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September 16, 2005

Climate change meeting stalled at the start?

SIKU CIRCUMPOLAR NEWS SERVICE

A Montreal meeting to draft a new agreement to take over from the Kyoto climate change accord is unlikely to produce a breakthrough, a senior Canadian official told Reuters on Monday.

The conference, which runs from November 28 to December 9, will try to find common ground between those countries that signed on to Kyoto and those that did not, including the United States, China, India and Australia.

“We don’t expect outcomes on this at Montreal because this is the first discussion of the post-Kyoto regime,” the official told a briefing. “But what we want to do is build bridges between developing countries and industrial countries — including the industrial countries that are not members of Kyoto — as to the kind of regime which might exist in the future.”

Kyoto, designed to curb emissions of greenhouse gases blamed for global warming, formally expires in 2012. Many of the 152 signatories have had trouble meeting their targets.

The United States walked away from Kyoto in 2001, saying it would harm economic growth and doesn’t cover developing countries such as China and India.

“We want this to be something which is remembered as the start of serious negotiations with the countries that are not part of Kyoto,” said the Canadian official.

September 16, 2005

Norway leans leftwards

SIKU CIRCUMPOLAR NEWS SERVICE

Norway has a new left-leaning government.

The Red and Green block emerged victorious from the Norwegian general election on Monday, with Labour’s Jens Stoltenberg set to become the new prime minister.

The Labour Party, the Socialist Left Party and the Centre Party negotiated a coalition government backed by their new majority in the Parliament.

The new government will take over on Oct. 17.

Political commentators in Norway spent a great deal of time explaining how the government could lose a general election despite Norway being named as the best country in the world to live in for the fifth year in a row.

September 16, 2005

Sweden’s king speaks out on climate change

SIKU CIRCUMPOLAR NEWS SERVICE

Sweden’s King Caril XVI Gustaf said Hurricane Katrina, feared to have killed thousands of people in the United States, could be a harbinger of worse catastrophes to come. He told reporters he was deeply shaken by the damage and suffering of millions of people.

“It is quite clear that the world’s climate is changing and we should take note,” he said. “The hurricane catastrophe in the United States should be a wakeup call for all of us.”

September 16, 2005

Saami to the polls

SIKU CIRCUMPOLAR NEWS SERVICE

Along with Norwegians, Saami in Norway also voted in their own elections for the Saami parliament this week.

About 12,500 people are eligible to vote in the Saami elections. They include Norwegian citizens with at least one great-grandparent who had Saami as his or her first language.

The Saami elections involve 17 different parties in 13 jurisdictions from Southern Norway to Kautokeino in northern Finnmark. Results are not expected for about 10 days.

Want to know more about what is happening in the circumpolar world every day of the week? Consult Siku’s web site at www.sikunews.com

September 9, 2005

Russia key to Canadian Arctic defence

SIKU CIRCUMPOLAR NEWS SERVICE

Canada welcomes cooperation with Russia to tackle global warming in the Arctic, Defence Minister Bill Graham said last Friday during a four-day trip to Russia.

"In our view, the Arctic is changing rapidly because of global warming and there will be a need for further collaboration," Graham told reporters at a press conference with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Ivanov.

"Our navies could be looking at ways in which we would work on issues as waters become more and more open to traffic," Graham said.

He said changes in the Arctic are "taking place I think at a surprising and almost dangerous rate."

Russia and Canada have both claimed overlapping parts of the Arctic shelf, while Norway, Denmark and the United States have expressed "reservations" about Russia's claim.

Recently, Russia's Arctic fleet flagship Akademik Fyodorov became the world's first transport vessel to reach the North Pole without an icebreaker's assistance. On the way, the Akademic Fyodorov also studied Russia's continental shelf, which Russian scientists said continues far into the Arctic Ocean.

September 9, 2005

Help UArctic, Canada

The federal, provincial and territorial governments need to commit money to the University of the Arctic if Canadians are to live up to their international obligations, said Greg Poelzer, the university's director of undergraduate studies, who works out of the University of Saskatchewan.

"Each of the countries depending on the size of their northern populations have been asked to contribute," Poelzer said at a recent meeting in Whitehorse, Yukon. "Norway and Finland have been extremely good, going above and beyond the call of duty. What we don't have from Canada, and we're at a critical stage of the development process, is that multiyear sustained funding, so that we can continue on."

The UArctic wants $2.5 million per year from Canada.

The UArctic website, www.uarctic.org, describes the university as an institution without walls, based on a cooperative network of universities, colleges, and other organizations "committed to higher education and research in the North." Nunavut Arctic College is one of UArctic's member institutions.

September 9, 2005

Greenlanders demand election

Greenland's Home Rule coalition government is teetering after revelations that several MLAs used public funds for personal pleasure.

In June, Jens Napaatooq from the leading Siumut Party resigned as minister of housing after media reported he had racked up an expense account of over 400,000 Danish krøners ($80,000) from November 2004 to June, 2005.

