Monthly Archives: June 2009

Climate wars 2030

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img_0172_editedClive Tesar, Head of Communications for the Arctic Programme, attended the ‘2030 North’ conference in Ottawa, Canada. The challenge of the conference was to try to imagine what life in Canada’s North will be like in 2030, and to devise a plan to deal with that new reality.
By Clive Tesar
WWF’s contribution to the 2030 North conference was to broaden the topic of climate change outside of our traditional area of wildlife, and to focus instead on the security aspects of climate collapse. This does not mean that we are changing our area of interest, just that we realize that not everyone is as interested as we are in saving the natural world for its own sake.
To reach a wider audience, we need to talk about the wider implications of Arctic climate change. The Arctic Programme has commissioned a study on Arctic Climate and Security. The study, led by Dr. Rob Huebert, a well-known Canadian expert on Arctic security issues, is to be released later this year.
At our ‘climate wars 2030’ event, Huebert was able to give people a sneak preview of where his research is heading. He detailed the recent build-up of military interest and capacity in the north. While not suggesting that conflict in the north is imminent, his research shows that various parties are certainly preparing for that possibility.
Huebert was joined on the stage by Gwynne Dyer, a distinguished London-based broadcaster and author. Dyer’s latest book is called ‘climate wars’, and details how a warming world can easily boil over in series of global flashpoints.
The thesis is simple, but powerful. Projections for a global temperature increase above 2 degrees mean many of the world’s people will go hungry. The temperature tolerance of the world’s main food crops will be exceeded in tropical and subtropical regions. “India will lose 25% of its agricultural production at two degrees hotter,” says Dyer. He says figures published only fleetingly from China suggest the giant nation could lose up to 38% of its agricultural production.
As agricultural production declines, says Dyer, “Your most dangerous neighbour lies between you and the equator.” His eyes roamed the room, watching the point sink in for a Canadian audience – in Canada, that means a hungry United States that may be in no mood for the niceties of international relations. “So the generals have reason to be concerned” adds Dyer. “If I was Russian, I’d be worried about the Chinese running out of food.”
It was a powerful presentation, and definitely seemed to make the audience aware that climate change is not just about disappearing ice, and thinner polar bears, but a global problem that requires an urgent global solution.
Clive Tesar, Head of Communications for the Arctic Programme, attended the ‘2030 North’ conference in Ottawa, Canada. The challenge of the conference was to try to imagine what life in Canada’s North will be like in 2030, and to devise a plan to deal with that new reality.

Selling Arctic snake oil

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Clive Tesar, Head of Communications for the Arctic Programme, attended the ‘2030 North’ conference in Ottawa, Canada. The challenge of the conference was to try to imagine what life in Canada’s North will be like in 2030, and to devise a plan to deal with that new reality.
By Clive Tesar
There have been lots of media stories over the past couple of years about the ‘cold rush’, breathlessly detailing how the disappearance of Arctic se ice will lead to nations grabbing for the newly accessible arctic resources.
At least one speaker at this conference is not too sure all of the hype is justified. George Braden, a former premier of Canada’s Northwest Territories, said the US Geological Survey’s recent projection about the ‘undiscovered’ oil and gas in the arctic being bigger than Saudi petroleum reserves sounded like ‘snake oil’ (a reference to people who are selling dubious goods).
Braden recalled how a former government of Canada hyped up the treasures of the north with a ‘roads to resources’ programme. The results of that programme? A few mines, but no great riches, and certainly no sustainable future for the people of the north.
In Canada, the talk about the Arctic is all about sovereignty, not sustainability. Canada’s Prime minister has used a much-quoted line about ‘use it or lose it’ in relation to Canada’s Arctic Sovereignty. An Inuit speaker did not take kindly to that approach. Udloriak Hansen said, “Use it or lose it is offensive. We ARE using it!”
Clive Tesar, Head of Communications for the Arctic Programme, attended the ‘2030 North’ conference in Ottawa, Canada. The challenge of the conference was to try to imagine what life in Canada’s North will be like in 2030, and to devise a plan to deal with that new reality.

Whose North?

