19 April –

Forum for Arctic

Climate Change and Security

Stockholm

Capstone Seminar
Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Art
14:00 – 14:30  Opening Remarks
Arctic Forum workshop summaries: geoeconomics, geopolitics, and security cooperation
Dr. Jeffrey Mazo
Managing Editor, Survival, Research Fellow for Environmental Security and Science Policy, IISS

Getting started here a little after 2PM, J. Mazo thanking folks for coming, thank yous to Carl Bildt, talking about his long affiliation at IISS, now talking about IISS’s long history on security and foundation’s focus initially on nuclear proliferation, but today on the Arctic.

Rapid climate change in the Arctic – studies, led by J. Mazo, and his colleague [??], and country expertise with IISS Russian and Eurasian departments alongside early career researcher participation, Shilo Fetzek [with whom I enjoyed a dinner yesterday at the Swedish ministry of foreign affairs, ed.], three expert level workshops, London, Brussels, Washington, brought together senior officials and experts from 19 countries, NGOs, Indigenous, etc., “conducted under Chattam House rules” so I can’t tell you who was involved but pamphlets on the projects are available [speaking of the other workshops].

Now talking about the specifics of each workshop: first focused on impact on Asian emerging economies by opening up the Arctic sea route, and levels of inclusion in decision making processes – time scales of development are delayed than typically reported in the Arctic; second focused on military and search and rescue, consensus of risk of contention would be resolved diplomatically, but that knowledge sharing is essential; final workshop in December, in DC, future prospects for cooperation in the Arctic, safety and security needs-academic debates surrounding future conflict seems robust and lively, but cooperation and among state actors appears to hinge on highly useful forums like Arctic Council, and others, addressing sensitive issues as the Arctic opens.

Potential cooperation rather than competition, but needs architecture of knowledge sharing and security, in the backdrop of environmental changes.

Scientific knowledge is incomplete esp. timing of events in relation to social and geopolitical developments. Despite an overall atmosphere of cooperation, there are areas of creeping military and antagonistic potential in the context of strategic developments.

Finally, there is a need for new formal security architectures and government structures.

So, in general, a background on these topics.

Swedish and Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Canadian and Japanese govt. funds sponsored today’s workshop.

Tweeting: Hash tag. IISS

14:30 – 15:30 Keynote Discussion
Policy directions for Arctic stability
Chair: Adam Ward, Director of Studies, IISS
Carl Bildt, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sweden
Erkki Tuomioja, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Finland

Ward: Fabulous to be surrounded by such magnificent portraiture. Introducing the security tensions that could emerge, and neutralizing that potential. How is it possible to achieve stability needed and required against backdrop of great dynamism, globalization of the Arctic, climate change….

Bildt: Among the paintings and sculptures, celebrating IISS, we see rapid increase in Arctic developments, and the role of IISS in framing issues is very significant.

Sweden and Finland, lumping us together, we are not by the Arctic sea, but we are nations with an interest and intensive experience in Arctic regions, mentioning a navigator [?], Swede from Finland, a Russian subject but voyage financed through Sweden. We are the nations in the world with IceBreakers and Ice experience, because of our location in the Baltic, so we have a long tradition of Arctic experience, scientific work.

We are now in a phase of the Arctic opening up, it is a scary story, climate change 2x as fast in the Arctic, things that we must and should do as Arctic Council, actively, but overall it is a global issue at the global level, we should have the same global regime operating in the Arctic, UNCLOS.

The possibility of the Trans-Polar, the northern passage, right across the top of the Arctic, which we should have in mind, not within the foreseeable future, as a trade route that directly competes with Suez, 40 percent shorter, but still colder, and container traffic, which requires timelines, maybe not, but for bulk shipping, mining etc. yes.

Oil and gas development will be somewhat slower than what we read about in the media, and in areas that are fairly accessible, Barents, Norway, Russia, but not in Alaska, for example, in Alaska, as seen in Shell’s recent problems. Probably faster than mining. On the environmental side, we also have to deal with retreat of permafrost, and methane release.

