U.S. icebreakers can't handle Alaska oil spills: official

The U.S. Coast Guard does not have enough working icebreakers to respond to a major oil spill in Alaskan waters, the top official who oversaw the containment of the BP oil spill warned Congress on Friday.

"The current condition of the Coast Guard icebreaker fleet should be of great concern to the senior leaders of this nation," General Thad Allen testified at a House Transportation subcommittee hearing on last summer's oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Allen said two of the three ice breakers do not work and decisions on future funding for the fleet continued to be delayed. "Nobody is talking about the icebreaker capability problem," he said.

Similar concerns about icebreakers were raised by the special presidential commission that looked into the BP oil spill and government offshore drilling regulations.

Allen said current infrastructure is inadequate to support extensive response and recovery operations off Alaska's North Slope, except for oil industry facilities at Dead Horse and Prudhoe Bay.

"Point Barrow, the only location close to the new Beaufort and Chukchi Sea lease areas, has limited access and no ability to support large-scale operations," he said.

Allen said the closest port with any capacity to handle rescue ships is Nome, but it is restricted to vessels with hulls that don't go more than 21 feet below the water line.

Source:
Reuters,"U.S. icebreakers can't handle Alaska oil spills: official", by Tom Doggett, accessed February 14, 2011

Climate change could lead to Arctic conflict, warns senior Nato commander

Global warming and a race for resources could spark a new 'cold war' in the Arctic, a US naval admiral warns ahead of key talks on environmental security. One of NATO's most senior commanders has warned that global warming and a race for resources could lead to conflict in the Arctic.

The comments, by Admiral James G Stavridis, (at right) supreme allied commander for Europe, come as NATO countries convene on Wednesday for groundbreaking talks on environmental security in the Arctic Ocean.

The discussions, in the format of a "workshop", with joint Russian leadership, are an attempt to create dialogue with Moscow aimed at averting a second cold war.

"For now, the disputes in the north have been dealt with peacefully, but climate change could alter the equilibrium over the coming years in the race of temptation for exploitation of more readily accessible natural resources," said Stavridis.

The US naval admiral believes military forces have an important role to play in the area – but mainly for specialist assistance around commercial and other interests.

"The cascading interests and broad implications stemming from the effects of climate change should cause today's global leaders to take stock, and unify their efforts to ensure the Arctic remains a zone of co-operation – rather than proceed down the icy slope towards a zone of competition, or worse a zone of conflict," he added.

Stavridis made his views known in a foreword to a Whitehall paper, entitled Environmental security in the Arctic Ocean: promoting co-operation and preventing conflict, written by Prof Paul Berkman, head of the Arctic Ocean geopolitics program at the University of Cambridge.

The discussions take place at the Scott Polar Institute (at left); which is Cambridge University's polar studies department, and where Berkman is based. Theses discussions have been given impetus by the speed of change around the north pole where the ice cap is melting and oil and other minerals are becoming available for extraction.

In recent weeks, Cairn Energy has announced the first oil and gas discoveries off Greenland and a wave of new mining licenses are about to be awarded there. There are similar moves to produce gas in the far north of Russia and Norway, all in the shadow of BP's Gulf of Mexico's oil spill.

Vladimir Putin, (below left) the Russian prime minister, spoke about our "common responsibility" at the international forum on the Arctic in Moscow two weeks ago. He is aware the melting ice offers access to reserves of oil and minerals, as well as new shipping lanes, but that the Arctic is an "area for co-operation and dialogue".

Berkman, a key figure in organizing the workshop, with funding from the NATO science for peace and security program, said the challenge is to balance national and common interests in the Arctic Ocean in the interests of all humankind.

"Strategic long-range ballistic missiles or other such military assets for national security purposes in the Arctic Ocean are no less dangerous today than they were during the cold war. In effect, the cold war never ended in the Arctic Ocean."

Building on the interdisciplinary discussions with academics, government administrators, politicians, and industry representatives, Berkman said the workshop should be a major first step towards building a dialogue that both considers strategies to promote co-operation as well as prevent conflict in the Arctic Ocean.

As Stavridis noted: "Melting of the polar ice cap is a global concern because it has the potential to alter the geopolitical balance in the Arctic heretofore frozen in time."

