Films and all at the Copenhagen SAO
The first Senior Arctic Officials (SAO) meeting of the Arctic Council under the Danish Chairmanship was held in Copenhagen on November 12-13, 2009. Over 200 participants came together for two days of intensive discussions on a wide variety of issues important to the Arctic.
SAO Chair, Ambassador Lars Møller noted in his opening speech that there was a steadily increasing amount of activity in the Arctic. To address the huge challenges, Lars Møller said, the council brought with it from its previous ministerial meeting an ambitious agenda in the form of the Tromsø Declaration. The initial phase of the meeting, unorthodoxly, included the screening of working copies of two films presenting the AMAP organized Greenland Ice Sheet (GRIS) and Arctic Cryosphere (SWIPA) projects. The GRIS film will also form part of a high profiled side event at the upcoming COP15 entitled Melting Snow and Ice to be attended by the Danish/Greenlandic and Norwegian foreign ministers as well as by former US vice-president and Oscar winner Al Gore. Apart from COP 15 and the SWIPA project, the SAO agenda comprised, i.a., discussions of the work with establishing new Task Forces on Search and Rescue and on Short-lived Climate Forcers, maintaining and strengthening observing and monitoring initiatives, and International Polar Year Legacy initiatives such as the The Oslo Science Conference to be held in June next year. The Aleut International Association Executive Director Victoria Gofman made a presentation of the Bering Sea Sub Network (BSSN) that was implemented by AIA as an International Polar Year project under the auspices of CAFF and with the participation of 6 indigenous Bering Strait communities. Thanks to a 3 million dollar grant from the US National Science Foundation, Ms. Gofman explained, Phase 2 of this project will be carried out during the next 5 years and will involve 10 communities on either side of the Bering Strait. Measures to identify potential gaps and to eliminate duplication of work were treated in a section dedicated to the effectiveness and efficiency of the Arctic Council. Various initiatives to strengthen the political role of the Arctic Council, enhance information exchange among the council’s stakeholders, and to develop guidelines for communication and outreach were presented by the chair during this section Japan was welcomed as an ad hoc observer of the Arctic Council. Japan has applied for permanent Observer status, however, until its application can be processed in connection with the next Ministerial meeting, it will join the existing group of Ad Hoc Observers to the Arctic Council. In the evening of the first SAO meeting day, Second Secretary at the Japanese Embassy in Copenhagen, Ms. Emi Mashiko, attended a meeting with the Permanent Participant to discuss how Japan as an Observer and the Permanent Participants can benefit from each other’s work within the Arctic Council. The meeting also saw status updates by and on a number of non-Arctic Council groups and projects such as the Danish Arctic Megatrends study, the Arctic Governance project, the 4 (i.e., Arctic, Barents, Baltic, and Nordic) Councils of the North, as well as the University of the Arctic. The next Arctic Council SAO Meeting will be held in Illulissat, Greenland on April 28-29, 2010.
Arctic Parliamentarians come together to discuss Arctic Ocean
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The Arctic Carbon Cycle
Climate change may alter the natural cycling of carbon (C) in ecosystems in the Arctic. The Arctic carbon cycle is an important factor in the global climate system. Significant amount of carbon has been accumulated over thousands of years and stored in permafrost soils because of the process of cryoturbation, which moves organic matter into the deeper soil layers. Other processes, such as decomposition, wildfires, and logging, cause release of carbon into the atmosphere and, thus, act as carbon sources. At present the Arctic is a sink for carbon however climate warming - and thawing of the permafrost and accelerating decomposition processes - could disrupt the balance between accumulation of carbon in Arctic soils and emission of CO2 back into the atmosphere.
Furthermore, the report highlights another issue relevant for the understanding of the carbon cycle in the Arctic: "In addition to the usual sources of carbon, primarily from plant matter, the Arctic appears to have huge quantities of methane hydrates. Methane is stable in cold conditions and under high pressure, and thus found in permafrost on land and continental shelves and also beneath the sediments of the Arctic Basin. As hydrates warm or as pressure is reduced, the methane is released. The amount of methane hydrates is not well known, but some global estimates suggest it may rival the amounts of all known sources of gas and oil."
The rate of carbon release from permafrost soils is highly uncertain, but it is crucial for predicting the strength and timing of this carbon-cycle feedback effect, and thus how important permafrost thaw will be for climate change this century. Permafrost's role in isolating carbon from participating in the carbon cycle could be challenged by global warming and an accelerating permafrost thawing - and transform the Arctic into of carbon source where no known mitigation measures exist.
