Against the backdrop of a changing climate and increasing accessibility of the High North, Arctic Council ministers convened in Greenland on 12 May to discuss and improve Arctic cooperation. While progress was made, the meeting failed to address the 'scramble’ for the vast fossil resources in the Arctic, and led to tensions with the European Union (EU). The dramatic intervention by Greenpeace on an Arctic rig this June clearly demonstrates how urgent the issue has become.

Ministers at this year’s meeting signed the Arctic Council’s first-ever legally binding agreement – on search-and-rescue operations. While any type of cooperation is helpful, such agreements don’t resolve conflicts of interest of greater economic and political importance. But the littoral Arctic nations confront the issue of resource exploitation in the framework of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). UNCLOS offers detailed provisions on seabed resource exploitation. The two main advantages are its predictability and its limited scope that does not require the inclusion of other actors.

A strategy such as this – one of greatest possible delimitation – brings about conflict potential. This January, the European Parliament reaffirmed its call for more EU involvement regarding Arctic cooperation. However, an according request to be granted observer status at the Arctic Council was rebuffed at the meeting and postponed due to pressure from Canada and Russia. The French delegate and former Prime Minister Michel Rocard harshly criticized the Council’s uncooperative attitude. Parties only seem to agree that the developments in the Arctic are tremendously important for the future.

Criticizing the lack of emergency plans, Greenpeace activists in June boarded a rig near Greenland that is set to explore oil reserves. The action led to the temporary arrest of the global head of the organisation, who called the dispute 'one of the defining environmental battles of our age’. The oil reserves also worry Denmark, which fears Greenland will seek complete independence once the island achieves economic self-sufficiency through oil revenues.

Swedish foreign minister Carl Bildt, whose current chairmanship of the Arctic Council runs through 2013, promised to emphasise the discussion on oil exploitation and its environmental implications. Researchers recently proposed the introduction of a binding sea tax for financing environmental conservation measures. It is unlikely, however, that Bildt has such profound interventions in mind. (Stephan Wolters)

Comprehensive documentation of the Arctic Council meeting is available at
http://arctic-council.npolar.no/en/meetings/2011-nuuk-ministerial/docs/

More information on the Greenpeace intervention is available here.

Published in: ECC-Newsletter, 3/2011