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Stephen Kakfwi, former Premier of Canada’s Northwest Territories speaks to the 2030 North conference

Stephen Kakfwi, former Premier of Canada’s Northwest Territories speaks to the 2030 North conference


Clive Tesar, Head of Communications for the Arctic Programme, attended the ‘2030 North’ conference in Ottawa, Canada. The challenge of the conference was to try to imagine what life in Canada’s North will be like in 2030, and to devise a plan to deal with that new reality.
By Clive Tesar
A central question about policy for the future of the Arctic is “Who will be invited (or will invite themselves) to be involved in setting arctic wide policies?”
It’s a question that has come up several times over the second day of the ‘2030 North’ conference.
There are several different legal considerations – for instance there is talk of the ‘Arctic 5’, the five states that have coastline in the Arctic (Canada, US, Russia, Norway and Denmark (Greenland). Other suggestions say the Arctic Council countries (the Arctic 5 plus Iceland, Sweden, and Finland) should be the ones to make the rules for the Arctic.
But as Rob Huebert, of the Centre for Military and Strategic Studies at the University of Calgary pointed out “Countries we were not thinking about are becoming major players.” As Huebert notes, the South Koreans are now world leaders on developing ice-capable vessels. South Korean shipyards are currently building tankers supposed to be capable of carrying liquefied natural gas though icy waters. Huebert pointed out that China currently has the world’s largest Arctic research vessel.
What was only briefly mentioned in the whole discussion was the place of Indigenous peoples in discussions about the Arctic’s future. Earlier this year, the Inuit Circumpolar Council released its Declaration on Sovereignty (pdf file, right click to download). Part of this declaration reads, “The conduct of international relations in the Arctic and the resolution of international disputes in the Arctic are not the sole preserve of Arctic states or other states; they are also within the purview of the Arctic’s indigenous peoples.”
While the discussion has the most obvious bearing on future development of arctic renewable and non-renewable resource, there is also a strong connection to climate change issues. The whole discussion of Arctic resource development would likely not be reaching such a fevered pitch, if was not for the fact that shrinking ice cover is expected to make Arctic resources more accessible. In other words, a governance regime that will protect the interests of northerners is a key plank in their ability to adapt to a changing Arctic.
This week, Clive Tesar, Head of Communications for the Arctic Programme, is at the ‘2030 North’ conference in Ottawa, Canada. The challenge of the conference is to try to imagine what life in Canada’s North will be like in 2030, and to devise a plan to deal with that new reality.

‘Climate change is changing who we are’

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This week, Clive Tesar, Head of Communications for the Arctic Programme, is at the ‘2030 North’ conference in Ottawa, Canada. The challenge of the conference is to try to imagine what life in Canada’s North will be like in 2030, and to devise a plan to deal with that new reality.
Last night, the conference opened with an address by Inuit leader, Sheila Watt Cloutier. She has won many environmental prizes around the world for her work on negotiating an international treaty on toxic chemicals. Her work now focuses very much on what she sees as the biggest challenge now facing her people, and people across the northern world. This is how she describes the size and impact of that problem; “Climate change is changing who we are, where we come from, and where we want to be.”
Watt-Cloutier described the several changes she has already seen in her life from climate change. She spoke of seeing her childhood home in northern Quebec change from a landscape of small shrubs to one of tall trees. She also spoke of less benign changes, of the challenges that disappearing sea ice pose to a culture that relies on sea ice as a highway and hunting ground.
Watt Cloutier also talked about her concerns about the increasing friction in the Arctic, and its increasing militarization. While she is not opposed to the military, she believes sovereignty is best achieved by keeping the sea ice frozen. If the Arctic seas remain frozen, there is no argument about who owns tights of passage through them, no need to guard against marine incursions by other countries.
The sea ice is likely to continue melting, even if governments begin to take urgent and effective action on climate change, a fact Watt Cloutier acknowledges. This is why she is proposing a treaty for the Arctic, a treaty that would include the Arctic’s Indigenous peoples in an international agreement to jointly manage resources. She argues that Indigenous peoples, as people who know the northern environment best, are best suited to exercise a role of stewardship of the north.