 I can finish with a great conversation. We are extremely pleased to have our last, a very distinguished panel of guests. Whoops. Sure, he was already leaving before we start. He needs his cookie. Yes, indeed. But let me briefly begin by introducing our panelists. We begin with having David Ramsey here, Northwest Territories Minister of Justice and Attorney General. He's also serves as Ministry of Industry, Tourism, and Investment in the Northwest Territories. But we like Mr. Ramsey's title of President of the Pacific Northwest Economic Region. So, Minister Ramsey, we are delighted that you can be here and share with us your insights. After Minister Ramsey provides his remarks, we will turn to Dr. Michael Byers, Professor at the University of British Columbia. Anyone who reads Canadian news articles about the Arctic always finds Dr. Byers very insightful quotes about particularly Canadian Arctic policy. Dr. Byers holds a Canadian, a Canada Research Chair in Global Politics and International Law and has been a prolific writer on Arctic sovereignty, climate change, the law of the Sea Treaty, as well as Canada's foreign and defense policy. I highly commend to you his recent publication Who Owns the Arctic Understanding Sovereignty Disputes in the North. It's a terrific guide. So that's the Canadian side of the house. Then we swing to the American side of the shop. And I'm so delighted that Dr. Lawson Brigham, Distinguished Professor of Geography and Arctic Policy at the University of Alaska Fairbanks could make time in his very busy schedule en route from Stockholm back to Alaska. We were sort of the swing place for him to stop in. Lawson co-led the Arctic Maritime Shipping Assessment, the Arctic Council Definitive Study in 2009. And we lean, and I personally lead on Lawson for so much guidance on the Arctic Maritime picture. And we're delighted that you could be with us and a frequent visitor to CSIS. And finally we have Dr. Terry Finge, Senior Policy Advisor with the Arctic Athabascan Council. Terry is the principal of Terry Finge Consulting Incorporated, which specializes in Aboriginal rights and interests. Prior to this position, he served as Director of Research and later Executive Director at the Canadian Arctic Resources Committee, and so provide from an indigenous perspective. So our question is, what does the future hold, the challenges that we must face? And I think we've heard a lot of very interesting topics today, a whole range of issues. So we, this is the panel that puts a nice bow on the package and helps everyone know where we're going. So with that very minimal request, Minister Ramsey, over to you. All right, thank you very much, Heather. It's a pleasure to be back here in Washington. I wanna start off by thanking the Center for Strategic and International Studies and International Governance Innovation for making this event possible today. And I wanna follow, I know John already recognized the Premiers, I think it's great that we have two Premiers from Canada's territories here with us. Our Premier, the Honorable Bob McLeod and the Honorable Peter Taptuna. Also wanted to recognize some friends of mine from Alaska, Representative Bob Herron and Senator Lisa McGuire. As President of the Pacific Northwest Economic Region, I certainly appreciate the opportunity offered to Penwar to contribute to this important planning process leading up to the American Chairmanship of the Arctic Council. And I should also recognize Matt Morrison, Matt's the Executive Director of Penwar, based in Seattle. And of course, everybody in this room knows that the Arctic and matters of the Arctic are gaining a great deal of interest globally. And in my capacity as Minister of Industry, tourism and investment with the government of the Northwest Territories, I take a very keen interest in how the Arctic is being portrayed, not just in North America, but also globally. The Arctic is also a primary focus of the Pacific Northwest Economic Region's Arctic caucus of which I've had the pleasure to chair in the past. And I know my friends from Alaska have also played a key role in the establishment of that Arctic caucus. And I want to thank Senator McGuire for her leadership on that front and also Representative Herron. I'll give you, first off, I just want to give you a quick picture of the Arctic environment that we share as an economic region, as sister nations, and as part of the circumpolar north. Secondly, I want to highlight two important and foundational approaches taken by Canada during its current chairmanship of the Arctic Council, and on which I believe the United States can begin to build on next year. And lastly, I'll leave you with some thoughts as to how the Pacific Northwest Economic Region as an organization can help provide a model for this work. It's very interesting that even in the context of today's global economy, the economies of the world's Arctic regions are, for the most part, not intertwined. Considering the linkages that exist in the Arctic today, transportation, trade, pipelines, roads, rail, marine, or telecommunications, very few travel east to west or around the circumpolar north. Instead, the economic ties that have been built run mostly north to south. When northern resources are developed, it is southern jurisdictions and not our northern neighbors that often benefit the most. What we do is share as countries and regions of the circumpolar north, and we also have and share a number of challenges and issues. Global warming, we've heard many panelists speak of this and climate change are very well documented, but there are other things that we have to focus on. Arctic regions are remote from markets, costs are high, and of course, we've got to deal with some pretty nasty weather from time to time. Small, isolated populations in vast distances create challenges of scale. Much of the Arctic's infrastructure is undeveloped and its resource potential stranded, as you heard our Premier mention earlier. In spite of this, we are seeing a surge of interest in the Arctic. The world is coming to realize what we have always known to be very true, and that is that the Arctic is a beautiful land, it's full of promise, and it is a region that has quickly taken its key strategic place in the future of an increasingly global economy. As the most recognizable and leading intergovernmental forum promoting cooperation, coordination, and interaction among the Arctic states, you need to look no further than the membership list of the Arctic Council observers to recognize the importance the Arctic holds. Countries in the European Union and Asia Pacific and leading world economies like