ICC Greenland wants action on climate change

The final report of the UN panel on climate change is available online at bit.ly/1lx6GlK. It sets the stage for an international meeting in Paris in December 2015.

HJALMAR DAHL
President, ICC Greenland

The course is set! We are moving towards four degrees of global warming.

But the United Nations Climate Panel and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has retained some optimism that states will united behind a legally binding agreement at next year’s COP 21 in Paris. This was the signal from the UN climate meeting in Copenhagen.

Our nature is disturbed

The big fuss about climate change is real, because it is highly disruptive to the nature, environment, society and everything else that affects us here in Greenland.

Animals and plants both on land and in the sea, and consequently the entire Arctic ecosystem are threatened because neither animals nor plants are able to adjust to the changing climatic conditions.

Another consequence is the threat of increased migration of alien species into the Arctic ecosystem. Even our national symbol, the polar bear, may turn out to be endangered because the sea ice is disappearing at an alarming rate.

Potential and scary impacts

The Inuit Circumpolar Council has for many years tried to make the international community aware of the Arctic disaster lurking just behind the developed countries’ CO2 emissions.

But again and once again we were first heard as climate change realities reached the industrialized countries’ own front doors in the form of extreme weather conditions and increasing risks of elevated sea levels, drought in other parts of the world, and then the threat of the abominations that follow, including diseases, homelessness and possible armed conflicts.

Within the Arctic Council and its many sub-committees, the ICC has always been an active player in mapping the Arctic realities and contributing to find solutions.

This does not imply that the Arctic should be a nature reserve, but that solutions include growth at reasonable terms and on a sustainable basis.

Important to have dialogue and information

In the ICC, we hope that the COP 21 in Paris will be a success and be the place where legally binding agreements will be reached. It is not only we in the Arctic that have something to fear if the states again fail to come to an agreement.

But meanwhile, the ICC would like to urge the Danish government and the Greenland self-government to enter into a closer dialogue on different adaptation responses, including the fisheries, since changes have already been noticed in the fishery.

Furthermore, it would be obvious to cooperate in the development of infrastructure to encourage the economic development of our country.

A very special problem, however, is that our nature is our food, and that is why there is a need for a special action in this area.

The ICC proposes an extensive information campaign about climate change in our ecosystem, and thus changes in the access to living resources and ultimately, what kind of implications it may have for our health, and so on.