Arctic Council, 1996, Rovaneimi process, in the last few years, it has expanded, two years ago, the first legal binding issue on search and rescue among the 8 states, and on oil spills, we signed a legal binding agreement requesting best technologies. Opened permanent secretariat in Tromsø.

Arctic Council will be a model for other parts of the world: A firm basis in international legality, leaving a mark in global diplomacy, with open access.

Question by Ward: You mention global importance, do you think there should be a global framework?

Bildt: Sovereign rule with international legality…

Tuomioja: Repetition is the mother of learning [referring to his plans to repeat what the Swedish Minister just stated]. Finland, we had access to the Arctic, but that is neither here nor there now [significant way to begin, noted by others during coffee break].

But we have a lot of know-how. Finnish Ice-breakers, whenever you need icebreakers just turn to us.

Nordic security point — the ice is melting, that is the key factor behind all the opportunities behind the discussions on the opening of the Arctic.

One degree elsewhere means 2 degree in the Arctic, and then we have melting of everything, but no one can tell what will be, so we have uncertainty.

My speech writers identified this seminar as a key meeting ahead of the Kirina meeting. A few words about the Arctic Council itself. Relatively young organization, 1996, foundations laid in 1991, a long way in a short period, focusing originally on the impact of pollutants from outside the Arctic, and now, focusing on globalization impacts in the arctic, and a very clear and human dimension, oil and gas, and one by one added to the agenda of the Arctic Council.

The concept of Security was originally omitted from the foundational documents. Not necessarily a military issue, but hydrocarbon development, biodiversity, increased shipping, fish stocks, environmental capacity, not in any sense security issues in the Military sense, but are a real security issue for human livelihoods.

We don’t need confrontation, but cooperation. Global issues not generated by the Arctic, but perhaps reflected in discussions on the Arctic. As with Carl [Bildt] I think the Arctic Council is a good model for other regional cooperation, the fact that 5 Nordic countries involved helps [joke]… Observers, have something of a bigger role, is important to have the European Union as an observer, bring knowledge and resources.

Ward: Taking questions

Q: The rise of the Arctic 5, what is your view on the recently launched Arctic Cyclone?
A: ?

Q: How do you feel that Sweden and Finland are sidelined by the Arctic 5 (countries with access to the Ocean).
A: Non-littoral countries are appreciated, so there are no real threats to being left out. US has surprising rudimentary capabilities for maintaining Arctic presence. We have icebreakers.

Q: Will Arctic Council strengthen its institutional capacity with other organizations?
A: I doubt you will see the Arctic Council as much, I don’t see it developing as a foreign affairs council as such, like the European Union [Bildt].

Q: Swedish chairmanship — can you comment on the incoming chairmanship. Any specific questions you may have.
A: [Bildt] — They will emphasize economic and Indigenous issues, only look at a map, [so] continuity and augmentation. There’s more questions on what happens thereafter. Right now, Arctic is a low on the issues list in the US, so they will have to ramp up when they take over in 2 years, and John Kerry as Sect. of State has an active interest in this area [Ward: is it sufficient?] — America has an uncanny ability to turn itself around on issues.

Space assets, are key to understanding the Arctic, and coordinating all these space assets is crucial to developing an understanding of the Arctic.

Q: How about Greenland?
A: [Bildt] — a new government, democratic debate, and now has autonomy, exercising their right to make decisions. New Prime Minister in Copenhagen recently, and Denmark sort of accepts that decisions are going to be made by Greenland.

Q: If the story of the Antarctic treaty has any fundamental affects on the Arctic? Developing an authority. My other comment is that when you emphasize Finland and Sweden, there is also an expertise by countries on infrastructure, from countries in the south, Germany and China, which has icebreakers.

A: [Bildt]: There are no Arctic solutions for oil and gas development — but global solutions. Pace of development will be reduced by lower natural gas prices.

Q: If we are preparing even for 5% of development, but for the potential of development and the risks that ensue. Non development is a non-issue. Fairly certain that ice is melting, and of the iron ore prices and oil and gas prices. One way or the other, there is going to be development. There will be significantly more development in the Arctic no matter what.