China, India, Japan, and Singapore are all investing and engaged in being part of the Arctic's future. For Northern leaders like myself, the increased scrutiny on the Arctic has highlighted the importance of ensuring appropriate political positions are taken and relative policies put firmly in place. Discussions and deliberations concerning the governance of the Arctic must recognize that there are many different cultures and people who make their home in the Arctic, and it is their insight and guidance that should be foremost in the decisions that influence the business and the economy of this region. The current Chair of the Arctic Council, or Council Honorable Leona Aglucak, is to be commended for her vision and initiative in this regard. She has expanded the focus of the Council first to the people of the Arctic and most recently to its economy. In setting the stage for her work and leadership a year and a half ago, Minister Aglucak announced that the theme of Canada's chairmanship of the Arctic Council would be development for the people of the North. Her actions and the evolving role of the Arctic Council are a reflection of a changing global attitude to the Arctic itself. And in the lead up to Canada's chairmanship of the Arctic Council, Minister Aglucak made her way around the North. She came to visit us, she came to listen to us, and I want to thank her for that work up front. The world's vision of the Arctic has moved beyond debate about its key geographic positioning and environmental protection issues related to climate change, sovereignty and Northern security are being surpassed by the potential for Arctic economic development. The Arctic is one of the world's last stable and relatively untapped regions for natural resources. Nations across the world are hurrying to stake their claims to the Arctic. Countries are engaging in complex territorial claims to parts of the seabed and striving to claim the utmost reaches of their coastlines. The Arctic is the last frontier of exploration and potential and the prize, ladies and gentlemen, is huge. Collectively, the Arctic's resources are vast and varied. Melting Arctic ice has made way for shipping routes and the exploration of resources at the bottom of the world's smallest ocean. Cruise lines are sailing Arctic waters and increasingly large numbers. Cargo traffic along the Northern Sea route in Russia is on the rise. By design or otherwise, the economic potential of the Arctic has come to the forefront. The Arctic Council has recognized this in its creation of the Arctic Economic Council, which met for the first time earlier this month in Akaluit, Nunavut. Similar to the role played by the Pacific Northwest Economic Region in the Pacific Northwest, the Arctic Economic Council will be pivotal in advancing the economic interests of its member regions in the circumpolar north. The creation of this organization is a remarkable achievement and offers a forum for Arctic Council members to discuss common economic interests in resource development, transportation, and communications in tourism. The Arctic Economic Council is a visionary and foundational initiative on which I believe the United States will want to build upon. To that point, what are the elements that can be taken from our success as the Pacific Northwest Economic Region? The first would be structure. In its 23-year history, PENWAR has distinguished itself as a forum in which to enhance the economic competitiveness of its partner regions in both domestic and international markets. PENWAR has been successful in leveraging influence both in Ottawa and Washington and providing a model for informed discussion, collaboration, and the advancement of action plans offering collective and viable solutions to the challenges we all share. The leadership, planning, and public-private collaboration that results from these working groups are the pillars on which PENWAR's success has been built. The model of equal partnership of one vote and one voice per region is closely aligned with the system of consensus government that exists among first nations in the north and among star government in the northwest territories and the one in Nunavut. They are a good fit and offer proven structure that can be applied to the future growth and success of the new Arctic Economic Council. The second element of our success that I believe can be mirrored is the balance PENWAR has sought in its public-private partnerships. While our organization's strengths may be the forum or platform that it provides, it is reliant on the balance offered by its public and private partners to deliver its quality best practices and planning. It is our assertion that both parties certainly have to be engaged. Any economic foundation in the Arctic, for example, will need to move beyond the north's historic reliance on government and attract and engage private partners in advancing development in an environmentally and socially sustainable manner. The first meeting of the Arctic Economic Council was, I believe, a very important step in gathering together the representatives of the Arctic's leading businesses. Realizing and unleashing the full economic potential of the Arctic region will require further steps to bring businesses, industry, and government together to consider and address the issues and challenges that they all have in common and to work collaboratively to find and implement solutions to those challenges. This is, ladies and gentlemen, the PENWAR model. Innovation and partnership that will use the financial and people power of the private sector to complement government initiatives and investments to boost the collective capacity of the entire Arctic region. And finally, PENWAR is an organization and forum that has been designed specifically to create these type of partnerships and relationships. It is the third and perhaps most important element that can be taken from our example. Through its structure, its balanced membership and success, the PENWAR organization has evolved to a jumping off point for many other partnerships and collaborations. As our premier of the Northwest Territories highlighted in his address, the Arctic is a region already built on these partnerships and collaborations. It is a common trait synonymous with our treasured Northern spirit. We are proud of our uniqueness and our resiliency and quick to come together in the common interests of the Arctic. Ours is a pioneering and hearty spirit and one that is ready to power the Arctic region that we wanna see built, a region that is vibrant and economically competitive in the 21st century built on those partnerships and that collaboration