Climate negotiators to meet in Greenland

Meltwater canyon carved in Greenland glacier: photo by Sarah Das, Woods Hole Oceanographic InstitutionDanish Climate Minster Connie Hedegaard, who is committed to meaningful climate action, just invited the major countries' environment ministers and representatives of the world's biggest polluters to meet her in Greenland before the December summit in Copenhagen. She hopes it will "change points of view and go further in its conclusions than those in other forums" -- such as polluter-state proposals at Poznan, Bonn, Beijing, Tokyo, Washington and current G8 talks in Italy, many of which will actually increase global warming.

Using "melting Greenland" to emphasize the urgency is a good idea, says Geoffrey Lean in Grist 30 Jun 09. He was a participant in Orthodox Patriarch Bartholemew's symposium there -- see our previous post. Lean recalls, "You can hear the howling of the idle dogs... all over Ilulissat," but even louder is the sound of pieces breaking off the Sermeq Kujalleq glacier, like "gunshots" or "thunder". The glacier is melting, racing towards the sea at 10 miles a year, 5 times faster than a decade ago. Scientists were shocked when it leaped ahead 3 miles in 90 minutes.

Why? Because meltwater is carving in great waterfalls down to the bedrock, creating "a lake 500 meters deep under the glacier, lifting the ice" and making a water-slide to the sea. Says Lean, "Much the same is happening all around Greenland, causing its ice-cap to melt far faster than... expected, contributing to the inevitable rising of the world’s seas."

See also a recent report by U of Colorado scientist Konrad Steffen, and jokulhlaups (flash floods) reported in Alaska and Greenland. Inuit leader Sheila Watt-Cloutier describes its effect on native people's lives.

The right to be cold - by Sheila Watt-Cloutier

photo: earthjustice.org
According to the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, there is enormous evidence that our climate is changing very rapidly. The Arctic is getting warmer a lot quicker than anywhere else. And our hunters and elders have been noticing so many changes in the last decade. The ice is depleting—forming later in the year and breaking up earlier in the spring—leaving sea-ice hunting time a lot shorter for us as well as for the polar bears who are also sea hunters. That is quite an alarm for us.

The coast is literally eroding in Western Canada and Alaska, the permafrost is quickly melting, and we’ve had to move people’s homes. The glaciers are also melting quite rapidly. Streams that hunters used to be [able to] cross have now become torrent rivers, and we’ve had drownings.

We’ve also been witnessing a lot of different species of insects, birds and fish that are finding their way up into the Arctic because of the warming. Our cultural survival is at stake as well... We have never lost that strong, strong connection to our way of life even in terms of all the changes we’ve been going through in becoming wage earners and institutionalized. We are trying to maintain our way of life that has sustained us for millennia. We have never yet depleted one species of an animal in that millennia, so we know a little bit about sustainability....

What happens to the planet happens first up here. We are hoping that the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights can declare this as a violation of the human rights of the Inuit of the world [see inset below]. Then we can be given a bit of an equal playing field when the two hemispheres negotiate these things globally. Right now we are barely on the radar screen.

Article VII. Right to Cultural integrity 1. Indigenous peoples have the right to their cultural integrity, and their historical and archeological heritage, which are important both for their survival as well as for the identity of their members. 2. Indigenous peoples are entitled to restitution in respect of the property of which they have been dispossessed, and where that is not possible, compensation on a basis not less favorable than the standard of international law. 3. The states shall recognize and respect indigenous ways of life, customs, traditions, forms of social, economic and political organization, institutions, practices, beliefs and values, use of dress, and languages. The Right to Cultural integrity, in proposed Rights of Indigenous Peoples addition to the OAS Convention on Human rights

What is happening in the Arctic is very much a connectivity issue. I’ve always said that the Inuit hunters falling through the depleting ice here is connected to the cars we drive, and is connected to the disposable world that we have become, and the industries that we’ve come to rely upon. [The fact] that Inuit mothers have to think twice about nursing their babies should surely be a wake up call. My hope is that we can have the world understand through our story and our challenges that the planet and its people are one.

