THE ECONOMIST

Arctic diplomacy

The Arctic Council admits its first permanent Asian observers

May 18th 2013 |From the print edition

SINCE its formation in 1996, the Arctic Council’s eight member states have formed a cosy club. Their deliberations on research and conservation attracted little attention outside the frozen North. Relations are so warm that diplomats indulged in a spontaneous group hug on a joint trip to the North Pole in April.

Only states with territory in the Arctic can be full members (see map). But as melting polar ice has opened up the region to shipping, fishing, oil, gas and mineral extraction—and even tourism—countries as far away as Singapore are claiming a stake in its ice caps. The Arctic “used to be the last frontier,” said Kuupik Kleist, a former prime minister of Greenland, speaking at a recent conference organised by the Brookings Institution, a think-tank. “Now it seems like we are the centre of the world.”

At their biennial meeting on May 15th in the Swedish city of Kiruna, its foreign ministers agreed that China, India, Italy, Japan, South Korea and Singapore could become permanent observers, joining 26 current ones. But they denied that status to all international groups that applied, including NGOs such as Greenpeace. The EU’s admittance was postponed, pending talks with Canada.

China, which describes itself as a “near-Arctic state”, had been vying for a permanent observer’s place since 2006 (it was turned down three times). Admitting new observers now is “politically shrewd”, thinks Mihaela David of the Arctic Institute, a research body. It will prevent big Arctic discussions migrating to fuzzier alternative forums, such as the Arctic Circle, announced in April, which is backed by the president of Iceland.

A long-standing gripe marred the EU’s bid, which was obstructed by Inuit (an indigenous Arctic people) who oppose its near-total ban on trading seal products. Inuit groups must be consulted by council ministers. Their sway is greater now that Leona Aglukkaq, an Inuk, has become Canada’s representative and the council’s chair for the next two years. She said the seal ban was “dear” to her. Inuit groups presented a “No Seal No Deal” petition to the meeting. Greenpeace’s hostility to polar-bear hunting and seal-harvesting no doubt hampered its chances, too.

Most of the new joiners were already observers on an ad hoc basis. Their clout will continue to be limited: they cannot speak or vote. But with their expertise and money, they could influence decisions in the council’s six working groups. China, for example, has led five marine expeditions in the Arctic since 1999, including one last year. Japan and South Korea own powerful icebreakers, which allow them to conduct their own exploratory ventures and support those by other states and organisations. Observers can also suggest projects and pay for them.

The council’s new openness is likely to work in its favour. Members signed a binding agreement on responding to marine oil spills, only the second such deal in its history. More may follow as Asian observers bring new ideas, rather than making meetings unwieldy, as Canada fears. A new permanent secretariat in Tromso, Norway, will help. Stand by for a big, if complicated, group hug in 2015.

www.economist.com

 

National Post

Claudia Cattaneo

CALGARY • With the public increasingly worried about oil spills, some aboriginal groups calling for an Arctic drilling moratorium, and the oil industry as keen as ever to tap Northern deposits, oil spill response preparedness was a big topic of discussion at the Arctic Council meeting in Sweden this week.

As Canada, which has large untapped deposits under the Beaufort Sea, assumed its chairmanship on Wednesday, the group of the eight nations that surround the North Pole signed a pact on oil spill prevention in Kiruna, Sweden’s most northern city.

Coinciding with the meeting, the London-based International Association of Oil & Gas Producers (OGP), whose member companies produce more than half of the world’s oil, was eager to talk about industry efforts to improve handling of oil spills in Arctic environments, which it says have advanced significantly in recent years.

Non-governmental organizations such as the OGP and Greenpeace requested observer status at the council but their requests were denied.

The OGP, which had hoped to use the platform to engage and collaborate with those with an interest in Arctic oil-spill response, said much progress was made in the past year as a result of the establishment of a joint industry program (JIP) focusing on key areas of research.

The initiative is funded and supported by nine international oil companies — BP PLC, Chevron Corp., ConocoPhillips, Eni S.p.A, ExxonMobil Corp., North Caspian Operating Co. (NCOC), Royal Dutch Shell PLC, Statoil ASA, and Total S.A.

“A lot of time our stakeholders do not know that industry is extremely collaborative in particular areas, especially in oil-spill response. We do not see this as a competitive aspect of the business, so we are working together to strengthen our oil-spill response,” Becky Peavler, the program’s executive committee chair and a ConocoPhillips employee, said in an interview.

