By Tine Sundtoft and Christian Friis Bach
GENEVA, Dec 2 2015 (IPS)

Arctic temperatures have increased twice as much as the global average in the past 100 years. Recent photos show that thousands of walruses normally resting on sea ice between dives to find food have been forced to crowd ashore because of extreme sea ice melt in Alaska. Such photos have once again reminded us that it is high time we take serious action on climate change if we want to save the Arctic.

Tine Sundtoft is the Minister of Climate and Environment of Norway.

Christian Friis Bach is Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE).

Calling Arctic countries our homes, we are both particularly concerned about Arctic ecosystems and their extreme vulnerability to climate change. As a result of diminishing sea ice and snow cover, entire habitats are being lost, threatening unique species, such as the iconic polar bears and walruses, as well as the traditional livelihoods of indigenous peoples.

Not only CO2 and other greenhouse gases, but also some air pollutants have impacts on climate change in the Arctic, such as black carbon, a component of particulate matter which is produced by the incomplete combustion of fossil fuels or wood. Also known as a short-lived climate pollutant, black carbon has a particular relevance in the Arctic, as it absorbs sunlight and thus increases melting when it is deposited on ice and snow.

A changing climate, however, does not affect the Arctic only; it is felt all around the world. When the reflectivity of the Arctic surface is reduced, resulting in further warming and melting of ice, it has an escalating effect on sea levels and temperature increase also on a global scale.

We are the last generation with the ability to stop climate change and save the Arctic. If we fail, it will be a historic mistake. But we have to act fast. This is why, in the run-up to COP 21, the Climate Change Summit in Paris, we have been drawing attention to the benefits of addressing climate change and air pollution in a more integrated way.

While poor air quality and climate change are different phenomena, they are closely linked. Burning of fossil fuels is the major source common to both air pollutants and greenhouse gases. Thus, many actions taken to reduce emissions from these sources will help improve air quality and address climate change at the same time.

Climate change and air pollution are posing an increasing risk to our collective security, prosperity and well-being. WHO reports that in 2012 around 7 million people died across the globe as a result of air pollution exposure, confirming that air pollution is now the world’s single largest environmental health risk.

While the effects of air pollution are mostly being observed at the local level, a large volume of air pollutants are transported across borders and even continents. This is particularly true in the Arctic, where around 50 % of the emissions of black carbon are coming from Europe. Hence, joining efforts internationally to reduce emissions is critical to save the Arctic.

A number of actions are already being taken. Through the Convention on Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution, which sets emission targets for a number of key air pollutants, UNECE also contributes to climate change mitigation. This pioneering treaty, signed to solve the problem of acid rain in Northern Europe in the 1970s, now has 51 Parties, including all the countries of the Arctic. Thanks to the collective efforts of these countries, emissions of key air pollutants have been reduced by 40 to 70 per cent since 1990 in Europe and by up to 40 per cent in North America.

In 2012, Parties broke new ground in amending the Gothenburg Protocol, which is now the first legally binding agreement containing obligations to reduce short-lived climate pollutants, notably fine particulate matter (PM2.5), including black carbon emissions. The Gothenburg Protocol is thus an example of how air and climate pollutants can be tackled in a more integrated way.

The Arctic Council, an intergovernmental forum that addresses issues faced by the eight Arctic countries and the indigenous peoples that live there, has taken a leading role in providing updates on the rapid climate changes in the Arctic and its consequences for our societies and the environment, locally and globally.

We call on all countries to step up their efforts and make sure that COP 21 will deliver a strong agreement. We also call on Governments to ratify and implement the Gothenburg Protocol and consider further initiatives to tackle air pollution and climate change in a more integrated way. Let us act now to both tackle climate change and save the Arctic!

(End)

Excerpt:

The one-day summit on ‘Global Leadership in the Arctic – Cooperation, Innovation, Engagement, and Resilience (GLACIER) held in Anchorage, Alaska on Aug. 31 failed to make commitments to serious action to fight the negative impacts of global warming. Credit: Leehi Yona/IPS

By Leehi Yona
ANCHORAGE, Alaska, Sep 1 2015 (IPS)

After a one-day summit in the U.S. Arctic’s biggest city, leaders from the world’s northern countries acknowledged that climate change is seriously disrupting the Arctic ecosystem, yet left without committing themselves to serious action to fight the negative impacts of global warming.

The Aug. 31 summit on ‘Global Leadership in the Arctic – Cooperation, Innovation, Engagement, and Resilience (GLACIER)’, was organised by the U.S. State Department and attended by dignitaries from 20 countries, including the eight Arctic nations – Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden and United States.

Political leaders like U.S. President Barack Obama, who urged Arctic nations to take bolder action as the summit ended, came out with strong words, but stakeholders from civil society and scientific groups said the outcome came short of the tangible action needed.“This statement (from the one-day GLACIER Arctic summit] unfortunately fails to fully acknowledge one of the grave threats to the Arctic and to the planet – the extraction and burning of fossil fuels” – Ellie Johnston, World Climate Project Manager at Climate Interactive

The summit attracted the attention of environmental and indigenous groups, which criticised Obama’s reputation as a climate leader in the face of allowing offshore oil drilling in the Arctic.

Numerous protests and acts of non-violent civil disobedience in recent months have attempted to block oil company Shell from drilling; the company is currently active off the Alaskan coast.

“The recent approval of Shell’s Arctic oil drilling plans is a prime example of the disparity between President Obama’s strong rhetoric and increasing action on climate change and his administration’s fossil fuel extraction policies,” said David Turnbull, Campaigns Director for Oil Change International.

All participating countries signed a joint statement on climate change and its impact on the Arctic, after the initial reluctance of Canada and Russia, which eventually added their names.

“We take seriously warnings by scientists: temperatures in the Arctic are increasing at more than twice the average global rate,” the statement read, before going on to describe the wide range of impacts felt by Arctic communities’ landscapes, culture and well-being.

“As change continues at an unprecedented rate in the Arctic – increasing the stresses on communities and ecosystems in already harsh environments – we are committed more than ever to protecting both terrestrial and marine areas in this unique region, and our shared planet, for generations to come.”

However, the statement lacked concrete commitments, even on crucial topics like fossil fuel exploration in the Arctic, leaving climate experts with the feeling that it could have been more ambitious or have offered more specific, tangible commitments on the part of countries.

“I appreciate the rhetoric and depth of acknowledgement of the climate crisis,” the World Climate Project Manager at Climate Interactive, Ellie Johnston, told IPS. “Yet this statement unfortunately fails to fully acknowledge one of the grave threats to the Arctic and to the planet – the extraction and burning of fossil fuels.”

“This is particularly relevant as nations and companies jockey for access to drilling in our historically icy Arctic seas which have now become more accessible because of warming,” she said. “Drilling for fossil fuels leads to more warming, which leads to more drilling. This is one feedback loop we can stop.”

Oil and gas companies were encouraged – but not required –to voluntarily take on more stringent policies and join the Climate and Clean Air Coalition’s Oil and Gas Methane Partnership, an initiative to help companies reduce their emissions of methane and other short-lived climate pollutants.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry addressed participants – members from indigenous communities, government representatives, scientists, and non-governmental organizations – at the opening of the summit. “The Arctic is in many ways a thermostat,” he said. “We already see [it] having a profound impact on the rest of the planet.”

