U.S. Takes High-Level Interest in Arctic Meeting

10 May 2011

A draining glacier created a meltwater lake with walls of blue ice in southeast Greenland.

Soil particles on the ice sheet surface accelerate the melting process.

Two U.S. Cabinet secretaries head to Nuuk, Greenland, for a meeting of the Arctic Council May 12, devoting a “historic” level of executive branch attention, according to one U.S. official, to this meeting of nations with territorial claims to the top of the world.

The official, U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State David Balton, briefed Washington reporters May 9 on the meeting, which will approve an agreement among eight nations for cooperation in search-and-rescue operations conducted in the Arctic. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar will attend the meeting.

The agreement calls for sharing resources in the event of a need for search and rescue, Balton said. “Within each area, one nation will have the lead responsibility; all others through the agreement are committed to help to the extent they can.” The agreement also calls for greater readiness training for search and rescue, improving communications and joint training exercises.

The eight-nation council includes representatives from Canada, Denmark (including Greenland), Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Russia and the United States.

The council’s Nuuk agenda also includes plans to begin development of an agreement to jointly respond to an oil spill in the Arctic. Scientific surveys calculate that significant oil resources are untapped there. The United States and Norway are actively drilling today; Greenland and Russia both are proceeding with plans to drill, and Canada stopped drilling operations when yields did not justify the significant expense and risks of the operations.

Drilling is difficult in the harsh environment, and it is generally recognized that cleaning up a spill, from drilling or shipping, would be extremely difficult.

“Oil and gas development is already occurring in parts of the Arctic,” Balton said, suggesting that member states ultimately will agree to pool resources to cope with a spill. “We do need to be responsible and prepared for the possibility of spills.”

Balton said human activities in the region are undoubtedly on the increase and the council will also begin a process to develop an “ecosystem management basis” for controlling those activities.

Climate change is a force already having major impacts in the Arctic. “The sea ice is receding, the coasts are eroding, land glaciers in the Greenland ice sheet are melting, the permafrost is thawing,” Balton said. “All of this is creating very significant challenges for the people who live in the Arctic.”

Balton said climate change may also create opportunities in the Arctic for easier access to oil resources, more open shipping channels and expanded fishing opportunities.

New scientific findings demonstrate some key ways climate change is adversely affecting the environment. A working group responsible for providing expert information to the eight governments, the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme, reported earlier this month that the increase in Arctic temperature averages is twice as high as in the rest of the world. The effects of melting Arctic snow and sea ice are interacting with other climate forces to accelerate warming, and sea ice, mountain glaciers and ice caps are diminishing faster than they did prior to 2000.