Napaatooq used the money at nightclubs, eating out at expensive restaurants in Denmark, and he even bought booze at a go-go dance bar in Copenhagen. In an average day, he spent about 1,400 krøner ($325).

Now, an audit by Deloitte Touche, which was commissioned by Premier Hans Enoksen, shows Napaatooq wasn't the only MLA to be freely spending public money. The auditors' report says MLA Rasmus Frederiksen also spent more than 160,000 krøner ($35,000) from November to June on "frequent and expensive purchase of alcohol, often at very late hours."

Fredikersen has since resigned.

The report has the opposition Atassut Party calling for an election and the recovery of money from the MLAs.

"You can't use your public representation account to pay for amusements with your friends and family," Augusta Salling, head of the Atassut Party, told the Danish daily newspaper, Politiken.

The auditors' report also said four more MLAs could not account for all the expense money they had claimed.

September 9, 2005

Curfew sends Reykjavik kids home to bed

SIKU CIRCUMPOLAR NEWS SERVICE

This week, the curfew for children in Reykjavik, Iceland became two hours earlier due to the decreasing amount of sunlight and the beginning of the new school year.

According to the curfew, children under 12 cannot be out in public after 8 p.m. unless accompanied by their parents.

Teenagers 13 to 16 years of age cannot be out after 10 p.m. unless they are on their way home from a certified school, athletic or youth function.

September 9, 2005

Greenland ice cap shrinks while leaders fiddle

Greenland's Ilulissat glacier, a United Nations heritage site, has shrunk by over 10 kilometres in just a few years.

"We are witnesses to one of the most striking examples of climate change in the Arctic," U.S. climate change expert Robert Corell said during a recent helicopter flight over the glacier.

Corell said the lower extremity of the glacier "has receded by more than 10 kilometers in two or three years after having been relatively stable since the 1960s."

Corell, a senior fellow with the American Meteorological Society in Washington D.C. and chairman of the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, took 22 environment ministers and other officials from around the world, who met recently in Ilulissat for a conference on global warming, on a tour of the glacier.

"We can't find any more concrete example of Arctic warming, which is twice as fast as in any other part of the world," Corell told Agences France Presse.

Corell said the glacier shrank by seven kilometres in a 12-month period from 2002 to 2003.

Greenland's ice cap could melt within a few hundred years, raising the water level of the world's oceans by six to seven metres, threatening more than 1.2 billion people who live within 30 kilometres of ocean shorelines.

September 9, 2005

Norway, Iceland best places to live

SIKU CIRCUMPOLAR NEWS SERVICE

Norway tops a 2005 United Nations list ranking it as the best country in which to live for the fifth year in a row, with Iceland as the runner-up.

Norway has led the world ranking since Canada fell from top spot in 2001.

The annual list ranks countries by an index combining wealth, education and life expectancy.

Last year, Norway was followed by Sweden, Australia and Canada at the top, while Sierra Leone was the last of 177 countries listed.

Norway's economy is set to expand by 3.75 per cent this year, interest rates are at 2.0 percent, annual inflation is at 1.1 percent and unemployment is a low 3.7 percent.

September 9, 2005

Walrus sausages for Chukotka

A sausage maker from Anchorage, Alaska is in Chukotka this week to help Yupik walrus hunters preserve their meat.

Doug Drum of Indian Valley Meats plans to install a canning facility in Lorino, a coastal village in Chukotka.

The canning project is sponsored in part by the Alaska-Chukotka Development Program at the University of Alaska Anchorage with a grant from U.S. Agency for International Development.

Canning will enable walrus hunters to process, preserve and distribute their catch around the region. The product will have a shelf life of about 10 years.

September 9, 2005

Inuu, Inuit angry about fly-in mine workers

SIKU CIRCUMPOLAR NEWS SERVICE

Inuu and Inuit leaders said they may disrupt the start of Inco's Voisey's Bay nickel mine because of the mining company's travel benefits for workers.

The Voisey's Bay mine in Labrador is expected to produce 50,000 tonnes of nickel a year. That would make it one of the world's biggest producers of nickel, which is used in stainless steel.

Leaders of the Inuit and Innu recently accused Inco of a breach of trust because it subsidizes travel costs of workers flown into the mine site from other parts of Canada. Previously, workers had to pay most of their own way.

Inco says it needs to attract skilled employees to the site at a time when qualified mining industry staff are difficult to find.

But Labrador community leaders are angry because they say the policy conflicts with the spirit and intent of agreements signed by Inco to employ and train local staff at the project.

"We did not initiate this change, but we will need to review our IBA (impact benefit agreement) to assess the impacts," said Ben Michel, president of the Innu Nation, in a press statement headlined "Labrador groups considering action to stop operations at Voisey's Bay mine."

"We may also seek to have the mine mill project re-reviewed by the environmental assessment agency as it is in fact a different project than what we had agreed to," the release said.

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