Kerry also attempted to drum up action ahead of the COP21 United Nations climate change negotiations in Paris this December, urging governments to “try to come up with a truly ambitious and truly global climate agreement.”

He added that the Paris conference “is not the end of the road […] Our hope is that everyone can leave this conference today with a heightened sense of urgency and a better understanding of our collective responsibility to do everything we can to deal with the harmful impacts of climate change.”

In a closing address to summit participants, President Obama repeatedly said “we are not doing enough.” He outlined the stark impacts of a future with business-as-usual climate change: thawing permafrost, forest fires and dangerous feedback loops. “We will condemn our children to a planet beyond their capacity to repair … any leader willing to take a gamble on a future like that is not fit to lead,” he stated.

However, neither Kerry nor Obama acknowledged, as many environmental groups have pointed out, that the United States’ current greenhouse gas emissions reduction commitment falls nearly halfway short of what the country must do in order to stay within the Paris conference goal of a 2^oC warming limit.

While participants emphasised engagement from affected communities, the summit itself did not manifest engagement with those communities: less than one-third of the panellists and presenters were either indigenous or female, and only one woman of colour was present.

“It would have been nice to hear more from indigenous women or women of colour,” Princess Daazrhaii, member of the Gwich’in Nation and strong advocate for the protection of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, told IPS. “The Arctic is more diverse than what I felt like was represented at the conference.”

“As life-givers and as mothers, many of us nurse our children. We know for a fact that women in the Arctic are more susceptible to the persistent organic pollutants (POPs) that are bound to the air we breathe. Violence against women is another issue that I feel gets exacerbated when there are threats to our ecosystem.”

All individuals talked to appreciated the conference’s emphasis on climate change as a significant problem, yet all of them also expressed a desire for the United States – and governments around the world – to do more.

“[Climate change] is what brings human beings together,” Daazrhaii said. “We’re all in this together. And we have to work on this together.”

Edited by Phil Harris   

Excerpt:

Climate change is melting the Arctic’s ice, and will be on the agenda of the one-day GLACIER summit in Alaska on Aug. 31. Photo credit: Patrick Kelley/CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons

By Leehi Yona
ANCHORAGE, Alaska, Aug 30 2015 (IPS)

A one-day summit taking place here on Aug. 31 hopes to bring Arctic nations together in support of climate action against a backdrop of criticism of offshore oil drilling in the region.

The meeting on ‘Global Leadership in the Arctic – Cooperation, Innovation, Engagement, and Resilience (GLACIER)’, is being organised by the U.S. State Department and will be attended by dignitaries from 20 countries, including the eight Arctic nations – Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden and United States. U.S. President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry are scheduled to address the conference.

The conference comes at a time of significant changes to the ever-shifting Arctic: this year’s forest fires in Alaska reached record highs, blazing so rapidly that many were left unmanaged. Last week, thousands of walruses hauled up on Alaskan shores as the ice they depend on as habitat disappeared.“Arctic drilling is a violation of the human rights of the indigenous peoples of the Arctic. Obama and Shell are bypassing many laws designed to protect our coast and our communities” – Carl Wassilie, a Yu’pik activist with ShellNo Alaska

“The evidence for climate change in the Arctic is visible from space as we observed declining sea ice and melting glaciers, and in the lived lives of Arctic residents who see coastlines eroding from sea level rise and reduced access to traditional foods from the land and sea,” said Ross Virginia, Director of the Institute of Arctic Studies at Dartmouth College and co-lead scholar of the Fulbright Arctic Initiative.

“These changes will be more evident to the rest of us,” he added. “The challenge is to learn from the Arctic and to work with the Arctic to adapt and prevent further climate change.”

The GLACIER summit is also taking place at a time of great public focus on the issue of climate change. Critiques of Arctic drilling, as well as the upcoming United Nations climate change negotiations in December in Paris, have helped bring global warming to the political forefront.

“In visiting the U.S. Arctic, President Obama is clearly demonstrating that the United States is an Arctic nation with a stake in the region’s future,” said Margaret Williams, Managing Director of U.S. Arctic Programs at the World Wildlife Fund. “This trip provides the President with the perfect opportunity to define his vision of how all nations should work in unison to manage and conserve our shared Arctic resources.”

The conference has drawn the attention of environmental and indigenous groups, which both praise the conference’s potential for ambitious leadership but also criticise Obama’s reputation as a climate leader in the face of allowing offshore oil drilling in the Arctic.

Numerous protests and acts of non-violent civil disobedience in recent months have attempted to block oil company Shell from drilling; the company is currently active off the Alaskan coast.

“The recent approval of Shell’s Arctic oil drilling plans is a prime example of the disparity between President Obama’s strong rhetoric and increasing action on climate change and his administration’s fossil fuel extraction policies,” said David Turnbull, Campaigns Director for Oil Change International.

“The President needs to align his energy policy with his climate policy and put an end to Shell’s drilling for unburnable oil in the Arctic,” Turnbull said.

Dan Ritzman, Associate Director of the Sierra Club’s Our Wild America campaign, stressed that the drilling decision “went against science, common sense, and the will of the people.” Many environmental groups pointed to the irresponsibility of drilling in the Arctic, one of the world’s regions most vulnerable to climate change.

A senior State Department official responded to this criticism on Aug. 28 by stating that many “citizens of Alaska, and in particular, Alaskan natives” desire more drilling in an effort to develop their communities.

However, indigenous activists rejected the official statement. Carl Wassilie, a Yu’pik activist with ShellNo Alaska, said: “Arctic drilling is a violation of the human rights of the indigenous peoples of the Arctic. Obama and Shell are bypassing many laws designed to protect our coast and our communities. Obama needs to start listening to the peoples of the Arctic who oppose Arctic drilling.”

One of the aims of the GLACIER conference is to be a stepping stone towards COP21, the U.N. climate change conference to be held in Paris in December. COP21 hopes to usher in a binding, ambitious agreement on climate change.

Observers said that GLACIER may be an important moment on the road to Paris because it hopes to bring together a small subset of countries – including China, Canada, India, Japan, Russia, the United States and many European nations – which together account for the overwhelming majority of global greenhouse gas emissions.

Some suggested that the conference could be a moment for these polluting countries to step up their carbon emission reduction commitments.

“On climate change, President Obama has been good, but not good enough,” according to marine biologist Richard Steiner. “The U.S. commitment to reduce carbon emissions by about 30 percent in the next 15 years is about half of what is urgently needed.”

Steiner said: “It is like we are on a sinking boat, taking on two gallons of water a minute, and we are bailing 1 gallon a minute. We are still sinking. We urgently need a U.S. and global commitment at the Paris climate summit of at least 60 percent carbon reduction by 2030. Otherwise, we’re sunk.”

With these challenges ahead, the GLACIER summit has high expectations for international cooperation on climate change. Among the diversity of opinions, one clear message has rung out – the need to engage young people in Arctic climate change discussions

“A real priority should be engaging youth at all aspects of the climate problem – education, research, leadership and activism,” said Virginia. “It is vital that they are ‘at the table’ and that they help shape the questions to be addressed by policy-makers. After all, they have the most at stake.”