that I spoke of. PENWAR continues to nurture a better understanding of our common interests and global responsibilities from climate change to border security to infrastructure development. Our organization is a leader in fostering regional and international cooperation on priorities, priority issues such as energy, the environment, disaster resilience, economic development, trade, tourism, transportation and workforce mobility. The strengths and the lessons that we have learned as an organization in our almost 25 years of growth and success are a model on which we can build both the Pacific Northwest and of course the Arctic. As president of the organization, it certainly would be an honor and a privilege for our organization to contribute to the work that the United States has coming its way in its role as Arctic Council Chair beginning next March. And I wish the United States government, the state of Alaska, all the best on their chairmanship that's coming up next March. And with that, thank you very much Heather. It was a pleasure being here today. Thank you. Thank you so much. It was a terrific overview and a great way to put forward PENWAR as an interesting model. Dr. Byers, please. Thank you. We need all hands on deck because there's a huge amount to do and not much time to do it. That was U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton early in 2010 and there's still a huge amount to do and not a lot of time to do it given the incredible pace of climate change in the Arctic and also geopolitical developments involving Russia. I often tell my students that the Arctic is at the center of world politics because of those two features. Being on the front line of the greatest challenge that humankind may face in this century and given that all important relationship between Russia and NATO, a relationship that defined my childhood as a child of the Cold War and continues to occupy the front and center of international diplomacy. And it's for these reasons that I am excited by the prospect of the United States chairing the Arctic Council. There's a great deal to do and I encourage the United States to be bold and I encourage the representatives of the United States to remember that the woman who might well become the next president wants you to be bold when it comes to the Arctic. That's why I read the quote. Lean forward as Admiral Papp said, seize the day, humanity needs you to do that. So I'm looking directly at David Bolton who could not be positioned more centrally. And I know that he will play an enormous role during the American chairmanship and I know that he will also transmit my friendly suggestions through to the Admiral. So this is my wish list, David. First of all, implementation of the two existing treaties negotiated under the auspices of the Arctic Council. The oil spill preparedness treaty and also the search and rescue agreement. And by implementation, I don't mean what is in those agreements as currently required because they do not contain any new obligations. They simply take obligations from other non-arctic treaties and specify them in the Arctic. I mean negotiating protocols, perhaps not legally binding, but politically significant on stationing the necessary equipment and personnel in the Arctic to deal with major oil spills, to deal with major search and rescue incidents. So for instance, perhaps there should be a commitment among all the Arctic Council members to have long range search and rescue helicopters forward positioned within range of all areas within their search and rescue zones so that they can respond to an incident without having to stop to refuel. That would be expensive, that would be ambitious, that will be necessary. And think similarly about what kinds of oil spill prevention equipment and personnel might need to be pre-positioned in the Arctic to deal with the contingencies that will almost inevitably arise. So get serious about implementing. It's one thing to have general commitments. It's another thing to be ready for emergencies when they arise. Second, we need a meaningful oil spill prevention agreement, not just guidelines and not wishy-washy but meaningful specific commitments. And we need to deal with the difficult matters, liability caps. One of the things that the Canadian government has done recently that I'm very positive about, it has raised the liability cap for Arctic drilling from $40 million to $1 billion. It should probably be higher because a major blow in the Arctic will cause far more than $1 billion in damages, but it's a step in the right direction. The United States has been grappling with these issues, especially after the BP blowout in the Gulf of Mexico. Look to Norway where there's absolute liability in the event of a blowout of an oil well. And this is not because I'm opposed to Arctic oil and gas, but simply to say that the external cost should be internalized so that we're not as taxpayers subsidizing Arctic oil and gas, but we're simply leveling the playing field. Same thing goes with regards to the issue of same season relief wells. Both the US government and the Canadian government are under pressure to grant exemptions from the same season relief well requirement. I think we should be looking to Greenland, looking to Norway and following best practice rather than dumbing that down. And yes, I know that this will be difficult with regards to Russia, but again, it is important. And the sort of thing that would be an ambitious part of a US agenda. You're already working on a black carbon. Arctic haze is equally important. Go after the low hanging fruit with regards to mitigation of climate change. The Obama administration is getting serious about climate change. That's a good thing. Take other countries with you, like you have taken Canada with regards to fuel efficiency requirements for passenger vehicles. Take us to a better place on things like black carbon and Arctic haze. Persuade Canada to ratify the Gutenberg protocol so that we have movement on ground level ozone, for instance. The polar code on shipping, which is in process of the international maritime organization. Part one is going to come up for approval at the IMO this fall. That's a good thing. Part one deals with shipping safety. Part two on pollution prevention is not coming forward for approval yet. Admiral Papp is not just the representative to the Arctic Council. He's a special representative for the Arctic in general, the polar code, and making part two law should be part of his ambition. There are some maritime boundary issues that remain to be resolved. Back in 2010, Canadian Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon