Tag Archives: Canada

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.