What’s next for the Arctic Council?

The Arctic Council’s chairmanship now goes to Russia, a country with many needs, lots of ambition and little cash.

Canada’s environment minister, Stéphane Dion, said “Canada is offering its full collaboration” to ensure Russia’s chairmanship of the council is a success – although many wonder how much Russia will be able to accomplish without money.

Russia’s foreign affairs minister, Sergey Lavrov, told last week’s ministerial meeting of the Arctic Council that Russia’s two-year chairmanship would focus on social and economic development in the Arctic.

Lavrov also said the council would look at the impact of oil and gas development in the region and promised to produce a major study called the Arctic Hydrocarbon Development Prospects and Impacts Report for the next ministerial meeting in 2006.

Reflecting Russia’s interest in the “rational use” of resources as well as transportation, the Arctic Council’s logo for the next two years (at www.arctic-council.org) shows an industrial-looking icebreaker plowing through the ice.

“We are interested in the intensification of cooperation to develop the circumpolar infrastructure, specifically with regard to sea links in the Arctic, including the Northern Sea Route,” Lavrov said.

Meanwhile, the member nations of the Arctic Council will continue to work on projects such as the University of the Arctic and the International Polar Year, which runs from 2007 to 2008.

The Arctic Council’s indigenous permanent participants, which include the Inuit Circumpolar Conference, were not successful in their bid to see the Arctic Council take a strong stand on climate change. The PPs, as they’re referred to within the council, are looking at other ways to advance their cause, through alliances with larger international bodies and South Pacific islands threatened by global warming.

The permanent indigenous participants are still seeking more money from the Arctic Council for the Indigenous Peoples Secretariat to support their participation in the council and its many working groups – but they will have to wait until Norway takes over the chair of the Arctic Council from Russia in 2006.