gave a speech in Washington offering to initiate discussions on the both sea maritime boundary. David, you and Admiral Papp should encourage those discussions to turn into real negotiations because having a security of location for a maritime boundary makes everything else easier. It makes oil spill prevention easier. It makes search and rescue easier. It makes regulating cruise ships easier. We are partners in a common energy market under chapter six of NAFTA. This should be ridiculously easy. Let's get it done. Extended continental shells. If you can, please persuade Congress to ratify the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. That's tomorrow. But even if you can't, encourage the other Arctic countries, specifically Canada, Denmark, and Russia to follow the rules in Article 76 of the Law of the Sea Convention with regards to the extended continental shelf to follow the principle of equidistance when preparing their submissions. There has been some unfortunate backing off from some of those principles in Canada recently which could lead to a backing off on the part of Russia and Denmark. We all need certainty. We all need stability in the Central Arctic Ocean. Canadian and American and Russian diplomats worked very hard in the early 1980s to draft these rules. Let's make sure that they're followed. And the United States can encourage that even though it's not yet a party to the treaty. Here's a tricky one for you. International Straits. Back when Admiral Pap was the commandant of the US Coast Guard, I heard him express the view that the United States had now become a straight state because of the Bering Strait and Unimak Pass. Unimak Pass being the shipping route through the Aleutian Islands that already has more than 5,000 large cargo transits per year and has had a significant oil spill not that long ago. Obviously, the United States has a dispute over the precise status of the Northwest Passage and some of the Russian Arctic Straits. There's an opportunity for a US government to be bold and to engage both Canada and Russia in serious discussions about how we could work together. And David and others know that back in 2008, I partnered with now the late Paul Salucci, the former US Ambassador to Canada to do a model negotiation between the US and Canada on the Northwest Passage. And in just a day and a half, we came to nine concrete recommendations as to how the two countries could work together. Seize the moment. Let's get this done. Let's come to some kind of compromise whereby the United States can protect its interest in Unimak Pass and Bering Strait. And Canada and Russia can protect their interests in those straits, waterways, along their northern coastlines on pollution prevention, on security, et cetera. It needs to be done, the ice is disappearing. Very close to Ambassador Balton's heart, Central Arctic Ocean fisheries. We heard Admiral Papp say that it's important to get ahead of crises, to anticipate problems and deal with them in advance. The United States initiative on Central Arctic Ocean fisheries deserves everyone's support. The US has been a very important leader. Politicians from Alaska have been particularly important here and deserve to be congratulated also. Canada has started to come on board. Russia is hopeful. It doesn't need to be a full regional fisheries organization yet, but we need to have some significant commitments and procedures in place before the first long-range shipping trawlers arrive. We can't let the trigger be a South Korean or a Chinese vessel fishing in international waters in the Chai Sea before we start to talk about how we should respond. We should be including South Korea, including China, including the European Union in discussions that seek to get agreement. We've done it elsewhere in the world, the North Atlantic Regional Fisheries Organization, the Northeast Atlantic Fisheries Organization, et cetera, we know how to do this. Let's do it for the Central Arctic Ocean. Admiral Papp mentioned the idea of a regional sea arrangement, which would not create new rights or obligations, but following on from examples elsewhere like the Yospar Convention and the Mediterranean initiatives, create a mechanism for drawing together all of the different international agreements and guidelines, create an overall mechanism for planning in terms of ecosystem management for the Arctic Ocean, and have the Arctic Council take the lead in doing this, not to exclude other states, but to do what has been done elsewhere in busy regional seas, in recognition that the Arctic Ocean is going to become busy, and we need to have ecosystem management, and it needs to be cooperative. I would suggest that this is more than an idea that you should explore. I think you need to get other countries on board quickly during your two-year term as chair to make sure that that happens. Now, very ambitiously, I want to steal from a Canadian colleague of mine, Franklin Griffith, who many of you will know, who three decades ago proposed that there could be an agreement to demilitarize the surface of the central Arctic Ocean. For two reasons, first of all, there are currently no surface military vessels beyond 200 nautical miles from shore, at least not on a regular basis because of the ice, and demilitarizing places that are not yet militarized is relatively easy. There is a demilitarized zone in the Arctic, it's called the Svalbard Archipelago under the Spitzberg and Treaty, take a similar approach for the central Arctic Ocean, and also by doing that, reduce the anxiety about the possible introduction of surface anti-submarine capabilities in the central Arctic Ocean. There are nuclear missile submarines operating in the Arctic Ocean. They have been there for half a century. They provide deterrent and mutually assured destruction and an important aspect of stability. And Russia will be concerned about the possibility of U.S. and other anti-submarine capabilities on the surface of that ocean. So what an opportunity to engage, probably not within the Arctic Council. But I mentioned this because engagement with Russia can take place very usefully in the Arctic. It's been done before. Part of the reason why Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize was because of his policy of resetting the relationship with Russia, and that very importantly included the New START Treaty. I think he deserved the Nobel Peace Prize for that. I think any president who had done that sort of thing at the end of his term would uncontroversially have won the Nobel Peace Prize. It was a big deal. And we know, thanks to WikiLeaks, that the Arctic was a central