Edited by Phil Harris   

July 2014 floods in Russia but authorities turning blind eye to climate change. Credit: takemake.ru

By Mikhail Matveev
MOSCOW, Aug 30 2014 (IPS)

The recent call from Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev for “tightening belts” has convinced even optimists that something is deeply wrong with the Russian economy.

No doubt the planned tax increases (introduction of a sales tax and increases in VAT and income tax) will inflict severe damage on most businesses and their employees, if last year’s example of what happened when taxes were raised for individual entrepreneurs is anything to go by – 650,000 of them were forced to close their businesses.

Nevertheless, it looks like some lucky people are not only going to escape the “belt-tightening” but are also about to receive some dream tax vacations and the lucky few are not farmers, nor are they in technological, educational, scientific or professional fields – it is the Russian and international oil giants involved in oil and gas projects in the Arctic and in Eastern Siberia that stand to gain.

“In October [2013], Vladimir Putin signed a bill under which oil extraction at sea deposits will be exempt from severance tax. Moreover, VAT will not need to be paid for the sales, transportation and utilisation of the oil extracted from the sea shelf,” noted Russian newspaper Rossiiskie Nedra.“It looks like some lucky people are not only going to escape the ‘belt-tightening’ but are also about to receive some dream tax vacations and the lucky few are not farmers, nor are they in technological, educational, scientific or professional fields – it is the Russian and international oil giants involved in oil and gas projects in the Arctic and in Eastern Siberia that stand to gain”

Some continental oil projects were alsoblessedby the “Tsar’s generosity”: “For four Russian deposits with hard-to-recover oils [shale oil, etc.] – Bazhenovskaya [in Western Siberia] and Abalakskaya in Eastern Siberia, Khadumskaya in the Caucasus, and Domanikovaya in the Ural region – severance taxes do not need to be paid. Other deposits had their severance tax rates reduced by 20-80%.”

In fact, the line of thinking adopted by Russian officials responsible for tax policy is very simple. Faced with the predicament of an economy dependent on oil and gas (half of the state budget comes from oil and gas revenue, while two-thirds of exports come from the fossil fuel industry), they decided to act as usual – by stimulating more drilling and charging the rest of the economy with the additional tax burden.

There have been many warnings from well-known economists about the “resource curse” [the paradox that countries and regions with an abundance of natural resources tend to have less economic growth and worse development outcomes than countries with fewer natural resources] – and its potential consequences for the countries affected: from having weak industries and agriculture to being prone to dictatorships and corruption.

For a long time, however, economists have been keen on separating the economic and social impacts of fossil fuel dependency from the environmental and climate-related problems. But now, these problems are closely interconnected, and Russia might be the first to feel the strength of their combination in the near future.

Medvedev may not have read much about the “resource curse” but he should at least be familiar with the official position of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC), whose Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres has said that three-quarters of known fossil fuel reserves need to stay in the ground in order to avoid the worst possible climate scenario.

One should at least expect this amount of knowledge from Russia as a member of the UN Security Council and it will be interesting to note whether the Russian delegation attending the UN Climate Summit in New York on September 23 will be ready to explain why, instead of limiting fossil fuel extraction, the whole country’s economic and tax policy is now aimed at encouraging as much drilling as possible.

However, it is not just the United Nations that has been warning against the burning of fossil fuels due to the related high climate risks. In 2005, Russia’s own meteorology service Roshydromet issued its prognosis of climate change and the consequences for Russia, stating that the rate of climate change in Russia is two times faster than the world’s average.

Roshydromet predicted a rapid increase in both the frequency and strength of extreme climate events – including floods, hurricanes, droughts, and wildfires. The number of such events has almost doubled during the last 15 years, and represent not only an economic threat but also a real threat to humans’ lives and their well-being,

Consider this summary of climate disasters in Russia during an ordinary July week (not including any of the large natural disasters such as the floods in Altai, Khabarovsk, and Krymsk, or the forest fires around Moscow in 2010):

“Following the weather incidents in the Sverdlovsk and Chelyabinsk District where snow fell last weekend, a natural anomaly occurred in Novosibirsk, resulting in human casualties … Two three-year-old twin sisters died after a tree fell on them during a strong wind storm in the town of Berdsk, Novosibirsk District.”

“The flood in Yakutia lasted a week and resulted in the submersion of Ozhulun village in Churapchinsky district last Saturday. Due to the rise of the Tatta River, 57 house went under.”

“Flooding in Tuapse [on the coast of the Black Sea] occurred on July 8, 2014 … [and] has left 236 citizens homeless.”

Cars swept away in July 2014 floods in Russia. Credit: takeme.ru

Is it not worrisome that so many climate disasters have to occur before Russian officials start to realise that climatologists are not lying? Or perhaps they are simply not inclined to take the climatologists’ warnings seriously.

Another significant problem could arise for Russia if oil consumers start taking U.N. climate warnings seriously – and there is evidence that this is happening.

The European Union (still the main consumer of Russian oil and gas) has announced an ambitious “20/20/20 programme” – increasing shares from renewables to 20 percent, improving energy efficiency by 20 percent, and decreasing carbon emissions by 20 percent. The United States has decided to decrease carbon emissions from power plants by 30 percent. These are only first steps – but even these steps can help decrease fossil fuel consumption.

Fossil fuel use has only very slowly been increasing in the United States and decreasing in Europe in the last five years. On the other hand, demand for oil has continued to rise in China and Southeast Asia, and it is perhaps this – rather than the recent “sanctions” against Russia over Ukraine – that inspired President Vladimir Putin’s recent “turn to the East”.

But there are serious doubts that Asia’s greed for oil will continue into the future. China recently admitted that it will soon be taking measures to limit carbon emissions – for the first time in its history. China has already turned to green energy andled the rest of the worldin renewable energy investment in 2013.

Will other Asian countries follow suit? Perhaps – because they certainly have a very strong incentive. According to Erin McCarthy writing in the Wall Street Journal, South and Southeast Asia’s losses due to global warming may be huge, and its GDP may be reduced by 6 percent by 2060, despite the measures taken to curb its emissions.

What does this mean for Russia?

Well, if the oil-consuming countries meet their carbon emission targets, we can expect a 10-20 percent decrease in oil demand in the next ten years, maybe more. Any decrease in demand usually induces a decrease in price – but not always proportionally. Sometimes, especially if the market is overheated, even a small decrease in demand can trigger a drastic falls in price. Economists call such a situation a “bursting bubble”.

Today, the situation in the oil (and, in general, fossil fuel) market is often called a “carbon bubble”. Because of high oil prices, investors are motivated to make investments in oil drilling in the hopes of earning a stable and long-term income.

But once the world starts taking climate issues seriously and realises that most of the oil needs to be left in the ground, oil assets will fall in value. Investors will try to withdraw their money from the fossil fuel sector, and, facing a crisis, oil companies will be forced to decrease both production and prices.

If the “carbon bubble” bursts, Russia will be left with sustainable businesses (that are being choked by the nation’s own tax politics) and with a perfect network of shelf platforms, oil rigs, and pipelines (which will be completely unprofitable and useless). Thus, by making fossil fuels the core of its economy, Russia is taking twice the number of risks.