-- Excerpted from “The Right to be cold” Satya interview with Sheila Watt Cloutier at COP-15. See full text.

Originally from Kuujjuaq, Nunavik, in Northern Quebec and currently based in Iqaluit, Nunavut, Sheila Watt-Cloutier was the Canadian President of the Inuit Circumpolar Council (the ICC), and International Chair of the ICC 2002-2006, representing 155,000 native people. Though she has been given National Aboriginal and two UN awards, as well as the Order of Canada, successive Canadian governments have avoided taking the action on climate change that she urges. In 2005, she and 62 hunters filed a petition to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, arguing that the effects of emissions and greenhouse gases from the U.S. was a violation of human and cultural rights of the Inuit. She is now working with the Climate Action Project and 1sky.org.

See also
Inuit Tapirisat president Mary Simon "My homeland is melting" 24 Oct 09
Wikipedia on Watt-Cloutier's work and the Washington-based IAHR, her Dec 2007 testimony to IAHR
RealClimate reply to deniers of the 2005 Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA). Many of the deniers were later proven to be funded by fossil-fuel companies.
Pew Centre on Global ClimateChange FAQ on the ACIA global warming effects on the Arctic and the USA
BBC videos from the Canadian Arctic: interviews with Inuit, breakup of Arctic ice shelf 2007.
CBC videos and updates on climate, Arctic
US-based EarthJustice news on Arctic

Greenland Symposium on Religion, Science, and the Environment

The quotation below is mainly from Harvard Forum on Religion and Ecology (FORE) members John and Mary Evelyn Tucker, who joined the head of the Greek Orthodox Church last September, in a climate change symposium in Greenland. Bartholomew, known as the "Green Patriarch", has been a leader in interfaith action since 1995. ---------------------- photo: from Elizabeth Adams blog

On the first day the participants gathered onboard the symposium vessel anchored near one of the largest glaciers in the world which is designated as a World Heritage site. In the turquoise glow of the mountainous ice, the Patriarch joined in silent prayer with other religious leaders [a Catholic cardinal, a Lutheran bishop, representatives from both Sunni and Shia Islam, the former chief Rabbi of France, and a Japanese Buddhist. Then he turned slowly to face the glacier, bringing attention to the grandeur of nature. As he did so a smaller boat approached filled with an Inuit choir singing hymns in their language. The overall effect was mesmerizing as distant kayakers moved in.

The symposium brought together climate change scientists, environmentalists, academics, and journalists along with political and religious leaders. The native Inuit participants reflected a range of views: concern for a way of life that is rapidly disappearing in the face of the melting ice, as well as the opportunities that are opening up for new vegetable crops, mining, and expanded ecotourism. Their sense of loss is profound.

Several leading scientists outlined the rapidly changing conditions in the Arctic. Robert Correll, a long time Arctic specialist, described the build-up of water under the Greenland ice sheet. "Melt-water rivers under the glacier are like applying oil to a surface, causing it to surge into the sea... events are happening far faster than we ever anticipated.” Recent seasonal melting in the Arctic icecap is so great that in the summer it constitutes a "new world ocean" with unknown impacts on sea currents and weather. It was overwhelming to realize the effects we are having on this part of the world.

A panel debated nuclear power as an alternative to fossil fuels and global warming. Hans Blix, former director of the International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA), spoke strongly in favor of nuclear energy, which ecologists James Lovelock and Stuart Brand now support. while Mary Evelyn Tucker argued against its use due to safety issues, the problem of waste disposal, and the huge cost of constructing and protecting such plants.

See more on multifaith environmental work and Patriarch Bartholemew. His Religion Science and Environment and UK sites. BBC report 4 Feb 08 on Greenland as one of 9 tipping points. A comparison of nuclear with other energies. Recent activity by the nuclear lobby in the UK, USA, Spain, Canada. George Montbiot's detailed analysis of solutions to climate change.