part of that strategy. There is a cable from the U.S. Embassy in Moscow back to Foggy Bottom, saying that cooperating with Russia in the Arctic is a great way to strengthen the moderates in the Kremlin. Now, if that rationale made sense six or seven years ago, logically it makes even more sense today because of the tensions and dangers that arise out of the crisis in Ukraine. And I'll close by reminding people that the Soviet Union and the United States and the other Arctic Ocean countries came together in 1973 at the height of the Cold War to negotiate the Polar Bear Treaty. Big game hunters had started to hunt polar bears from helicopters. Helicopters were absolutely devastating as a hunting tool for polar bears. And because of the use of helicopters, we faced the possible extinction of the polar bear in the 1970s. And the Soviet government, the Canadian government, the Danish government, Norwegian government, U.S. government said this is unacceptable. And they banned the practice of using helicopters and with that the practice of using ice breakers to hunt polar bears. It's not allowed and the polar bear continues to exist today. If we could save the polar bear in 1973, we can work with Russia in the Arctic, whatever transpires further to the south in Ukraine. Thank you very much. Thank you. I think we call that the go big or the go homeless for the U.S. chairmanship. And Dave, I hope you got all that. That's a pretty ambitious list. Lawson, you may have some thoughts on the implementation of some of that search and rescue and some of the maritime issues that the future, the Arctic Council will face in the future. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you, Heather. Well, I first say that, of course, a lot of what Dr. Byer said is not going to be part of the U.S. chairmanship. It might be part of U.S. foreign policy on bilaterals or whatever. I hope and I trust, going back to what Susan Harper said, the most, I think, accurate point this morning was focus. Focus the Arctic Council on what the Charter says. Charter is very, very focused narrowly, maybe, on environmental protection and sustainable development. Of course, sustainable development stuff includes globalization and economics. So I think if we focus on those two, there shouldn't be any problem having our friends all the eight Arctic states, but particularly Russia at the table. If you're more expansive and include military security issues or whatever in different forum, it might be a problem. We want to be inclusive and the way to be inclusive in the Arctic Council is clearly to focus on what the Charter says in its two dimensions. Of course, I'm very happy that Admiral Papp mentioned stewardship of the Arctic Ocean as part of our chairmanship, it figures we're ocean maritime country. We have a big role to play in the world. And particularly what Michael mentioned about the IMO Polo Code, I think there's some misunderstanding about the Polo Code and its relationship to the Arctic Council. It's directly related to the Arctic Council because the Arctic states have moved within IMO to help shepherd the Polo Code into its current state, which is in fact very close to adoption, both part one and part two by next April, part two should be adopted and then the IMO machine for implementation kicks in from 2015 to 2017 as the implementation period. And isn't that interesting that coincides exactly with the United States' chairmanship? So I and many others look to the United States to provide leadership within the Arctic Council and of course within the IMO to articulate, to argue all of the issues of why the Polo Code is a seminal and historic new regime for the Arctic. I think many of us believe that it is the number one thing today for protecting the Arctic Ocean. It's the Polo Code, arcane as it might seem, as tactical as it is. It's about protecting Arctic people. It's about protecting the place, shoring up the marine safety mechanisms and measures. It really is a big deal for the whole of the Arctic, for all of humanity, because as it applied to the Global Maritime Enterprise, and it is directly related to the Arctic Council. Hopefully, Admiral Papp and maybe he'll assign it to the current common auditor to Vice Admiral Neffinger, will show that leadership by traveling around the world at the highest level of the United States federal government and arguing these issues. Of course, we have the challenge here in America to implement the Polo Code in the United States maritime Arctic where we have no Arctic specific rules today. Of course, you all know that Russia and Canada have their own regimes, which are very different. We have no Arctic specific rules here, but the strategy hopefully will be to implement this uniform, non-discriminatory set of international rules and regulations. So in fact, everyone plays by the same game, and that's at least the strategy of having a new regime like this under the auspices and generated by the IMO. Heather included governance issues related to international bodies in the Arctic Council. The Arctic Council has done a great job, I think, of in the Arctic States together, arguing in uniform ways and consistent ways Arctic issues at the IHO, International Hydrographic Organization, where there is a new Arctic Regional Commission, and the Arctic States help form that commission. The IMO, of course, the Arctic States have had meetings prior to the IMO negotiations where they argued out various issues and disagreements to have a uniformed approach. I was sitting there, I'm part of the US delegation to IMO, and sitting with 200 people, and the people who have a voice are Venatu, Panama, whatever, why they have a voice, because foreign flag ships, and they're all looking at to use the Arctic Ocean in some way, and they needed to know, and they needed to hear from the Arctic States our perspectives on why are we doing this, why are we trying to protect Arctic people, who are the users, stakeholders, actors, owners, et cetera. At WMO is another organization where the Arctic States probably haven't enough worked together to argue Arctic climate change issues and other issues related to meteorology and oceanography, so that's one opportunity where maybe the United States can show some leadership in this chairmanship. On behalf of the Arctic States and the Arctic Council, where the intersection of the Arctic State interests and climate change intersect with global climate science and research issues. Arctic climate change is a hard topic to deal with the Arctic Council because I always ask, okay, what's the deliverable? And they're global issues, but the deliverables are our cause