Sustainability in the Increasingly Accessible Arctic

Speakers

• Frederic Hauge, President, The Bellona Foundation
• Ryan Schuchard, Manager, Climate and Energy, BSR (Moderator)

Highlights

• Around the world, the topography of resource availability is changing and its effects on both the environment and business are monumental. Nowhere is that truer than in the Arctic, where melting sea ice is giving way to new shipping lanes, oil and gas companies are exploring more remote, pristine areas, and nations are making territorial claims.

• While business is increasingly engaging in the Arctic, the necessary regulations are not yet in place to protect the region. This means that business faces significant pressures to lead the sustainability agenda.

• A sustainable future in the Arctic will depend on stakeholder collaboration, industry regulations, and business transparency.

Memorable Quotes

“It’s important to create awareness and ensure that people all over the world know that the Arctic is absolutely essential to the planet’s sustainability.” —Frederic Hauge, The Bellona Foundation

“What we see in the Arctic is an extreme sign that climate change is going much faster than we expected just a few years ago.” —Frederic Hauge, The Bellona Foundation

“We should not resign because we don’t have an international agreement [protecting the Arctic]; we should instead push industry agreement.” —Frederic Hauge, The Bellona Foundation

Overview

BSR’s Schuchard set the stage for the day’s discussion by highlighting the rapid changes and growing importance of the Arctic. With global warming significantly changing the Arctic climate, the Arctic seas hit their second-lowest level in recorded history, leading to a new record speed for a tanker crossing—just six and a half days. This has led to an oil, gas, and mineral rush in the increasingly accessible Arctic. These changes prompted Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to say that the Arctic Ocean will rival the Suez Canal as a trade route, leading to a “new era of Arctic industrialization.” Given the changing climate and increased access to resources, the challenge of sustainability is greater than ever before.

Introducing Hauge, Schuchard highlighted The Bellona Foundation’s activism around Arctic preservation. Hauge then outlined what he views as the key challenges facing the region, including: the increased speed at which ice is melting; the hunt for resources by government and business; lack of environmental regulations; fishing piracy; and increased pollution.

Recognizing that business has been present in the region for 500 years with fishermen casting their nets well before industrialization, Hauge revealed that the speed of business expansion in the region is unprecedented, with fishing, shipping, and oil and gas industries operating to much larger extents than ever before.

Hauge argues that one of the key problems is that regulation has not caught up with climate change, leaving few environmental protections in the Arctic. Unlike the situation in the Antarctic, there have been no international agreements over how to protect the land, and increasing contestation over who has control of certain regions. With countries putting forward territorial claims, the focus has been less on how to ensure international cooperation on climate issues, and more on which country has the right to access the region’s precious resources.

While governments—including the United States, Canada, Norway, and the EU—are trying to determine where the continental divide lies, and the Russian government recently claimed victory over the establishment of sovereign land in the region, the attention has turned to industry agreements. Hauge argued that the shipping and oil and gas industries should follow a model similar to that of the fishing industry, which was able to reduce fishing piracy by 50 percent through industry agreements. This model then shifts the pressure further up the supply chain to companies that must ensure the fish they purchase comes with the necessary documentation proving that it was sourced from regulated waters.

Closing his presentation, Hauge argued that companies need to be more open and honest about their activities in the Arctic. In addition, they should be working in collaboration with NGOs, multilaterals, governments, local communities, and other stakeholders to engage in discussion and learn best practices. Finally, he encouraged companies to minimize their impacts via new technologies and reduced engagement in the region.