First, it risks ruining the climate, and second, it risks ruining its own economy. It looks like Russia will lose at any rate: if the leading energy consumers are unable to decrease their oil consumption, the climate will be ruined everywhere, including Russia. If they manage to decrease their dependence on fossil fuel, the Russian economy will be ruined.

This certainly is not looking pleasant, especially if we add in the high probability of a major disaster like the Gulf of Mexico Oil spill happening in the Arctic, as well as countless minor leaks possibly occurring along the Russian pipelines.

But maybe Russia just has no other alternative to an economy dependent on fossil fuels?

In that case, perhaps it is worth mentioning a recent article by Russian financier Andrei Movchan in the Russian Forbes magazine. Movchan convincingly shows that the Achilles’ heel of the modern Russian economy is its extremely underdeveloped small and medium-sized businesses. And it looks like the current tax plans would literally exterminate them.

If Russia were able to reverse this tax policy and make small businesses play as big of a role in the economy as they do in the United States or Europe, there could be economic growth comparable to the growth expected from oil and gas – without all the frightful side effects of an economy driven by fossil fuels.

Sounds like a dream, but the first step to making it a reality can be simple: get rid of big oil lobbying in the government and try to reform the taxation system to suit the interests of Russian citizens instead of the interests of the big oil corporations.

(Edited by Phil Harris)

* Mikhail Matveev is 350.org Communications Coordinator for Eastern Europe, Caucasus, Central Asia and Russia

A five-soldier team from 1st Platoon, 176th Signal Company pull a fully-loaded AKIO sled three-quarters of a mile during the Arctic Forge II competition Mar. 21, 2013 at Fort Wainwright, Alaska. Credit: U.S. Army photo

By Carey L. Biron
WASHINGTON, Nov 26 2013 (IPS)

The United States is calling for greater cooperation in the Arctic, even as it warns that it will defend its sovereignty in the face of strengthening international interest in newly opening shipping lanes and natural resource extraction opportunities as the region’s ice disappears.

For the first time, the United States has come out with an overarching strategy aimed at guiding its military response in the Arctic. Openly prompted by concerns over climate change, officials say the U.S. vision aims at balancing “human and environmental security” in the region.“Melting sea ice in the Arctic is a symbol of the destruction of the planet, not an incentive to get there and take everything that until very recently wasn’t possible to take.” -- Gustavo Ampugnani

“This new strategy is hugely important in that it recognises the growing influence of the Arctic both to the United States and as an area of potential military operations,” Seth Myers, a research associate with the Arctic Institute, a Washington think tank, told IPS. “But the biggest question it raises is how any new capability will be paid for” in an era of intense budget-cutting in Washington.

The strategy depicts the Arctic as at an “inflection point”, both in terms of the reduction in ice cover and increase in human activity. Last year, as scientists recorded the lowest levels of Arctic ice on record, nearly 500 ships were able to ply the waters between Alaska and Russia.

That constituted a 50 percent rise since the mid-2000s. U.S. Secretary of Defence Chuck Hagel says experts now expect a tenfold increase over those numbers along what is known as the Northern Sea Route.

“With Arctic sea routes starting to see more activities like tourism and commercial shipping, the risk of accidents increases. Migrating fish stocks will draw fishermen to new areas, challenging existing management plans,” Hagel told a security conference in Canada on Friday, where he announced the new strategy.

“And while there will be more potential for tapping what may be as much as a quarter of the planet’s undiscovered oil and gas, a flood of interest in energy exploration has the potential to heighten tensions over other issues.”

Scientists are currently suggesting that Arctic waters could be almost completely ice-free for a month at a time by the middle of the coming decade, with longer periods forecasted by 2030. Some now worry that such conditions could result in a global free-for-all – what Hagel called “unprecedented challenges”.

“Throughout human history, mankind has raced to discover the next frontier. And time after time, discovery was swiftly followed by conflict,” Hagel said.

“We must wisely manage these 21st century possibilities. In order to realise the full potential of the Arctic, nations must collaborate and build trust and confidence through transparency, cooperation and engagement.”

New leadership?

The new strategy is being unveiled as the United States begins preparations to take over the rotating chairmanship of a key regional governance forum known as the Arctic Council.

This position, slated to begin in 2015, will offer Washington a unique new leadership role on Arctic issues. Indeed, many are pointing to the new military strategy as an important step in crystallising nascent U.S. policy on the issue more generally, though for the moment that vision remains relatively – perhaps strategically – vague.

The Pentagon says it will seek to expand both its understanding of the Arctic environment and its presence in the region, while also promoting collaboration on a range of issues. Currently, the United States stations around 27,000 military personnel in Alaska, and Hagel says the U.S. Navy will offer a new plan for its operations by the end of the year.

Despite this number, in some ways Washington is starting from a relatively weak position. Other Arctic countries have already moved far more aggressively in staking out a position in the region.

Meanwhile, due to across-the-board federal budget cuts known as sequestration, the U.S. military is currently struggling under its first significant funding contraction in decades. Those cuts are slated to continue on an annual basis for the next decade.

“It’s far from certain that the United States is leading [on Arctic issues] at this point. According to quantifiable indicators, Russia has far and away the most interests and capabilities,” the Arctic Institute’s Myers says.

“For instance, the United States has just two icebreakers in the region, both owned by the Coast Guard. Right now, the extent to which the U.S. is going to be actively present in the near to medium term remains unclear, largely because sequestration is still happening. That’s why the strategy places so much emphasis on partnerships.”

Northern military race

Others are worried about the form such partnerships could take, and the ultimate mix of their goals.

The new military strategy builds upon a shorter vision document released earlier this year by the White House, which was criticised for focusing too much on the potential for fossil fuel extraction. Similar criticisms have been made about the policy orientation of the Arctic Council itself.

“We are glad that the Defence Department’s Arctic Strategy acknowledges the diminishing of the ice caps in the Arctic. But the approach shouldn’t be seen as an opportunity for business, nor to create better conditions to do business exploiting its resources,” Gustavo Ampugnani, Arctic team leader for Greenpeace, an advocacy group that has been critical of oil speculation in the Arctic, told IPS.

“Melting sea ice in the Arctic is a symbol of the destruction of the planet, not an incentive to get there and take everything that until very recently wasn’t possible to take.”

According to U.S. estimates, the Arctic seabed holds a significant proportion of the Earth’s remaining untapped petroleum reserves, including around 15 percent of remaining oil and up to 30 percent of gas deposits. Already the Russian state-backed oil company Gazprom has begun drilling for oil (where several dozen Greenpeace activists were recently arrested), while Shell has made repeated attempts to start doing so in U.S. waters.

“If countries grant leases to open more space for the oil corporations, this will speed up not just the industrialisation of the Arctic but also investments in military presence, [leading to] a military race in the Far North,” Ampugnani says.

“From our perspective, the best way to keep the region peaceful, stable and free of conflict … is to prioritise the scientific work, in a cooperative spirit, to understand more how the Arctic ecosystem is key to regulating the global climate.”

U.S. officials have downplayed the potential for natural resource-related tension in the immediate future, pointing out that most oil and gas reserves are relatively near shore and hence within clearly defined territorial waters.

Hubbard glacier in Seward, Alaska. Credit: Bigstock

By Stephen Leahy
UXBRIDGE, Canada, May 16 2013 (IPS)

Many eyes are turning north to the Arctic, some in horror at the rapid decline of a key component of our life support system, others in eager anticipation at the untapped resources beneath the vanishing snow and ice.

