Arctic 'superpower' leaders meeting in Greenland

[mentalfloss]

Arctic 'superpower' leaders meeting in Greenland


U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Canada's Leona Aglukkaq and other world leaders are gathering in Nuuk, Greenland, for what observers are calling a historic meeting of the Arctic Council.

Foreign affairs ministers and other leaders from Canada, the U.S., Russia, Norway, Iceland, Finland, Sweden and Denmark are set to meet Thursday in Nuuk, where they will sign an international search-and-rescue treaty.

The treaty, which will require Arctic Council nations to co-ordinate with each other in the event of a plane crash, cruise ship sinking, big oil spill or other major disaster, will be the first legally binding agreement to be reached by the circumpolar intergovernmental forum.

Clinton's participation in the Arctic Council's ministerial meeting is gaining a lot of attention in Greenland this week, as is the presence of U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

"It's an historic meeting. This is the first time that almost all superpower players in the Arctic are here," Aqqaluk Lynge, international chairman of the Inuit Circumpolar Council, told CBC News.

Environmental concerns to be discussed

More than 60 journalists are accredited to cover this week's meeting, much more than in past years. As well, extra police will boost security at the meeting venue, which is expected to host more than 300 officials and other delegates.

While in Nuuk, the leaders are also expected to discuss climate change and debate growing environmental concerns about oil and gas exploration and development. "The whole Arctic population is dependent on wise use of our resources that do not pollute our food source," Lynge said. "That's the interest of all Arctic peoples, not just only for indigenous peoples."

Inuit leaders also meeting in Nuuk this week plan to present the Arctic Council with their united position on Arctic oil, gas and mining development.

Inuit from around the circumpolar world, including Canada, have struggled to find common ground on how to balance resource development with environmental protection in the Arctic.

Aglukkaq represents Canada

Ministers at the Arctic Council meeting will also talk about the future role the council should have in a changing northern environment.
Canada is sending Aglukkaq to Nuuk for Thursday's meeting, since former foreign affairs minister Lawrence Cannon lost his seat in the May 2 federal election.

Aglukkaq, health minister in Prime Minister Stephen Harper's last government, was re-elected as the Conservative MP for Nunavut. She is the first Inuk to hold a senior cabinet post.

Lynge said he is particularly proud that Aglukkaq and Greenland Premier Kuupik Kleist will be at the same table as Clinton, Lavrov and other high-ranking leaders, since that means Arctic indigenous peoples will not be forgotten. With so many "superpower" leaders in Nuuk this week, Lynge said he hopes they can reach some important agreements on environmental issues such as climate change and oil spills.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/story/2011/05/11/arctic-council-nuuk-clinton-aglukkaq.html
http://forums.canadiancontent.net/newthread.php?do=newthread&f=123

 

[petros]

The environment is being discussed or how to drill for and divy up the oil under the Arctic ocean?

 

[bill barilko]

The environment is being discussed or how to drill for and divy up the oil under the Arctic ocean?

My guess is 99% the latter and a tiny smidgen of the former.

 

[SLM]

The environment is being discussed or how to drill for and divy up the oil under the Arctic ocean?

I'm sure they're discussing the plight of the polar bears.

 

[petros]

I'm sure they're discussing the plight of the polar bears.

They'll have to teach the bears how to swim around the drill platforms off the coast of Greenland.

 

[In Between Man]

This would be a good time for us to pull Denmark and Russia aside and firmly remind them to keep their coveted eyes off the Northwest Passage. Ours! Not yours! :cwm10:

 

[petros]

This would be a good time for us to pull Denmark and Russia aside and firmly remind them to keep their coveted eyes off the Northwest Passage. Ours! Not yours! :cwm10:

Affirming the obvious would be a reminder of? Trans-Polar trade is being developed in ways that you might find interesting. Check it out.

 

[Machjo]

My question is whether we're looking at a big governmnet strategy to develop the North (e.g. militarization, governmental research, etc.) or a small-government strategy (e.g. free trade, freer labour-movement agreements, improved universal compulsory education and establishing common educational standards for various trades and professions).

Unfortunately, my gut tells me we're looking at the big-government approach. Get out your wallets, folks.

 

[bill barilko]

Interesting article from the BBC

Wikileaks cables show race to carve up Arctic


By Meirion Jones and Susan Watts
BBC Newsnight

The depletion of polar ice is making Arctic reserves more accessible

Secret US embassy cables released by Wikileaks show nations are racing to "carve up" Arctic resources - oil, gas and even rubies - as the ice retreats.
They suggest that Arctic states, including the US and Russia, are all pushing to stake a claim.
The opportunity to exploit resources has come because of a dramatic fall in the amount of ice in the Arctic.
The US Geological Survey estimates oil reserves off Greenland are as big as those in the North Sea.
The cables were released by the Wikileaks whistleblower website as foreign ministers from the eight Arctic Council member states - Russia, the United States, Canada, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Sweden and Iceland - met in Nuuk, Greenland on Thursday to sign a treaty on international search-and-rescue in the Arctic and discuss the region's future challenges.