Source:
The Guardian, "Climate change could lead to Arctic conflict, warns senior Nato commander", accessed October 12, 2010

Russia presents vision for Arctic wealth

Three years after Russian divers thrust a rust-proof flag into the seabed below the North Pole, the country is again staking its claim on the Arctic region.

An international forum held in Moscow Wednesday aimed to "present the world community with a picture of the region's future as it is seen by the Russian experts," according to Sergei Shoigu, the President of the Russian Geographical Society (RGS) who is also the country's Emergencies Minister.

The Arctic contains a vast wealth of untapped oil and natural gas, according to a report released in July 2010 by the U.S. Geological Survey.

It estimated that the amount of "undiscovered, technically recoverable" oil north of the Arctic Circle was more than double the amount that had been previously found in the Arctic. It added that the Arctic contained more than three times as much undiscovered gas as oil, most of which was in the Russian Arctic.

Russia has long sought to claim rights to the waters of the Arctic Ocean off Russia, including its much-publicized expedition to plant the Russian flag on the Arctic sea floor in August 2007.

On Wednesday, it announced plans to start work soon on a new atlas of the Arctic, a task Sergei Shoigu described as requiring "extensive, serious work."

He said it would include descriptions on potentially dangerous areas in the Arctic which may be of interest to companies working in the region.

Along with having the largest land mass in the Arctic, Russians account for half of the Arctic's population and the most populous towns above the Arctic Circle lie in Russia, according to the Russian Geographical Society.

"Russia is distinct from other Arctic nations in that a large share of its population actually lives in the Arctic region," Russian Presidential Advisor for Climate Alexander Bedritsky (left) told the Arctic Forum.

"Russia's Arctic sector, inhabited by 1.5 percent of the country's population, accounts for 11 percent of its GDP and 22 percent of its exports," Bedritsky said.

While Russia counts for the bulk of Arctic land, seven other states have land in Arctic territory: Canada, Denmark (Greenland), the United States (Alaska), Iceland, Norway, Sweden, and Finland.

No single country owns the geographic North Pole or the Arctic Ocean, which covers around one third of the total area. Under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, the eight states have jurisdiction over waters extending 12 nautical miles from their shore, and their exclusive economic zones stretch up to 200 nautical miles into the Arctic Ocean.

Russia is among a number of countries seeking to extend their jurisdiction by gathering scientific data to back their case for consideration by the United Nations Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf.

Russia and Canada clashed as recently as last week over which country controls the Lomonosov Ridge (left), a mountain chain running underneath the Arctic.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Russian explorers had confirmed that the ridge was a continuation of Russia's continental shelf, despite Canada's claims otherwise.

"The decision should be based on scientific facts. The Commission will solve who is right," Lavrov (right) said, according to Russian news agency Itar-Tass News.

In August, Canadian Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon (left) said establishing sovereignty in the Arctic was the country's "top foreign-policy priority."

"That is why we are making new and targeted investments, be they patrol ships, a new polar-class icebreaker, reinforcements to our Canadian Rangers, better monitoring of our airspace and seas and the list goes on," he said.

The melting of ice in the Arctic through climate change has opened up a region that was once inaccessible.

In mid-September, the U.S. National Ice and Snow Data Center at the University of Colorado reported that this summer the Arctic sea ice reached the third lowest level ever recorded.

"We are still looking at summers with an ice-free Arctic Ocean in perhaps 20 to 30 years," said Mark Serreze, University of Colorado geography professor and director of the NISDC.

Environmental group Greenpeace says Russia's decision to assemble international experts at a Moscow forum was a further attempt to stake its claim on the region's resources.

"The more people talk about it the better it is but I think the reality is that the gunfight has already started," said Charlie Kronick, the group's senior climate advisor.

He said rather than "chasing the last drop of oil" governments would do better to spend their time and money making greater efforts to curb energy demand.

"What we would say is 'don't even think about digging this stuff up -- it is crazy at the moment and the first thing we need to do is to reduce demand,'" he said.

He added: "However big the notional oil and gas reserves are up in the Arctic, we have already got more oil and gas than we can afford to burn if we don't want to cook the climate."

Source:
CNN, "Russia presents vision for Arctic wealth", accessed September 24, 2010

From the Inbox - Oil spills in the Arctic? Help us prevent this!

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Dear Friend,

As oil continues to gush into Gulf Coast waters, it's clear that the worst damage still lies ahead.

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