“I’ve worked in the north for 21 years and the scale and speed of change up there is astonishing,” said Douglas Clark of the University of Saskatchewan."This has and will have spectacular consequences for the rest of the world." -- Sarah Cornell of the Stockholm Resilience Center

“These changes, taken as whole, and reflected in our report, keep me awake at night,” Clark told IPS.

Rapid and even abrupt changes are occurring on multiple fronts across the Arctic, according to the Arctic Resilience Report (ARR).

And what happens in the Arctic does not stay in the Arctic.

“It’s the first international report to tell the world to buckle up, we’re on a wild roller coaster ride and we don’t know what’s coming,” he said.

The ARR report is a two-year collaboration between experts in the Nordic countries, Russia, Canada and the United States, and includes indigenous perspectives. It is a cutting edge assessment of how changes in climate, ecosystems, economics, and society interact.

The report was prepared for and released at the Arctic Council Ministerial Meeting in Kiruna, Sweden on Wednesday.

“What is happening in the Arctic has profound implications for every part of the world,” said Sarah Cornell, lead author of the study.

Global warming is not only melting snow and ice, it is warming the Arctic ocean and the surrounding lands. Seasons are changing, permafrost is thawing, new species are invading, Arctic species are struggling, lakes are vanishing, and rivers are being redirected by the melting landscape, the report documents.

Some Arctic ecosystems are undergoing catastrophic changes, and some of these are large-scale and irreversible, Cornell, a scientist at the Stockholm Resilience Centre, told IPS.

While the Arctic is as remote as the moon for many people, it is intimately interconnected with the rest of the world. Weather is driven largely by the cold Arctic and Antarctic regions balanced by the hot tropics. But the Arctic is rapidly defrosting – last summer the sea ice shrunk to half of what it was less than 30 years ago. The ice decline and the heating up of the Arctic have been accelerating in recent years.

“This has and will have spectacular consequences for the rest of the world. We don’t know what they’ll all be,” Cornell said.

The Arctic is home to cultures and species found nowhere else and they can’t go any further north to escape the rising temperatures. It is a real struggle to survive, said Tero Mustonen, president of Snowchange Cooperative, a network of local and indigenous cultures around the world.

“The Arctic is undergoing fundamental changes. Moose are showing up in the tundra for the first time along with new insects, plants and even trees,” Mustonen told IPS from his home in eastern Finland.

Mustonen, a co-author of the ARR, works with Chukchi reindeer herding communities from northeastern Siberia who have roamed those remote lands for hundreds of the years. Like many indigenous communities living on the land, they have a deep ecological, cultural and spiritual connection to their landscape. And that landscape is changing so much they sometimes don’t recognise their own home, he said.

“The Chukchi don’t easily share their thoughts. But the elders have a clear and powerful message to convey to the world: ‘Nature doesn’t trust humans any more’.”

However, the focus of the eight-nation Arctic Council was primarily on future shipping opportunities, access to oil, gas and mineral resources, and geopolitics, with China, Japan, India, South Korea, Singapore and Italy granted observer status on the Council while Canada blocked the European Union’s application.

The Council is the world’s main international forum on northern issues and will be led by Canada for the next two years. Canada said it will focus on economic development. Estimates show that the region may have 13 percent of the world’s undiscovered oil, 30 percent of undiscovered gas deposits, and vast quantities of mineral resources.

The Council’s much-lauded scientific research will now be focused on how to develop northern resources for the benefit of northerners. Canada recently drew criticism for re-directing its own scientific research to supporting business and industry.

Secretary of State John Kerry represented the U.S. at the Arctic Council, demonstrating Washington’s renewed interest in the Arctic. The White House also released its new National Strategy for the Arctic Region. While acknowledging the profound impacts of global warming on the region and indigenous people, the U.S. strategy says the region will help to supply U.S. energy needs well into the future.

At the meeting, members adopted an agreement on marine oil pollution preparedness. Some indigenous and environmental groups urged the Council to place a moratorium on drilling for oil in the Arctic given the dangerous conditions and difficulties of clean up.

Greenpeace International said the oil pollution agreement offered no specific practical minimum standards and had no provisions to hold companies liable for the full costs and damages.

“There were two conferences going on here — one that warned of the dangers of climate change and rapid industrialisation in this fragile region, and another, attended by foreign ministers, that took almost no concrete steps to address them,” said Ruth Davis, Greenpeace International senior policy advisor.

Arctic peoples aren’t necessarily opposed to economic development but they do want to be in control of what happens. However, Arctic nations and local communities are at very different stages. In Finland and Russia, indigenous people have no official land or water rights, unlike Canada or Alaska, said Mustonen.

“The rights and cultures of indigenous peoples in these regions have to be taken seriously in order to integrate their needs into any form of development,” he said.

Scientists with ICESCAPE, a multi-year NASA shipborne project, investigate Arctic sea ice and melt ponds in the Chukchi Sea in July 2010. Credit: NASA/Kathryn Hansen

By Joe Hitchon
WASHINGTON, Apr 24 2013 (IPS)

With climate change rapidly opening up new opportunities for shipping and resource extraction across the once permanently frozen Arctic, the United States and other northern countries are being compelled to re-examine their policies, both national and collective, towards this region of growing geostrategic importance.

Last week, the president of Iceland, Olafur Ragnar Grimsson, was in Washington to announce the launch of a new group called the Arctic Circle, which would include all counties and entities interested in greater involvement in Arctic-related decision-making.“We have steadily seen what we considered ‘our Arctic’ becoming the ‘global Arctic’.” -- Icelandic President Olafur Ragnar Grimsson

On Monday, the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank, proposed a series of reforms to U.S. Arctic policy.

“U.S. Arctic policy must respond to the economic, environmental, security, and geopolitical concerns that confront the region,” the report states.

“It is now time for the Obama administration to enhance U.S. Arctic policy by updating and prioritizing national security … improving interagency cooperation, enhancing U.S. international and public diplomacy related to the Arctic, and increasing the focus of senior U.S. officials.”

The report warns that these activities must begin immediately “if the U.S. is to prepare for and fully maximize its chairmanship of the Arctic Council beginning in 2015.” It also suggests appointing an “Arctic envoy” with the rank of an ambassador.

Currently, Arctic-related international policymaking is made through a consensus organisation called the Arctic Council. Made up of countries with territory in the region, this includes the United States, Russia, Canada, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Iceland and Sweden, as well as observer nations.

However, turning new U.S. policy – or that of any other country – toward the Arctic will be complex. Here in Washington, for instance, as many as six White House groups are currently involved in Arctic issues, with calls for streamlining of this process already being made.

“I believe there are three issues that should be guiding U.S. policy towards the Arctic,” Peter Troedsson, a captain in the U.S. Coast Guard and a military fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), a Washington think tank, told IPS.

“First, is an enduring presence and an awareness of Arctic activity. Second, we need to promote the safe use of the Arctic. And lastly, we need to be able to work with other institutions and nations toward developing governance and best practices for the area.”

But beyond the Arctic Council, “We also have the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which the United States has signed but has yet to ratify,” Troedsson said.