of these special studies in black carbon, your climate impact assessment, but what we need to do in the Arctic Council, like I would argue, is that deploy those, argue those studies, pass them, communicate them well to organizations like WMO and whatever have, whoever's the Arctic Council chair or whoever's in the secretariat, do the dog and pony show around the world at these various forum. The working groups, of course, are the engines of the Arctic Council. I only know myself having been a foot soldier in PAIM. The use of EPPR to kind of coordinate, elevate the issues of SAR and oil spill preparedness and response, I think it's, certainly the EPPR is a good vehicle to do that. But PAIM, not being necessarily operationally oriented, is really a policy shop, so PAIM should continue in its role of developing policies and strategies for protecting the Arctic Marine environment. I would argue that if there are any new and novel and comprehensive assessments to be rolled out by the Arctic Council that a new strategy be pursued in the orchestration of those studies. When we did the AMSA, we asked early the Arctic Marine Chipping Assessment, how can we do a study about the global maritime enterprise using the Arctic when the global enterprise itself is not at the table? And the way we got around that is we had Merce Line and BP shipping involved in our strategy sessions. We brought them in despite some friction and heat from some in the Arctic Council that we were bringing, oh my God, business into the Arctic Council. Well, of course that philosophy has all changed now with the Arctic Economic Council. So in order to do these studies, but one strategy has to be that rather than bring the PPEs and the indigenous people to some sort of site, we should go out to their communities as we did in the AMSA. In the AMSA, we felt we spoke to about 3000 people in Arctic communities, not many, but a start about engaging hunters on the ground, so to speak, local leaders who are not necessarily at the Arctic Council's table all of the time representing the interest of the PPEs. So any new study really should have a part of its organization and strategy to actually deploy out to Arctic communities the kind of listening sessions that we've heard about today on the very topic that you're dealing whether it be biodiversity, whatever. Some of these topics are very technical, but I think we would hear, as we did in the AMSA, very different and diverse perspectives from the people themselves as we deployed. We hear a lot about the problem of having enough research funds or funds in the Arctic Council to engage the PPEs directly. So one way to assist that is to actually go to Arctic communities when we're conducting these studies and spend some of that, but probably not enough. I think many of us have some serious questions about the role of the permanent secretariat, not that it exists, but what its role or roles are. I think I believe that the role of the secretary was to help the Arctic Council communicate to the world so you needed resources to do that and maybe the United States can generously contribute a bit more to that work, whether it be creating new websites, deploying people around the world to discuss these studies, but use the secretariat in a meaningful way. I think it's a challenging proposition having a secretariat that's not in the national capital who's chair and I'm not sure the diplomats haven't figured out yet quite how to use this vehicle, but it should be a vehicle for enhanced communication, hopefully. The non-artic state observers, I think Dave Bolton and Shasta this morning said one of the challenges facilitating their involvement in the working groups of the Arctic Council, figuring out a way for them to assist and work with the PPEs either in bilateral studies between a particular non-artic state observer and even a single PPE or involvement of the non-artic state observer countries and investment in IPS. There are new mechanisms and we should encourage and maybe evaluate how the non-artic state observers contribute to the Arctic Council other than sitting there and of course the most important role for them is to sit there, observe the process, have knowledge, that's the first priority, but what is their actual contribution other than that? The Arctic Economic Council, Canada should be certainly applauded for bringing that into being. It is a different model than our Swedish friends had in mind. I'll mention our Swedish friends because they had in mind and during their chairmanship to have an Arctic Business Forum that would be in fact linked to the Arctic Council in some mechanism or under the tent of the Arctic Council. So this model of the Arctic Economic Council brought forth by Canada and I think supported vigorously by the United States is a little different than the original model. The question that just stands out there is how in the future will this council link to the Arctic Council? And if we do studies that relate to globalization in the Arctic Council, let's say PAME has a study on offshore development or something, how do we bring in the knowledge and expertise of the Arctic Economic Council? So I see challenges, I won't be too negative here, I think it's a positive development, but I believe separating out all the globalization and economic issues kind of an independent body, the question remains, how will those two bodies work together? In the AMSA, we did reach out to insurance companies and classification societies and a whole host of industry and that needs to be done on a wide range of studies. Just to finish up, keep the focus on environmental protection and sustainable development and of course on the people issues, thank you. Thanks, Austin, that was great. Terry, please. Thank you, it's a daunting prospect to follow Lawson, Michael and David, but I'll do my best. I want to try and say three things. I want to say a few words about the permanent participants who they are, what they do, what their role might be. I then want to talk about the, and a number of speakers have mentioned this, the evolution of the Arctic Council. I'm going to introduce a few different words here, but the Arctic Council now is very, very different from what it was 15 years ago. I want to tell you why, I think, my views on why and how that changed. I then want, like Michael, I have wish lists in the back of my pocket, so I have a wish list and David, I'm going to be searching eye contact with you on this one. We have in the Arctic Council six permanent participants. These are Arctic Indigenous Peoples' Organizations, but they are not a monolith. They are very different. Three of the