I had the privilege to go to Arctic Frontiers last weekend as part of the U Arctic group of Student Ambassadors, and have a few impressions related to my work on Arctic Strategy (which has bloomed a bit to also encompass general research on whether or not governments are taking appropriate measures to confront climate change and protect the Arctic in a broad sense). These come from my viewings of a few of the presentations on hand, the general setting, and meetings with PM Stubb, the Prince of Monaco, the Foreign Affairs Minister of Norway, and Admiral Papp, US Special Representative to the Arctic.
One thing to note before I dive into it, is that this is a very high-level conference, and though grass roots players were present, they seemed to me to take a back stage or secondary role to the heads of state, business players, and NGO leaders. So it's not the whole story of thoughts and interests for the Arctic, but a highly influential side of things regardless. Perhaps the most influential.
Business Seems More Important than the Environment
This is the general theme that I got from this conference, though much of the time it was subtext that I interpreted. Many speakers brought up the recent Nature article about how to prevent a temperature rise of 2C or over, the oil in the Arctic has to remain in the ground, but these were limited to NGO leaders like Samantha Smith of the WWF or the Prince of Monaco, or their like. Business leaders and government officials emphasized the business opportunities of the globalized and warming Arctic.
Either that or they seemed to adopt a somber persona and warn of the dangers, right before getting animated and talking about the "exploding" rise in Arctic shipping as Papp did. Dr. Yang, a Chinese scientist gave a speech warning about the potential extreme weather and loss of coastline that China will experience under fully realized climate change, right before expressing the opportunities for shorter shipping routes. Interesting, will the kilometers saved from a northern sea route compensate for a submerged Shanghai (his own prediction)? Likewise, Admiral Papp mentioned that the Singaporeans are hugely interested in the Arctic for both the threat a melting Arctic brings their small, coastal city-state, as well as for the potential for business.
This lack of urgency, as the Prince put it, is worrying, but not new. Governmental legitimacy is staked on providing a certain standard of living for their peoples, and this in the current day means a symbiotic relationship between them and big business (Mathias Finger, 2013, What Does the Arctic Teach us?). Keep the growth going at all cost, both of them rely on it.
Adaptation, not Mitigation
Overwhelmingly, the strategic emphasis seemed to be on adaptation to climate change and changing conditions in the Arctic. Admiral Papp mentioned it as one of the three priorities for the American chairmanship, and there was little mention of strategic mitigation at this conference that I could see. This is possibly due to the fact that it's something of a regional gathering that perhaps has little impact on mitigation anyways, but many of the Arctic countries are highly involved globally, and what happens in the Arctic has global impacts so it's discouraging to see so little discussion of it.
Oil Drilling in the Arctic is Inevitable
Admiral Papp said this explicitly, and others, including a representative from an oil consulting company and Fran Ulmer, former Lt. Governor of Alaska, more or less implied this. Indeed, the aforementioned representative and Fran Ulmer had very similar statements about this topic, both saying that whether or not it happens is down to economics, politics, and (Fran only) demographics. But hearing this while at the same time hearing from Fran that the industry is of a split opinion on whether or not it's technologically capable of safely exploiting Arctic reserves is worrisome. Low oil prices now, true, but that is temporary. Economics and demographics then will likely demand it, and politics will, for the same reasons mentioned earlier, allow it.
The International System is Inadequate
I asked the PM of Finland whether or not he thought this was true and he confirmed it. He did say that the governance systems developing in the Arctic are a good start, but also mentioned that big countries like the US and Russia like the status quo because they benefit from it, while small countries may want differences, their ability to enforce that is relatively slight.
Overall then, I got the impression that most players are either resistant to change or have limited influence to bring it about, whether it be small countries or regional players. To me I see it as a disconnect between the Arctic region and the wider globe. What happens in the Arctic is determined by the activities of those outside of it. But with such powerful players in the Arctic I don't see this disconnect as insurmountable.
The Arctic is perhaps our best opportunity yet to test our systems' abilities to plan ahead, to take the long view in the context of confronting something that is on the horizon, but not quite arrived yet. On the issue of the Arctic, those with stakes seem to yield to the fact that the global system will enforce the effects of climate change, and are seeking to adapt more than anything else and get some gain out of it. This is too bad, the United States is a power that could powerfully merge global issues with the Arctic, instead of continuing to treat it like a region alone. Unfortunately, they seem to rate it a secondary issue at best. But their chairmanship is approaching, and they are paying more attention than before.
I will take the liberty of editorializing though and cherry picking a vignette from the conference to reinforce my thoughts. Dr. George Hunt, a fisheries scientist from the University of Washington, explained that there will likely be an increase in fishery viability in the Arctic due to warming, and that those species that rely on summer ice are in existential trouble. When asked by the moderator if there was anything to be done, he said something along the lines of "at this point it's not looking good for them." The moderator then replied "Well that's depressing," and moved the conference along. In my mind, I just see that as evidence that people don't want to confront the difficult truths at hand.
