Canada has begun its chairmanship of the eight-nation Arctic Council as it welcomed some new “observer” states, including China and India, and signed a new deal to improve oil spill responses in the North.
The legally-binding cooperation deal was aimed at improving procedures in response to oil spills. Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq, who started a two-year mandate as chair of the council on Wednesday, said Canada is also launching marine pollution prevention work as a key to mitigating impacts in the Arctic region.
“A lot of work went into that,” Aglukkaq said in a conference call from the council meeting in Kiruna, Sweden. “It’s the first binding agreement of this nature in the Arctic region and we’ll be building on that on the prevention side in the next two years.”
Environment Canada has internally expressed concerns about “research gaps” regarding oil spills in the Arctic, stressing the importance of international cooperation.
The department’s former top bureaucrat, Paul Boothe, told Environment Minister Peter Kent to register this point in an April 24, 2012 meeting with Jane Lubchenco, administrator of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
“There are several opportunities for our organizations to work together collaboratively to address research gaps in oil spill research and response, and I encourage this important area of collaboration to continue,” Kent was asked to say in a memo from Boothe, released to Postmedia News through access to information legislation.
Aglukkaq, a northerner who represents Nunavut in the federal Parliament, said the Canadian government supported economic development in the region, provided that it is done in an environmentally responsible way. Under Canada’s chairmanship, the council is also creating a new business forum to help companies engage with Arctic nations on development and environmental issues.
Sweden’s Foreign Minister Carl Bildt hands the gavel which symbolizes handing the chairmanship of the Arctic Council to Canada’s Minister of the Arctic Council Leona Aglukkaq, at the Arctic Council.
All decisions by the council are achieved by consensus among its eight members, including the United States, Canada, Russia, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Norway and Iceland.
The members declined requests from non-government environmental groups such as Greenpeace for membership, but granted observer status to China, India, Italy, Japan, Republic of Korea and Singapore.
A joint statement released by the eight members also said the planet was facing an “urgent need” to reach a legally-binding deal to prevent human activity from causing average global warming of more than two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
It expressed concerns that global greenhouse gas emissions were “resulting in rapid changes in the climate and physical environment of the Arctic with widespread effects for societies and ecosystems and repercussions around the world.”
Environmental advocates from Greenpeace Canada protested the federal government’s approach on Parliament Hill, suggesting that its “pro-oil agenda” threatened to destroy the Arctic.
Aglukkaq said organizations like Greenpeace protest all the time. She added that all development was being reviewed by appropriate government bodies prior to approval.