organizations have been around for some time and predate the establishment of the Arctic Council, and three of them were effectively organized to take seats in the Arctic Council, and two of those, the Alliot International Association and the Arctic Athabascan Council, were very much owed their existence in part to American diplomacy seeking to ensure that these interests were formally represented in the Council. So my first sort of, perhaps intuitively obvious advice to you, Dave, is don't treat the permanent participants as though they are all of one kind. We would never think of doing such a thing with the Arctic States. Don't do that with the permanent participants. They have different interests, they have different geographies, they have different languages. Inuit of one people, Athabascans are many peoples. So there is a huge difference here. There is, of course, significant solidarity amongst and between the permanent participants, but their interests in certain of the issues that are dealt with by the Council are rather different, and certainly their styles and what it is that their decision makers, their political leaders would say often differs. So please be aware of this. A number of, my second basic point is about the Arctic Council. I started, my first circumpolar meeting was at the AEPS ministerial meeting in Nuuk in 1993. And so I have worked on these files for too many years on behalf of the Canadian Arctic Resources Committee for 10 years with the Inuit Circumpolar Conference with one of the Eucalyptus Agusiax predecessors, Sheila Oculotie, and I now do a very small amount of work, part-time work with the Arctic Athabascan Council. So that's my sort of history. I would suggest to you that the Arctic Council has not evolved, it has been reformed, and it has been reformed in some fairly significant ways, and it is through the credit of the Council and it is through the credit of the senior officials in particular that this reformation has come from within. Certainly there have been many external processes that have put pressure on the senior officials to change the way in which things are done, but it's been handled quite well. I think it's possible to hypothesize a two-year hinge of change. And I would suggest to you that the years late 2003, early 2004, to mid to late 2005 were the pivotal years for the Arctic Council. And many of you here are familiar with what the Council was doing at the time, but this was the time when the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment came to fruition. That assessment, and I say this quite genuinely, Americans should be very proud of the role that you played in the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment. You gave most of the people, most of the scientists who worked on it were American, although there were 300 scientists from 15 different countries, many of our observer countries, played a significant role there. You contributed most of the money. You contributed the secretariat at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks. Bob Carell, surely one of the world's great science communicators, was the chair of the exercise. So I say these things quite genuinely, because I don't think that the Arctic Council would have been reformed and changed and evolved in the way it did had it not been for that Arctic Climate Impact Assessment. Now, let me just say a few quick words about the ACIA. Happily, Ray Arnardo is here over there, and Ray was the American senior Arctic official at the Barrow Ministerial Meeting in 2000, when the terms of reference for the ACIA were finalized. Now, I remember the debate, and I'm sure that Ray does as well, because he shepherded the language through to completion and adoption and sign-off in the Barrow Declaration. The terms of reference for the ACIA were very dissimilar to the sorts of terms of reference that you see in IPCC processes, because in the ACIA, people were under instructions to consider health, culture, and policy recommendations. There was no beating around the bush. People wanted to deal with health and culture. Those are not things you see in global assessments. When we didn't get into the language of policy relevance, we said, give us policy recommendations. So those terms of reference owed a great deal to interventions by the permitted participants at that time. And I would like to report to you that I see Ray nodding his head and agreeing with me. You're coming. Now, fast forward a little. We're fast forwarding to late 2003, early 2004. We had a policy committee. This is because of the terms of reference approved by ministers. So we set up a policy committee to draft recommendations. Bear in mind, I'm sure Americans will understand this, that the ACIA was established under the dying days of the Clinton administration. And we're now doing the ACIA under the first term of the George W. Bush administration, a very different approach toward climate change. We, in our final meeting of the policy drafting committee, which took place in London, the United States tabled one of those wonderful pages with no letterhead, no title, no date, which said, we don't like policy recommendations. We really think we should get rid of them and we shouldn't do any. Now, this was interpreted by everybody else in the council, particularly the permitted participants, as an attempt, as a blatant attempt to change the rules of the game halfway during the game. Now, this precipitated some very, very difficult debates behind the scenes. We were told at the time that this instruction came from, quote, the highest level, the White House. Now, I'll keep a long story very, very short. One of the key things that then happened was that Sheila O'Cluthier, one of Euclid's predecessors, came down to Washington, D.C. And it appeared before Senator McCain's committee on commerce, science, and transportation. There were three senators there, Snow, Lieberman, and McCain. And there were about 400 people in the hearing room. And this is utterly unlike Canadian parliamentary procedures, which is all very relaxed and people talk to each other. Here in the hyperpower, things are done very differently. What happened was that Miss O'Cluthier did a fabulous job and she told the senators what had happened in the ACIA policy process. After this, the world's press, who were covering this hearing, interviewed Miss O'Cluthier. That resulted in a half-page, front-page story in the New York Times, written by Andy Revkin the following day. Same thing happened on the Washington Post and within 48 hours, there were opinion editorials around the country. I remember, for example, reading a very, very good