15:30 – 15:45 Coffee Break
Okay, great coffee break. I chatted with Pavel Baev and Katri Pynnöniemi, Researcher, Ulkopoliittinen Intituutti [Finnish Institute of International Affairs] — They enjoyed my comments about why we do not hear any presentations on steps to non-development. Oliver Truc, journalist and foreign correspondent for Paris’ Le Monde newspaper brought me aside and recorded a few of my off handed remarks, inside one of the art galleries nearby the coffee room.

15:45– 16:30 Responses I
Economics and development
Chair: Shiloh Fetzek, Research Analyst for Climate Change and Security, IISS

Pavel Baev, Research Professor, Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO)
Now we have Tamnes [see below]. Rapid increase in global interest in Arctic. Since the start of the new Putin administration, the Arctic has decreased in importance, now different issues occupy his attention. Russian politics there is a shift toward the Far East, caused by the rise and slow down of China, and Russia needs to relate to the United States pivoting there, that is why more money goes there. Yes the Arctic has some programs moving forward, that are delayed, and there is money promised, but the Arctic has slipped down, nothing that you would expect (because of the flag plotting, and Russia discovered its position of strength), but in the end, nothing much. And this relates another point, concerning oil and gas development — looks very different every day, not somewhat slower, but Hugely slower, not only Russia finds it difficult to relate to this, but EU common energy policy based on directives before the crisis, which is about robust arctic oil and gas development.

Arctic is primarily about gas, and Russia cannot deal with that, and therefore, slips into denial, with Gazprom remarking that shale gas is all Hollywood, smoke and mirrors, and just a couple years ago in Russian assessments completely inflated numbers about oil and gas, based on USGS 20% undiscovered, because in Russia, the real potential became just the real, and all this was building and then finally, Shtokman dropped last year, and Statoil wanted out, wondering what would happen, but then it did happen and nothing happened, and not only that there is no way to make it environmentally safe after all.

My last comment is about Arctic Council — What drives it on the Russian side. There is a huge project about expanding Russian continental shelf, and they are still working on it, Russian’s perfect understanding is never about evidence but about neighbors.

Generally, working with the 5 partners, they will carve up the Arctic and that will be that.

Dr. Bjørn Gunnarsson, Managing Director, Centre for High North Logistics
Now talking about economic development opportunities, no more realistic than ever before, interest from Russia and other countries and high commodity prices. But increasingly essential to establish infrastructure, design for operation on and off shore, the Arctic region lacks much of the infrastructure necessary to monitor these resource extraction industries, remoteness, bitter cold, and severe storms, icing, unpredictable ice flows, increased coastal erosion, permafrost thawing, have the potential of increasing cost of maintaining infrastructure for 10s to hundreds of billions of dollars.

16 days to Shanghai in comparison to Suez, one saves up to 40% travel time, CO2 greenhouse gases, oil. But several deficiencies, if Arctic emerges as trade route, task at hand is to develop infrastructure necessary for meeting the safety and logistic needs of stakeholders. Requires pollution prevention, reliability…

First step in addressing challenges: Detailed assessment of existing infrastructure of the Arctic, available facilities, we need to know what is currently there, to identify state of affairs, and be necessary base line for projecting future activities. Recent effort to do that is Arctic Council’s Marine initiative. AMATI, will help policy makers with an inventory of what infrastructure is in place and what is needed. The effort and Arctic will generate an Arctic maritime data base and web-based map.

Second step — followed by a circumpolar modeling of infrastructure required for emergency response and development, with graphic component and GIS mapping, various components of the chain should be tied together, volumes and trade flows — the need to create off-shore hubs for travel — the harbors are all too shallow, floating units are cheaper to build than land base units. Loose infrastructure and mobile assets need to be created, interconnected with important roadways, river transport, rail, airports. If the Arctic is to be a competitive for Suez, it needs to be all year, and established with all of these infrastructure issues. But the Arctic ocean will refreeze during the winter months. This will require, high-ice class cargo ships with assistance in teams. And they should be connected to “Hubs” — with non strengthened feeder ships located in Aleutians and Barents on either side. Should be based on logics, science, and sensible (read: not politics). “Without any political implications.”