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Indigenous People Contaminants Action Program (IPCAP) Initiative
The Permanent Participants of the Arctic Council have proposed the establishment of an Indigenous Peoples Community Action Initiative (IPCAP Initiative). RAIPON has been the driving force. The Initiative was welcomed by the Arctic Council Ministerial Meetings in Salekhard (October 2006) and in Tromsø (March 2009) where it is stated in the Tromsø Declaration that the Ministers: ".. Welcome with appreciation the creation of a new Project Steering Group to address contaminants in indigenous peoples' communities in remote areas of the Arctic..." At the ACAP (Arctic Contamination Action Programme) meeting in Ottawa in September 2009, the development of the Indigenous People Contaminants Action Program Initiative was discussed by representatives from government and from RAIPON. The IPCAP Initiative has been placed under the ACAP Working Group although there are linkages to two other working groups under Arctic Council: AMAP and SDWG. ACAP is an action program and so is the IPCAP initiative also thought to be for hazardous waste management and treatment in indigenous communities in remote area in the Arctic. The Initiative proposes actions to identify and remove local sources of contamination and thereby improve the environment and the human safety and health conditions in indigenous communities.
The past and existing community and industrial development of the Arctic have resulted in increased accumulation of waste. Research confirms that contamination of the environment of the Arctic caused by local sources represents a growing threat to the environment and to human safety and health in the Arctic. Under the Arctic Council, ACAP was established in 2006 for assessment, treatment and disposal of waste causing pollution. Public waste management and treatment are not well developed in remote Arctic communities, and local knowledge of hazardous waste and its treatment and contamination risks are low. Due to traditional living conditions the indigenous peoples of the Arctic are the ones most exposed to higher levels of environmental contaminants. The work for developing this initiative continues. The implementation of the initiative is expected to start during 2010 and it will have character of being a pilot project.
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Arctic Indigenous Languages Symposium in Yakutsk
The symposium focused on indigenous languages in the Sakha Republic, which is home to 26 indigenous languages. Several research groups from Sakha presented their research results and their on-going work. Presentations outlined the systematic approach to document these indigenous languages and the initiated revitalization of some of them. The linguistic rights, written formulation, development of textbooks, focus on different cultural expressions and printing of literature and textbooks were among the issues discussed.
Teaching in indigenous languages is being intensified in the Sakha Republic through language policies and a systematic approach in developing educational materials. The Sakha Republic has extensive working relationships with the neighboring political entities and with the international research community dealing with those issues.
There are several educational and research institutes that focus on the indigenous cultures and languages of the Russian Federation. Some have existed for several years and are now producing and reprinting cultural and education materials as well as indigenous literature both in the forms of traditional tales and poetry of today.
Participants in the symposium included national and international experts from UNESCO (UN-New York), Oqaasileriffik (Greenland Self Rule), Catalan (Barcelona, Spain), the University of Chicago (USA), the University of Leiden (Holland) and the Herzen Institute of St. Petersburg (Russian Federation) and Moscow University (Russian Federation). Representatives from neighboring political entities (Magadan Oblast, Sakhalin Oblast, Kamchatka Krai, Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, Khanty-Mansisk Autonomous Okrug, Karelia Republic) and from Permanent Participants to the Arctic Council (Arctic Athapascan Council and RAIPON) were also invited to participate in the symposium on Indigenous Languages of Siberian Languages.
The proceedings of the symposium will be distributed to the participating institutions and organizations as well as other groups interested in the symposium, such as the Arctic Council.
Source: Carl Christian Olsen
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Black Carbon: A short-lived climate-forcing agent
Black Carbon is one of the short-lived climate forcing agents (tropospheric ozone and methane are SLCF's too). Black Carbon is an air pollutant composed of very fine particles of carbon that can be released into the air in aerosol form. Black Carbon is created by the incomplete combustion of fossil fuels (diesel and coal particularly), bio-fuels, and biomass. Carbon dioxide (CO2), on the other hand is the most well-known greenhouse gas, but is not as such a toxic substance. In fact, plants utilize CO2 in the photosynthesis. The problem with CO2 is its accumulation in the atmosphere and its ways of heating it up.
When Black Carbon from the atmosphere in Arctic areas is deposited on ice and snow it makes the ice and snow packs darker, reducing the Albedo effect (the ability to reflect sunlight). The effect it has on snow covered sea ice is much more pronounced because as the snow melts, the Black Carbon accumulates on the ice surface in high concentrations. That makes snow and ice absorb more heat and thereby accelerates melting in summer months, which is the kind of feedback loop that practically defines the climate change problem.
Black Carbon has another characteristic which has drawn attention in the climate change debate. While CO2 has a life of up to about 40 years in the atmosphere, Black Carbon remains in the atmosphere for a matter of weeks.
Black Carbon is considered responsible for having an important impact of the Arctic melting. Due to Black Carbons short life, it is expected that emission reductions can rapidly reduce the rate at which Arctic ice is melting and therefore presents a unique opportunity to have an immediate impact on climate change.
Debates are taking place in the international forums on the benefits of respectively reducing the emissions of Black Carbon and mitigating CO2 emission. Black Carbon reductions have more certain and immediate benefits, while reductions in CO2 emissions through CO2 mitigation will probably also have positive effects on climate change however it will only be realized over the longer term. However action on Black Carbon is not seen as an alternative to action on CO2.
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