“In two years the U.S. is going to take over the chairmanship of the Arctic Council, so we’re going to be in a position where we are chairing this eight-nation group and we’re going to be the only ones who haven’t signed on to the Law of the Sea. This will seriously damage our credibility.”

Although numerous U.S. political and military officials have urged the country to ratify the Law of the Sea – including, most recently, late last year – conservative members of the U.S. Congress have continually stymied the effort, suggesting that doing so would be akin to ceding U.S. sovereignty.

The “outsiders”

The melting of the Arctic Sea ice, and the opening of new shipping routes linking Asia to America and Europe, will bring along with it geopolitical considerations that have rarely existed. Already, China is preparing for a world in which it would be the world’s most important trading country, and the Arctic could be a key component of its evolving vision.

“We have steadily seen what we considered ‘our Arctic’, becoming the ‘global Arctic’,” President Grimsson said last week. “Now, countries from faraway places want to have a seat at the Arctic table … They want to discuss not if but when they would acquire a seat on the Arctic Council. This serves as a wake-up call for all the countries located [near] the Arctic.”

During the most recent Arctic Council discussions, in 2012, several Asian states that have no Arctic territory expressed their interest in the organisation.

“If they can send their ships through the Arctic Sea routes, they can shorten this distance by more that 40 percent,” President Grimsson said. “In fact, China is already building ships for this purpose, and Singapore is exploring the potential for an Arctic harbour.”

China has already conducted five Arctic expeditions since 2000, and has established a research station. India followed with the establishment of its own Arctic research station in 2007, while the South Korean government is becoming increasingly active in looking at possible Arctic ventures.

Currently there are two primary sea routes across the Arctic. The first runs north of Canada, while the second, known as the Northern Sea Route, runs from the Bering Strait to the Barents Sea.

This second one, which is currently open only in the summer, condenses the traditional route by about 2,500 nautical miles, saving hundreds of thousands of dollars in fuel costs. The opening of this route would radically alter the transport of goods from Asian industrial hubs to Western consumer markets.

One fear relates to the future role these “newcomers” might have on the region as it is brought within their strategic spheres of interest, and whether this could result in a greater military presence. While the driving forces of these new interests is economic, geopolitical jostling of has already forced the Arctic Council countries to begin debating the “correct” role for these new entrants.

Iceland has welcomed China’s application to join the council, for instance, but it has expressed concerns that the European Union would try to impose a ban on whale hunting, which Iceland has long defended as a cultural tradition. Russia, meanwhile, has welcomed the E.U.’s attempt to become part of the council, but remains suspicious of letting in China.

Environmental responsibility remains another major concern. Increased economic development – including natural resource extraction– could bring with it, for instance, increased possibility of an oil spill that could devastate the pristine Arctic environment for decades.

International and United States Geographical Survey (USGS) research has indicated that the Arctic seabed holds up to 160 billion barrels of petroleum, located at a relatively shallow depth of 500 feet. Less conclusive projects based on preliminary soil samples have also speculated that the Arctic seabed holds substantial mineral and metal deposits.

“There’s already a lot of industrial infrastructure built up there, but there is very little oil-spill response planning,” CFR’s Troedsson says.

“You can imagine it’s going to take a long time to get that kind of response equipment [needed] anywhere in the Arctic, so that challenge can be added to the challenge of how you clean up oil in water that’s close to zero degrees or frozen. No matter how good a response plan is, if any significant incident takes place, the damage would be immense and the public will not be happy.”

Rising temperatures mean the vast Arctic Ocean, which used to be frozen over for much of the year, is now an open shipping line for more than half the year. Credit: public domain

By Joe Hitchon
WASHINGTON, Feb 6 2013 (IPS)

Environmentalists are warning that a meeting of environment ministers that took place Monday in Sweden has agreed on a weak and inadequate response plan in case of an oil spill in the Arctic Ocean.

According to Greenpeace, an environment watchdog, a leaked copy of the document suggests that the eight member states that make up a group dubbed the Arctic Council have failed to agree on the technical details necessary for dealing with a large-scale disaster, even while it opens the way for increased drilling and oil exploration in the Arctic.

“We are unimpressed by what we’ve seen from this totally inadequate document,” Ben Ayliffe, a Greenpeace campaigner based in Washington, told IPS. “It does nothing to prepare governments for dealing with disasters or for protecting the Arctic from disasters.”

According to the United Nations’ global climate office, Arctic sea ice reached its lowest level on record in 2012. That process, which overwhelming scientific data attributes to human-induced climate change, has created a virtual gold rush to the Arctic.

Rising temperatures mean the vast Arctic Ocean, which used to be frozen over for much of the year, is now an open shipping lane for more than half the year, on average. This has resulted in a scramble to lay claim to Arctic territory, which is estimated by the U.S. Geological Survey to contain 22 percent of the world’s undiscovered energy resources.

However, environmentalists are concerned that no mechanisms are in place to prevent or respond to an environmental disaster.

According to Richard Steiner, a biologist and expert on oil spills based in Alaska, this past summer, a record 46 merchant ships transited through what is known as the Northern Sea Route, a 10-fold increase from just two years ago. “There has been an extraordinary increase in shipping across the Arctic Ocean, mainly with very hazardous petroleum products on board,” Steiner told IPS.

He also warns that an increase in offshore oil and gas drilling potential in the Arctic demands robust laws. Yet, he says, the Arctic Council agreement has no technical performance standards, enforcement mechanisms or operational guidelines.

“They are charging forward with this Arctic offshore oil drilling development and shipping without the proper safeguards in place, and it’s really tragic,” Steiner said. “I’m afraid they are going to wait for a big spill disaster before putting the right systems in place.”

He added that this is what happened with the Exxon Valdez case, when an oil tanker ran aground in Alaska in 1989.

“I’m afraid this is what’s going to happen in the Arctic, too,” he continues. “Despite the lessons learned … very little has changed as far as prevention policy is concerned.”

No proven capacity

The Arctic Council, established in 1996, is made up of states with territory in the Arctic, and comprises Canada, Denmark (including Greenland), Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden and the United States. The new oil spill treaty will be formally voted upon by members in May, and would become the second binding agreement reached by the Arctic Council since a search-and-rescue agreement was signed in 2011.

Yet Ayliffe says the document doesn’t adequately deal with the complex issues involved with a potential spill.

“It’s a nightmare scenario,” Ayliffe says. “The technical difficulties of responding to a disaster a mile beneath the ice make the kind of operation that BP had to do in the Gulf impossible in the Arctic.”

Despite earlier assurances by the Arctic Council that any agreement would include specific environmental protections, including oil spill recovery and prevention strategies, Ayliffe says the agreement “fails to outline any essential response equipment, methods for capping wells, or cleaning up oil-affected habitat and wildlife, relying instead on vague statements of steps Arctic nations should take within available resources.”

The document contains ambiguous language regarding oil spills, only asking countries to take “appropriate steps” to deal with a spill, without specifying clear demands or requirements. It also lacks guidelines relating to the liability of oil companies in case of a disaster or guidelines on how to adequately deal with a spill.

“No oil company has ever proven it can respond to an oil spill in ice, and the agreement offers nothing in regard to how a company would stop or clean up a Deepwater Horizon-style disaster,” Ayliffe said, referring to the massive 2010 spill in the Gulf of Mexico, when nearly five million barrels of oil spewed from a blown oil well in the sea floor for nearly three months.