“When an incident occurs, it affects all of us. So we have a history of working together to be able to solve and advance the oil spill response capabilities.”

The initiative involves six major areas of research, said Joseph Mullin, who took over as manager of the program after a 40-year career with the U.S. government, with the last 25 dedicated to managing its oil-spill response research program.

With the help of company experts and scientific institutions, the program is probing into what happens to oil when it’s dispersed under ice, the environmental impacts of oil spills and the trajectory of oil spills in icy environments.

It’s also looking at the effectiveness of remote-sensing to detect oil spills, the mechanical recovery of oil in ice and at controlled burning of oil.

“Every oil spill is different, so you want to have all the tools in the tool box to be able to use,” Mr. Mullin said in an interview. “You want to be able to respond with mechanical recovery. If mechanical recovery is not effective, then you also have other response options, such as in-situ burn and the use of dispersants.”

The international effort has drawn Canadian expertise, including input from Ottawa-based SL Ross Environmental Research Ltd., a world authority on the in-situ burning of oil spills, a technique studied in Canada since the 1970s in support of drilling in the Beaufort Sea. One of its principals, Ian Buist, was chief research engineer for Dome Petroleum Ltd. on oil-spill prevention and control for the Beaufort Sea program.

Of course, there are plenty of doubters, and incidents such as BP PLC’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010 don’t help. Royal Dutch Shell PLC had its own problems recently with two drill ships, the Noble Discoverer and the Kulluk, that suffered serious accidents in the U.S. Beaufort and Chukchi Seas.

Canada has had its share of oil disasters, such as the sinking of the Ocean Ranger in 1972 and the Cougar Helicopter crash in 2009, both in Newfoundland’s frigid offshore.

Greenpeace said cleaning up an oil spill in the Arctic is a risky endeavor.

“It’s experimental, the companies have not done this before, they don’t know how to deal with an accident, they don’t know how to prevent an accident and there is simply no response capacity in any of the Arctic states to deal with what could be the worst environmental disaster in history,” Christy Ferguson, the Arctic project leader for Greenpeace Canada, told CBC News this week.

Some Aboriginal groups from Arctic countries including Russia, Canada and Greenland signed a statement of “indigenous solidarity” this week calling for end to drilling in the Arctic shelf.

“There are no effective and tested methods to prevent or clean up oil spills in the freezing Arctic seas,” they said in the statement signed by representatives of 42 aboriginal organizations, including Canada’s Dene Nation and the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation.

Others rejected the statement, which they say was orchestrated by Greenpeace as part of their anti-development campaign.

“We are the stewards of our own Arctic homeland, we are the negotiators of what takes place in our own back yards, and we will weigh and determine the cost-benefit of development for ourselves as a people,” said Duane Smith, President of Inuit Circumpolar Council, Canada. “We certainly have no need or appetite to invite environmentalist groups to come to the Arctic and do the work under their logos and on our behalf.”

Mr. Mullin said industry has conducted research in Arctic oil spill response for the past 40 years that has involved hundreds of studies, laboratory and basin experiments and field trials.

Industry recognizes that an oil spill in the North poses unique challenges, including being far away from infrastructure, long periods of darkness, extreme cold, ice and high operating costs.

Ms. Peavler said there are also some advantages relative to cleaning up oil spills elsewhere. For example, she said ice is a natural barrier that helps with mechanical recovery. It also reduces the height of waves, which helps with in-situ burning and dispersant techniques.

With so much oil being found in tight formations closer to energy markets, many Arctic deposits remain an asset for the long term. In Canada, the Arctic exploration was at its height in the 1970s and 1980s thanks to federal tax breaks. While substantial oil and gas deposits were found, they were not large enough to justify the cost of production. Some exploration has been done in recent years in the Beaufort, but progress has been slow.

Still, more than 500 wells have been drilled in Arctic environments since the 1920s. In addition to Canada, four other Arctic countries — Greenland, Norway, Russia, and the United States – have seen offshore oil exploration, development and transport.

Arctic operations – offshore and onshore combined – have produced some 40 billion barrels of oil and 1100 trillion cubic feet of gas, and onshore and offshore Arctic production accounts for 15% of world energy supply.

“As an industry, we are trying to understand where all of our operational areas can be, so it’s worthy to be prepared to be good stewards of the environment,” Ms. Peavler said. “That is why our efforts are going on expanding our capabilities for oil spill response in the Arctic.”

www.business.financialpost.com