Aboriginal groups want CO2 reduction promise from Arctic Council

The Arctic Council’s senior officials are participating in the Arctic Council Senior Arctic Officials (SAO) meeting in Yellowknife this week until Oct. 23, including Inuit Circumpolar Council representatives, from left, Jimmy Stotts (Alaska), Hjalmar Dahl (Greenland) and Duane Smith (Canada). Indigenous groups say they want Arctic Council states to show leadership by committing to greenhouse gas emissions. (PHOTO COURTESY OF ICC GREENLAND)

The Arctic Council’s senior appointed officials say their meetings this week in Yellowknife will result in “a rich set of recommendations for consideration by ministers at their next meeting in 2015.”

“I was pleased to see the progress by working groups and task forces to implement the Council’s priorities during Canada’s Chairmanship,” said Vincent Rigby, chair of the Senior Arctic Officials, in an Oct. 23 Arctic Council news release.

Indigenous Arctic groups are hoping one of those recommendations addresses the dire need for the global community to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in an effort to slow the pace of climate change in northern regions.

The Arctic Council’s six permanent Aboriginal participant organizations, which represent indigenous peoples from Canada, Russia, the United States, Finland, Norway and Sweden, sent a letter to the senior Arctic officials on Sept. 21.

Canada’s Inuit are represented in that group by the Inuit Circumpolar Council and their international chair, Nunavut’s Okalik Eegeesiak.

Their letter urges the council’s senior officials to fortify efforts to raise awareness about the impact of greenhouse gas emissions as promised in the Kiruna Declaration which Arctic Council ministers signed at their last meeting in May 2013.

“Changes in overall temperature have resulted in unpredictable seasons and we are experiencing changing weather patterns, increasing avalanches, coastal erosion, thawing of permafrost, insecure ice-conditions and moving of the tree line,” the letter says.

“The increased accessibility of the Arctic and an increase in global demand is also boosting industrial interests in the Arctic. These are changes that have a great impact on the indigenous peoples’ homeland and traditional ways of life.”

The two-page letter requests that the senior officials make greenhouse gas emissions a priority at the next Arctic Council ministers meeting, to be held in Iqaluit April 24-25, 2015.

“Arctic Council ministers are requested to elaborate a specific course of action on mitigation of carbon dioxide emissions that will be adopted by all Arctic Council member states as a firm commitment to address the concerns already acknowledged by the ministers and demonstrate the promised leadership of the Arctic states in this matter,” the letter says.

Greenpeace, which is more actively responding to northern issues of late as part of its Arctic campaign, issued a statement Oct. 24 supporting the stance of Aboriginal participants.

“We can only imagine the frustration they must feel as Arctic Council members repeatedly spout concerns over climate change without any action to reverse its course,” said Farrah Khan, Greenpeace Canada Arctic campaigner, in the release.

“We urge the Arctic Council member states to heed the concerns of the permanent participants and enact a concrete plan to reduce CO2 emissions. Action in this form could be the Council’s single largest contribution to following their own mandate to preserving and protecting the Arctic environment.”

During the meetings in Yellowknife, Oct. 22 to Oct. 23, Rigby convened a workshop, “on ways to enhance the capacity of the council’s Indigenous Permanent Participant organizations to contribute to the council,” according to the council’s news release.

That workshop may have been convened partly as a result of that letter.

Senior Arctic Officials listed a number of other issues they discussed this week in Yellowknife including:

• oil pollution prevention and preparedness;

• biodiversity assessment and conservation of Arctic migratory birds;

• actions to reduce black carbon and methane emissions;

• ways to promote safe Arctic shipping;

• promoting mental wellness and climate change adaptation; and,

• priorities for the United States Arctic Council chairmanship which will run from 2015-2017.