“We are hoping that, because of the outrage that has been caused by this document, before the May vote there will be time to fill some of the holes.”

An anti-fracking demonstration in Manhattan, New York City organized by CREDO Action and New Yorkers Against Fracking. Credit: CREDO: Cuomo Policy Summit/cc by 2.0

By Stephen Leahy
UXBRIDGE, Canada, Sep 25 2012 (IPS)

The planet can be cooled a whopping 0.5 degrees C with fast action to reduce air pollution from coal-fired power plants, gas fracking, diesel trucks and biomass burning, recent studies show.

All it would take is a few regulations and a few tens of millions of dollars over the next two decades to bring dramatic reductions in emissions of short-lived planet-heating pollutants like methane, black carbon or soot and smog.

These are dangerous air pollutants and reductions could save millions of lives, according to studies by the United Nations Environment Programme and the World Meteorological Organization.

“This is one thing that can be done to slow the very disturbing rapid meltdown of the Arctic sea ice,” said Ellen Baum, senior scientist at the Clean Air Task Force, an international NGO working to reduce air pollution.

Last week, the annual summer melt of sea ice shocked scientists by falling 18 percent below the previous record low. Summer ice this year is half what it was 30 years ago and is disrupting weather patterns in the Northern hemisphere.

The vast Greenland ice sheet also experienced a record melt this year, nearly doubling the previous record melt said Marco Tedesco, an associate professor at the City College of New York and world-renowned specialist on the Greenland ice sheet.

Every summer, the surface of Greenland melts but this year’s melt was off the charts. Parts of Greenland ice continued to melt for 40 to 50 days longer than normal, Tedesco told IPS.

This process is being driven by warmer air temperatures, a drop in snowfall and the fact that much of the ice is no longer white but covered with black soot particles, he said.

Those soot particles come from burning diesel and biomass thousands of kilometres away, in Europe, Asia and North America. Snow and ice reflect much of the sun’s heat energy but the combination of the black soot and meltwater ponds, more of that heat is absorbed by the ice, leading to increased melting.

“It is very troubling what is happening in the Arctic,” Rafe Pomerance, former U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for environment and development, said at a press conference.

A new international group, the Climate and Clean Air Coalition, was created in February this year to spearhead efforts in all countries to take action on these air pollutants. A package of 16 measures to reduce emissions of black carbon and methane have been identified and countries are now working together to find ways to act on those measures.

Last week, the Coalition met in Ghana to work together with African nations to identify ways to reduce emissions of short-lived climate and air pollutants from the African continent. Reducing emissions of methane, black carbon and tropospheric ozone would have “substantial and immediate health, crop yield and other environmental benefits for Africa” in addition to reducing warming, the Coalition reported.

Hi-efficiency cook stoves are a simple, low-cost technology to reduce emissions of soot. In the transport sector, cleaner-burning diesel engines, black carbon filters and low-sulphur fuels can be used. Preventing oil and gas flaring in the fossil fuel sector as well as the reduction of methane emissions are other needed actions.

Much of this has been known for several years. Developed nations have taken action on air pollution, particularly by shifting to cleaner-burning diesel engines. However, there is still much to be done. Europe’s air pollution remains dangerously high, warns a new report released Monday. Despite regulations, tiny particles of soot are reducing European life expectancy by as much as two years, according to the European Environmental Agency study.

In the United States, it has been a “slow process to put these measures into practice”, said Baum. Last year, after decades of inaction, the U.S. finally enacted new regulations to reduce emissions and improve efficiency of motor vehicles. The slow progress “has a lot to with the lack of political will”, she said.

The recent boom in hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is “taking us in the opposite direction” regarding emission reductions, said Erika Rosenthal of the U.S.-based environmental NGO Earthjustice.

“Fracking has made the U.S. one of the top 10 methane-emitting countries,” Rosenthal told IPS.

The process of drilling for natural gas using the fracking method of pumping large amounts of water and chemicals underground to access shale gas deposits results in large emissions of methane, several studies have shown. Hundreds of thousands of shale gas wells are currently being “fracked” in the United States and Canada. These leak methane, a highly potent global warming gas

Shale gas production results in 40 to 60 percent more global warming emissions than conventional gas, Robert Howarth of Cornell University in New York State previously told IPS. Howarth has done two recent studies estimating the amount of methane escaping and concluded that natural gas from fracking was worse overall in terms of climate heating than burning coal.

Methane has 105 times the warming potential of CO2 over a 20-year time frame, after which it rapidly loses its warming potential. If large amounts of methane are released through fracking – as seems likely with hundreds of thousands of new wells forecast in the next two decades – Howarth says global temperatures could rocket upward from 0.8C currently to 1.8C in 15 to 35 years.

“We’d better have a zero tolerance for methane emissions from fracking,” said Baum.

However, even if there were mandatory requirements – presently there are none – it is difficult to enforce when governments at state and federal are cutting budgets and staff, said Baum.

By mid-September, the Royal Dutch Shell Oil (Shell) group hopes to begin exploratory oil drilling in the Arctic Ocean off the coast of northern Alaska, provided it can secure federal permission from the U.S. government and overcome other logistical obstacles. But a prominent environmental group warns that drilling will do “irreparable damage” to the area.

The Natural Resources Defence Council (NRDC) published a reportMonday urging the U.S. government to oppose Shell’s drilling, citing concern, along with other green groups, about Shell’s inability to clean up and prevent oil spills.

The oil drilling ship Noble Discoverer on April 5, 2012 in the Port of Seattle before its trip to Alaska for the summer Arctic drilling season. Credit: James Brooks/CC by 2.0

Pro-Shell groups and the Republican party criticise these organisations, however. They argue that oil found in the Arctic Ocean will lead to cheaper energy resources for more than a decade for the United States.

Shell has admitted that it cannot effectively clean up oil spills, and that its response barge, Arctic Challenger, may not be able to endure an Arctic storm.

Greenpeace Lead Arctic Campaigner Jackie Dragon was harsh in her criticism of Shell’s proposed venture.

“Shell can’t keep its drill rig under control in a protected harbor, so what will happen when it faces 20-foot swells and sea ice while drilling in the Arctic?” asked Dragon. “The company has admitted its drill rig can’t meet the standards required to avoid polluting Arctic air” and has “broken promises about its oil spill response plan and Arctic storm preparedness”.

“Shell cannot be trusted, and President Obama should not let its Arctic drilling program move forward,” said Dragon.

Shell, on the other hand, is hoping to make the most of a fast-shrinking summer drilling timeline. If the company begins drilling now, it will have to stop by October at the latest, before the advent of the sea ice.

But the U.S. government and Shell are currently embroiled in negotiations, even as environmental groups hope that after the 2010 BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico and a damning inspection that showed Arctic Challenger to be lacking in the electrical, piping and fire departments, Shell will not be granted permission for the summer drilling.

The NRDC report outlined  eight primary reasons why Shell should not be drilling for oil in the Arctic Ocean.

First and foremost is that the oil industry has a deplorable track record for oil spills that are never effectively cleaned up. One need not look far for examples. The British Petroleum, Gulf Coast oil disaster in 2010 is a vivid reminder of how wrong an oil spill can go, and how far-reaching its effects are.

