Arctic Nations Cool on How to Fight Global Warming

REYKJAVIK, Iceland, November 30, 2004 (ENS) – Despite increasing scientific evidence that the Arctic environment is already showing the effects of global warming, the eight nations and six indigenous peoples groups of the Arctic Council failed last week to reach consensus on how to address the problem.

The joint declaration from the council acknowledged concern about the challenges climate change poses for the Arctic environment, but pressure from the U.S. delegation prevented inclusion of any specific recommendations.

The council’s statement reflects the strong influence of the Bush administration, which has refused to call for mandatory cuts in industrial greenhouse gas emissions and repeatedly questioned the science that points to the effects of these emissions on the climate.

The United States is the only member of the council that has not ratified the Kyoto Protocol, the international accord that requires modest cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.

Aialik Glacier melts into Alaska's Kenai Fjords (Photo by Dr. Igor Smolyar courtesy NOAA)

The council met in Reykjavik to review the findings of the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA), considered the most comprehensive peer-reviewed assessment of Arctic climate change ever undertaken.

The final report from the ACIA rests on the work of some 300 scientists and Arctic experts. They found that the Arctic is warming at nearly twice as fast as the rest of the planet and warned of dramatic environmental change if industrial greenhouse gases are not reduced.

Yet the council’s statement makes no call for nations to cut industrial greenhouse gas emissions, rather it advises them to review the findings of the ACIA report “as they implement and consider future policies on global climate change."

Canadian Environment Minister Stéphane Dion said, “The great stresses put on the unique and fragile Arctic ecosystems have been fully brought to the world’s attention for the first time today." Dion said the report would inform Canada's Northern Strategy and Oceans Policy, but he was vague about the details.

Environmentalists of all political stripes say the council's statement reflects the politics – not the science – of global warming.

Seals like this spotted seal depend on ice for their habitat. (Photo courtesy NMML)

But there is a potential upside to the joint declaration, Smith added.

“Through the policy document, even the Bush administration has acknowledged what the scientists and people who live in the Arctic are telling us - climate change is real, it is happening quickly, and it is going to get worse unless we cut emissions."

In an address to ministers of the Arctic Council nations, U.S. Under Secretary of State for Global Issues Paula Dobriansky rebuffed criticism that the administration is not taking a proactive stance on climate change.

“The United States is committed to ensuring that our policies are informed by the best information science can provide,” she said, adding that the administration will take the findings of the ACIA “into account as it continues to review the science on climate change.”

Dobriansky touted the U.S. investment in Arctic research and the administration’s leadership on international efforts to cut methane emissions and to study mitigation technologies such as carbon sequestration.

Melting iceberg floating in Tracy Arm Fjord, Alaska, 1999 (Photo courtesy NOAA)

Calling the meeting "disappointing," REP America, the national grassroots organization of Republicans for environmental protection, said America’s elected leaders must "end their do-nothing approach to global warming."

“The Arctic climate assessment is an unambiguous warning that global warming, a result of carbon dioxide emissions caused by burning fossil fuels for energy, will have significant, worldwide impacts, including rising sea levels and disruptive weather patterns," said Jim DiPeso, REP America policy director. "These impacts present very serious risks to our nation’s economy and security, as well as to our environment."

In this computer graphic, Greenland’s 2002 melt extent appears in pink. The Greenland Ice Sheet melt area increased by 16 percent from 1979 to 2002. (Image courtesy of Konrad Steffen and Russell Huff, CIRES, University of Colorado, Boulder)

The ACIA’s report makes it clear that sharp cuts in emissions of the six greenhouse gases governed by the Kyoto Protocol are required if major changes to the environment are to be avoided.

It warned that at least half the summer sea ice in the Arctic is projected to melt by the end of this century, as the region is projected to warm an additional 4 to 7 degrees Celsius (7 to 13 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2100.

Such melt would have devastating consequences for some Arctic animal species such as seals that live on ice and for local people who depend on these animals as a primary food source.

It is not just the Arctic that will feel the impacts of global warming, the report said.

Warming temperatures will melt part of the Greenland Ice Sheet. Over the long term, Greenland contains enough melt water to eventually raise sea level by about seven meters (about 23 feet), the assessment projects.

Globally, more than 17 million people live less than one meter above sea level in Bangladesh, while places like Bangkok, Thailand; Calcutta, India; and Manila, Philippines; as well as Florida, Louisiana and New Jersey in the United States, are also at risk from rising sea levels.

Read the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment at: http://amap.no/acia/

For more information visit the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center at: http://www.nsidc.org/