Third Step: international partnership for putting in Arctic international transport system would need to be put in place, some kind of funding mechanism needs to be put in place, a Transnational Arctic Bank or Arctic Bank — like World Bank, which can finance and open possibility of attracting sovereign wealth funds, for investment, and all the countries need to be involved . Without cost sharing, the upfront capital costs are prohibitive, infrastructure maintenance would be partly funded through user fees. Most of this transport activity will originate within the Barents and Kara seas, and east of the Urals, where oil and gas takes place, and large Russian rivers heading North, can provide commercial opportunities for facilitating development of Siberia. And then there is China, 90% of trade carried by sea, looking for Arctic trade routes and strengthening ties with Russia. “The potential possibility of trade through Arctic is too great to ignore” — requires capacity building (quoting from Director General of Shanghai Polar Research Institute)– Finally, as Arctic and non-Arctic countries pursue oil and gas development, minerals, tourism, an international region wide planning approach needs to be created and improved understanding of cumulative impacts.

Q: About arctic council and China, regarding Russia mainly.

A: [Baev] — the strategy of 2020 is approved earlier this year, which means 3 years too late, first targets to 2015 should be met, but have all been emptied out of purpose, as far as national security, in Russian strategic thinking, if US builds a strategic field, the Arctic must be there, deploying land assets in the Arctic zone, but since US is not serious about Strategic Field, the response is low. And spirit of cooperation perhaps will vanish?

A: [Gunnarsson] — Russian and China cooperation, but needs to include energy companies, commercial shipping industries, a joint effort to establish infrastructure, if indeed that is something that is wanted.

We need to look at the big picture, but not a little puzzle pieces. How does the infrastructure that is needed, how will that impact the migration of mammals, etc.

Website on Marine Infrastructure: http://arcticinfrastructure.org

16:30 – 17:15  Responses II

Politics and security
Chair: Christian Le Mière, Senior Fellow for Naval Forces and Maritime Security, IISS

Rolf Tamnes, Professor, Norwegian Institute for Defense Studies (IFS)
Okay, last meeting of the day. Well I would like to start by drawing your attention to two very brief points: Transformation for the Arctic belongs to the distant future, related to oil and gas development and shipping, what we end up in the short and medium term perspective, is destinational traffic and mineral development. I would not exclude oil and gas development, but you know better than me the impact of unconventional oil and gas development and the extremely high costs of developing the Arctic. The second point is that the conflict potential in the North is very modest, and I think that it is rather fair assessment today and will be tomorrow.

The crisis of today is not in the North and will not be in the North in the near future. There are many reasons for this assessment for low probability, but peace and stability serves the economic interests of the states, almost all resources are all in areas of undisputed areas of jurisdiction, most boundary issues are resolved, and that Russia will come back with a better application for the claiming the shelf. And second, migration of fish, yes we have some history of that in Iceland and UK, but the management of fish in the Barents is very well done. While our goal is not in any sense to disclude possibility, I don’t see any major conflicts and what then are the challenges.

Politics: Institutions. Of course the littoral states have a greater stake, the role of the Arctic 5 in the Council, or the Council — to small to handle the real issues, to big to handle small issues. There is almost no difference between ad hoc status and [?]…

Security the society security — and here we have excellent cooperation, extensive cooperation with Russia, there is potential for developing these cooperations, the challenges that another dimension in the North, and that is the hard core security — Russia is a great power and it has strategic assets up in the North, where the North is less importancy than before, what is left is that the North is the basic region of sovereign status.

Concern in Norway to try to revitalize cooperation so that the Arctic 5 will get back its credibility.

Prof. Paul Berkman, Research Professor, University of California Santa Barbara
Talking about this meeting being a kick off for Kiruna, and that Arctic Council has something to offer. This meeting riffs off of Iceland two weeks ago — so two meetings on security and now Kiruna, first cycle of chairmanships of Arctic Council. We could never have talks about security in 1996. Urgency was to establish basic levels of cooperation. Sustainable development ultimately lies on stability, so the issue of security is a component of stability.