READ THE CABLES


Wiki Arctic cables [98.35KB]

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The cables claim the Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller joked with the Americans saying "if you stay out, then the rest of us will have more to carve up in the Arctic".
Greenland is an autonomous Danish dependent territory with limited self-government however, the cables show that US diplomats believe Greenland "is on a clear track to independence" and see this as "a unique opportunity" for American gas and oil companies to get a foothold.
The then-US Ambassador to Denmark James P Cain said in the cables that he introduced Greenland's government to New York financiers "to help the Greenlanders secure the investments needed for such exploitation".
Territorial claims
The grab for the Arctic accelerated in 2007 when polar explorer Artur Chilingarov used a submarine to plant a Russian flag on the seabed under the North Pole.
The US cables reveal a senior Russian official told the Americans that this was a deliberate move by the Kremlin and that Chilingarov was "following orders from the ruling United Russia party".

In 2007 a Russian explorer planted a Russian flag under the North Pole

They also report comments by the Russian Ambassador Dmitriy Rogozin to Nato saying "the 21st Century will see a fight for resources and Russia should not be defeated in this fight".
The US embassy cables also expose US concerns about Canada's territorial claims to the North West passage and to "seabed resources that extend to the edge of the continental shelf".
They show that in 2008 the US embassy in Ottawa asked Washington to delay a new presidential directive requiring "the United States to assert a more active and influential national presence to protect its Arctic interests".
Officials were worried that if it was released before the Canadian federal election the Arctic would become a big election issue and "negatively impact US-Canadian relations". The directive was in fact delayed till after the Canadian election.
Rising tensions
The cables also report Canadian Premier Stephen Harper telling Nato to keep out of the Arctic - an issue where he is in agreement with Russia.

Instead of seeing the melting of the Arctic ice cap as a spur to action on climate change, oil companies like Cairn are rushing in to extract the very fossil fuels that caused the melting in the first place

Environmental campaigner Ben Ayliffe

He is said to have claimed that some European countries without Arctic territories were trying to use Nato to give them "influence in an area 'where they don't belong'".
Tom Burke who advises mining company Rio Tinto and the UK Foreign Office on climate change and business told Newsnight that political tensions are rising because "the ice is declining much faster" than expected, so "everybody who thinks they've got a chance to get at those resources wants to get in there and stake their claim".
Since the 1970s, Professor Peter Wadhams of Cambridge University has made repeated trips under the North Pole in Royal Navy nuclear submarines to measure the thickness of the ice.
He told Newsnight the graph "has gone off a cliff" because the ice sheet has thinned as well as shrunk.
The Pan-Arctic Ice-Ocean Modelling and Assimilation System (PIOMAS) which measures ice volume shows that last September there was only a quarter of the ice in the Arctic that there had been in 1979.
Prof Wadhams says in summer "it could easily happen that we'll have an ice free North Pole within a year or two".
New sea route
British oil company Cairn Energy are in the vanguard of the Arctic oil rush. The company's Commercial Director Simon Thomson told Newsnight "we're leading the charge".

The ice sheet is thinning as well as shrinking

Mr Thomson says Cairn Energy are "ahead of everybody else" in Greenland, but he knows the major oil companies are on alert saying "they're all watching and they're all waiting to see what we will find".
He says that there is an awareness that although "it's a substantial prize", one big spill could endanger the whole Arctic oil project, therefore "we need to do what we do with an absolute focus on safety".
However, the search for Arctic oil has been criticised by environmental campaigners, and Greenpeace protesters have already boarded a Cairn Energy rig currently heading for Greenland.
"Instead of seeing the melting of the Arctic ice cap as a spur to action on climate change, oil companies like Cairn are rushing in to extract the very fossil fuels that caused the melting in the first place," campaigner Ben Ayliffe, who is on the Greenpeace ship Esperanza, told Newsnight.
Some experts think that what is happening in the Arctic is like the Scramble for Africa in the 19th Century when European nations raced to secure resources.
However, it is not just a race for oil and gas. Russia hopes that the Northern Sea Route will open up and allow northern European shipping to get to the Far East a third quicker than via the Suez Canal.
New fisheries are opening up and Greenland in particular has mineral resources including aluminium and rubies.