Lawrence Neil, a spokesperson for the NRDC, pointed out that oil production is statistically almost guaranteed to lead to spills. Furthermore, “there is still no proven way to keep a drilling rig on location in the shifting pack ice of an Arctic winter,” so drilling in the Arctic presents even greater risks than those of a normal spill.

Marine noise created by production will have adverse impacts on marine mammals, added Neil. In addition, production will “create huge pressure for a pipeline to carry the oil (that could) lead to bisecting extraordinary wild lands and vital wildlife habitat.”

“The history of development shows that the camel’s nose is a real phenomenon:  the more you spoil pristine places, the less resistance there is to additional development,” he told IPS.

The lack of rapid response and infrastructure in the area is further cause for alarm for green groups, as well as the fact that an oil spill or even disturbance within the area could lead to the migration of wildlife. Among the species that would be threatened are endangered bowhead whales, female polar bears and birds, all of which depend on the icy ecosystem for survival.

But if Shell finds oil, a barrage of oil and energy companies will descend upon this pristine area. The NRDC report outlines many more drawbacks to the proposed drilling, including a rise in greenhouse gases.

Still, not everyone believes that the risks outweigh the gains.

If oil is found in this icy tundra, dependence on foreign oil could drastically decrease. Republicans say that an oil discovery in the region would create thousands of jobs and provide a much needed boost to the lagging U.S. economy.

Lobbyists and politicians are pushing for an extension the deadline for summer drilling, and Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) is at the forefront. She is also a senior official at the Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

But Lawrence and other green group activists claim that the risks outweigh any political gain.

For Lawrence, it’s simple. “There are certainly more direct ways to reduce dependence on foreign oil than drilling our last pristine ocean,” he pointed out.

“Arctic drilling is a huge investment, including an investment of federal resources to regulate, police, and provide emergency services; every such investment detracts from – and undercuts – investment in sources of energy that don’t contribute to the risk of catastrophic climate change,” he concluded.

Ice ridges in the Beaufort Sea off the northern coast of Alaska, where Shell is planning to open exploratory wells. Credit: NOAA

By Ethan Freedman
WASHINGTON, Jul 31 2012 (IPS)

Many environmental groups are concerned over a possible extension of drilling expeditions in the Arctic, as oil companies, including Royal Dutch Shell, are set to begin drilling in the region as early as this week.

Shell is planning to open three exploratory wells in Alaska: One in the Chukchi Sea off the state’s northwestern coast, and two in the Beaufort Sea off the northern coast, after delays in production caused by a myriad of factors, including warm weather and production lapses.

An extension of a drilling window would allow the company to drill in the Arctic past the previously agreed-upon deadline of Sep. 24 in the Chukchi Sea, and the end of October in the Beaufort Sea.

Some environmental activists, however, say that the extension of the drilling window is no more than an attempt to make up for lost time.

“It would be really disturbing attempt to move the goal posts,” Travis Nichols, a media officer at Greenpeace, said to IPS. “They haven’t been able to get their fleet in order. They want to change the rules to get the administration to cater to their needs.”

The Shell project in the Arctic, originally slated to start this month, has faced numerous setbacks in its operations.

In June, a Shell drilling-rig, named the Noble Discoverer, did not meet Environmental Protection Agency emission standards, because its generator engines contained higher-than-allowed amounts of nitrous oxide and ammonia.

Earlier this month, the ship, anchored in Alaska’s Dutch Harbor, drifted off its moorings and came within 100 feet of reaching the shore.

“They clearly cannot ensure safety in the Arctic,” Dan Howells, deputy campaigns director at Greenpeace, said in a statement. According to Howells, by extending the drilling window, it “is inviting major catastrophe in one of the most delicate ecosystems on Earth.”

In February, despite opposition by environmentalists, the Interior Department’s Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE), the governmental agency in charge of offshore oil and gas drilling, approved Shell’s plans for responding to oil spills — one of the major hurdles on the way to getting full approval of offshore drilling.

“Alaska’s energy resources — onshore and offshore, conventional and renewable — hold great promise and economic opportunity for the people of Alaska and across the nation,” Ken Salazar, the U.S. Interior Secretary, explained in a statement.

“In the Arctic frontier, cautious exploration — under the strongest oversight, safety requirements and emergency response plans ever established — can help us expand our understanding of the area and its resources, and support our goal of continuing to increase safe and responsible domestic oil and gas production,” he continued.

Shell had received permission from the George W. Bush administration to drill in the Arctic, but the final permits had not been approved by the Barack Obama administration until recently.

In response to the approval, a coalition of about a dozen environmental groups, including the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Sierra Club and Oceana, filed suit against the Interior Department, challenging its approval of Shell’s oil spill response plans.

Oil and Water

Greenpeace, an environmental activist group, has been one of the strongest critics of Shell’s arctic drilling expedition, and have aggressively protested against prolonged arctic drilling.

They have notably used social media to lampoon the oil company — including by creating a faux website, a fake Twitter handle and a game called “Angry Bergs”, as a satirical jab at Shell.

Lisa Murkowski, the Republican Senator from Alaska, has lambasted protest efforts by Greenpeace, including Greenpeace’s usage of a “protest fleet”, which would be used for “obtain(ing) core samples and other natural material form the seabed”.

“Greenpeace is pledging to impede planned exploratory drilling operations in arctic waters off the north coast of Alaska this summer,” she said in a letter to James Watson, director of the BSEE.

“Allowing intrusions by any group to disrupt or threaten federally-permitted operations is a direct threat to … safe operations … and puts in jeopardy those workers and our environment,” she wrote.

Shell has not been the only oil company trying to extract resources from the Arctic region.

The U.S. oil company ConocoPhillips and the Norwegian oil company Statoil have also won the rights to explore fields in the U.S. portion of the Arctic. ExxonMobil, the world’s biggest energy company, struck a deal with Russia to explore its portion of the Arctic.

The drilling in the Arctic has been delayed in part due to the unusually warm weather in the Arctic.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, a U.S. government agency dealing with environmental issues, the Arctic lost a record amount of sea ice in June — a total of 1.1 million square miles — due to the weather.

Shell, the most profitable European oil company, has already invested and spent 4.5 billion dollars in the Arctic since 2005, predominantly for leases, permits and equipment.

The potential financial and ecological risks in undertaking such an operation, however, might be outweighed by the potential profit for oil companies.

According to estimates by the U.S. Geological Survey, the Arctic Ocean holds 12 percent of the world’s undiscovered oil, up to 177 billion barrels. The ocean is also estimated to hold up to 25 percent of the world’s undiscovered gas, up to 3.4 trillion barrels.

Nevertheless, other oil companies are shying away from perceived hazards in the region.

Last week, BP announced last week that it was abandoning efforts on a 1.5-billion-dollar project in the Arctic — one that had been ongoing for 14 years — stating that the project “does not meet (its) test” for proper safety standards.

The Obama administration has said that no new drilling leases will be issued for the Arctic until 2016, in order to accommodate further research on the region.

The Arctic experience, however, has not deterred Shell from further oil expeditions.

On Jul. 27, Shell signed a deal with the China National Offshore Oil Corporation to allow for gas and oil exploration in both China and West Africa. It is Shell’s first venture into Chinese waters in nearly 10 years.