New report outlines what Arctic Council has done, and failed to do

A new report, commissioned by Greenpeace and released April 23, examines the evolution of the Arctic Council, whose international ministers are set to meet in Iqaluit today.

The Arctic Council, through its working groups and task forces, has put together a tremendous body of Arctic knowledge and research.

And the Council, which meets April 24 in Iqaluit has even managed to conclude legally-binding agreements for the betterment of the North and its peoples, says a new report.

But using that knowledge to influence policy within individual Arctic states, and the political uncertainty of the country with the largest Arctic geography — Russia — among other challenges, continue to dog the so-called “high level forum.”

This according to “The Practice and Promise of the Arctic Council,” an independent report written by Terry Fenge and Bernard Funston, commissioned by Greenpeace and released April 23, the day before Arctic Council ministers meet in Iqaluit to discuss the Arctic’s most pressing issues and transfer chairmanship from Canada to the United States.

Both Fenge and Funston, long-time Arctic observers and advisors, have worked on northern, environmental and Aboriginal issues and policy for the past two decades.

Their report summarizes the birth and evolution of the council since it was officially created through the Ottawa Declaration in 1996, with a science co-operation mandate, to when it shifted toward “policy-relevant deliberations” from 2004 onward.

Consensus driven, but with no legal power, the Arctic Council has still managed to push forward international agreements in such areas as persistent organic pollutants, Arctic search and rescue, and marine oil pollution preparedness and response, the authors said.

The Arctic Council’s make-up has also changed over the years — more indigenous permanent participants have been added as well as more official non-Arctic observers

But the authors feel both these parts of the Arctic Council are under-utilized.

While representatives of the six permanent participants attend meetings of ministers and senior Arctic officials, “and are listened to politely, they are not yet engaged in the Council to their full potential: they require additional capacity, personnel and funding to do so,” the report says.

And the Arctic Council has not fully involved official observers — which include 12 non-Arctic states, nine inter-governmental or parliamentary organizations and 11 non-governmental organizations.

“The number of entities that want to become Observers in the Arctic Council has increased. Admitting Observers, and providing them with practical ways to contribute to the work of the Council, has become one of the most important issues facing the Council,” the report says.

The report makes several interesting observations about the Arctic Council’s influence over state policy.

With increasing awareness over how climate change is impacting the North, the Arctic Council must continue to emphasize the Arctic as “barometer of global environmental change,” the report says.

The Arctic Council has failed to do this, the authors claim, in part because it has been unable to find a regional voice to speak on behalf of all member states.

Another shortcoming of the Arctic Council, they say, is an ongoing lack of communication — both internally, between working groups, and with the outside world.

The authors place the blame, in part, on the increasing geopolitical importance of the Arctic which has made the Arctic Council itself more political.

In plain terms, this means, “foreign ministries have asserted more control over the Arctic Council agenda and Council messaging, including matters of scientific cooperation,” the report says.

In setting a course for the Arctic Council’s next 10 years, the authors suggest its members focus on the real culprits threatening the north’s fragile ecosystems, namely the “development, emissions, governance decisions and human activities in non-Arctic regions of the planet that have been primarily responsible for the dramatic loss of sea ice, transboundary pollutants, ocean acidification and other important stressors on Arctic ecosystems that are currently being witnessed and reported on by the Arctic Council.”

Local and regional measures will have no impact, they argue, without commitments and co-operation from the global South.

You can read the report’s full contents here.