change in the Arctic.

“It’s time to stop deflecting the issues,” she said.

Several scientists at last week’s symposium said they were outraged by the U.S. stance, while a Finnish observer said it was sad to see indigenous peoples settling for recognition instead of action.

But, last week, the chair of the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, Bob Corell, who is an American, cautioned against putting a timeline on the package of policy recommendations, or tying the production of a policy document to an event like next week’s meeting of the Arctic Council.

Corell is a straight talker, and he counseled moving away from the “now” word, and focusing instead on progress in the policy-making process.

He suggested the newly-re-elected U.S. president would need more time to develop fresh policies on climate change.

After the Arctic Council’s meeting on Nov. 24, the chair of the council goes to Russia, which recently ratified the Kyoto Protocol.

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