If I asked everyone in this room, each person would have a different definition of security. But I would argue that it means that city or state is dealing with risk of instability — and now we are dealing with an Arctic that has fundamentally changed. If we think of this room, inflow and outflow, the Arctic is no different from this room, inflow and outflow, and now we have a total difference, 50 percent sea ice is different, so if we lifted the ceiling of this room, we would have a different reaction to each other.

As a result, the Arctic is fundamentally changed, and that’s all there is too it, because the environmental change has happened, and as a result there is a situation of instability.

So if we think about this, let’s return to historical purpose, 1987, Murmansk, Gorbachev, scientific exploration in the Arctic is important for all of mankind, setting up a concept much like Antarctica, where science has lead to cooperation. And this led directly to Rovaniemi, concepts, effectively incorporated into the Arctic Council, except the word “Peace” excluded from the Ottawa declaration, in part, because Peace is linked to demilitarization. Peace does not equate with demilitarization.

Now we have a period of low tension. What better circumstance to reflect on peace during a period of low tension. The word Peace began to appear a few years ago, under the Norway Chairmanship.

They have a responsibility to consider issues that lead to conflict — strategies that lead to cooperation, strategies that avoid conflict.

Russia to be the largest beneficiary of the Arctic, but also, that dialogue among the Arctic states has matured, and I would ask the Arctic states whether they are too timid to deal with security and deal with tensions if they ever arrive.

I recently wrote an article to the OP-ED NYTimes, that the United States is really behind the times. So it is unreasonable. But it is disingenuous for Obama to talk about climate change without talking about the Arctic. Also Obama won the Nobel Prize prematurely, and he needs to earn that prize by creating greater dialogue about peace in the Arctic.

Submarines — know exactly how thick the Arctic ice is. The fact that the submarine data has not been declassified — we would have known that the ice was thinking decades before than we did. But we had submarines up and down the Arctic since the 1950s about thickness through upward looking sonar sets.

A security architecture is far to rigid — and a process is required that focuses on balance. Sustainability is one aspect of balancing environment, social and economic welfare. Balancing the future and past is important. If we look at the Arctic as a law of the sea, identifies different zones in the ocean, territorial zone, continental zone, national interests. Then there are international interests, deep sea and high sea. Global challenge — balancing what exists within the boundary of states and outside the boundary of states. Among the issues of balance, are strategies that seek to balance national interests and common interests.

Q: Don’t you think NATOs involvement in the region will influence or spoil the situation?

A: [Tamnes] NATO has been in the North since 1959. So that’s the starting point. Second, in this time of economic austerity, there are limited resources in NATO for establishing authority in the north. Third point, conclusion, there is no interest by NATO countries for getting NATO involved in Arctic Council. No role to play in security of the Arctic. Will taken care of within other frameworks.

Berkman’s response — Military is not only used for force, and we see that in search and rescue, in effect the military is brought into discussion and NATO is a military alliance, and is brought into discussion, and Russia and NATO had a meeting/dialogue at Cambridge talking about search and rescue. All Arctic states have developed their own security dialogue. But there is no shared forum for bring together their shared perspectives to discuss what security means. And NATO had this forum in UK to work with Russians, to work with frameworks that are already in place, environmental protection, and environmental security, as a forum for discussion. NATO involves all Arctic coastal states with exception with Russia.

I am still actively engaged with my Russian colleagues and my policy stakeholders in creating a dialogue to explore these risks that were discussed in isolation.

17:15 – 17:30  Wrap-up
Christian Le Mière, Senior Fellow for Naval Forces and Maritime Security, IISS

Their task was made more difficult by the fact that they are surrounded by naked pictures in the room, but they did a marvelous job.

On Mon, Mar 25, 2013 at 11:54 AM, Shiloh F wrote:
> Your RSVP has been noted and we look forward to meeting you on the 19th.
>
> Best regards,
> Shiloh
>
> Research Analyst for Climate Change and Security
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