editorial about the Arctic and climate change written in the times of India. Now, my point here is that that hinge period, what happened was that up until about 2003, when the world's press was talking about climate change in a global sense, it was very often Antarctica and Antarctic images and collapsing ice shelves that would get the press and that would get the pictures. After 2005, it had become the Arctic. The polar bear had become the iconic species, not just for the impact of climate change in the Arctic, but as a species emblematic of global impacts of climate change. So that time was hugely important. Now, what was the outcome? And there were three outcomes, I think, of that hinge period. What it's done is that the ACIA has effectively changed the agenda for all the other subsidiary bodies in the Arctic Council. Now, the extraordinarily high quality, and let's, let me say this, I think that the technical assessments, including the stuff done by Lawson here, are of world class. The technical ability of some of the reports that have been put forward is of the first order. But the point is that Lawson's Arctic Marine Shipping Assessment, CAF's Arctic Biodiversity Assessment, and many of the other things that have taken place were, have been stimulated by the fallout, political and otherwise, that was generated by the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment. So that's the first thing. The second thing was that as a result of the extraordinary, and I think prescient findings, conclusions and recommendations of the ACIA, a large number of would-be states that wanted to get into the Arctic debate started to reevaluate or to evaluate what their Arctic interests might be. So you didn't get the applications for observer status from our Asian states until the ACIA was in and it generated all this publicity and it generated all sorts of concerns. It wasn't the concerns and the recommendations and conclusions, it wasn't what was gonna happen in the Arctic to the indigenous peoples, it was this whole idea of opening up the Arctic to development. That's what really generated the interest on the part of the Asian states. Now four of the six permanent participants last year, and I was happy enough to be on this trip, were invited to spend a week in Singapore at the request of the government of Singapore. And when we were there, we had supper with the state secretary for foreign affairs. And he was quite blatant about this. He said, gosh, we are a major shipping nation, we don't have much by way of natural resources, we have brain power, we have to think in the long term, we have to think strategically, we want to learn about the Arctic and we think, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Hugely impressive. So, last point is that I wanna make here before I move on to my wish list. Okay, okay, okay. Reform of the council. A number of people have talked about the secretary that's been established, but actually the most important, I would argue, the most important change that has taken place in the Arctic Council hasn't been mentioned at all here. And that is this thing called an executive. It's not an executive at all, it's a misnomer. What we have, what has happened since about 2006 is that there's a pre-meeting before the senior officials' meeting and it's a pre-meeting with just small delegations from the states and the permanent participants and they get together to trial balloons to think things through. This is very important and I think it's a really good move because I think it is important that the states be able to talk to each other with some measure of confidentiality so nobody loses any face. It does create difficulties in the future in transparency and openness, however. Let me move now to the wish list. Okay, I'm getting there, sorry. Okay, I'll go through this quickly. First one, there's a whole bunch of new academics and think tanks getting involved in the Arctic. People are going to where the interest is, where the money is. Now this is welcome, this is good. I think it's very important that we welcome these new academics and new think tanks in. For example, in Northern Canada, we don't have a university in Northern Canada and we could certainly use assistance, advice, et cetera, et cetera. However, and to mirror some of the things that Euclick said in her remarks this morning, the way that the North, certainly in the Canadian North is governed is vastly different from other circumstances that think tanks and academics are familiar with. I suspect not many people here realize that the 2007 FINMARC Act in Northern Norway, which has changed the way that natural resources are managed in Northern Norway, borrows very heavily from some of the Canadian land claim agreements, the Gwich'in, Sartu, none of it arrangements. So that's because there's information flow. So that's the first point. Second, and I'd love to go into detail, but I won't. A number of people this morning were asking for, or looking for, successful models of decision making, how to do it. We have a really good successful model and that's the POPs debate from the 1990s. When AMAP published its 2007 State of the Arctic Environment Report, that usefully informed two sets of international negotiations which resulted in two legally binding agreements, the UN ECE POPs protocol and the Stockholm Global POPs Agreement. Look at those agreements because you will find that they are the only two agreements in international law that single out the Arctic for special reference and make specific reference to indigenous communities and peoples. There's a reason for that and I don't have time to go into it. The next one is permanent participants. Look, every time the ministers get together there's a fair amount of hand-wringing about we really must support the permanent participants, we must find some money and nothing ever happens, no changes are made. Now Canada is to be commended for its ongoing efforts to bring people together but this is becoming embarrassing. The permanent participants bring so much to this file, in particular what they bring is unassailable high moral ground and legitimacy and they need to be supported because there are so much more that they could bring forward. I think fourth one, the big challenge for the United States is actually not, I think, or we think is not what Dave you've suggested and what Admiral Papa suggested, the real challenge and really it's a challenge I think that only the United States can lead because of your over-winning influence and power economically and otherwise. And it's the observers. It's this engagement with China, Japan, India and what have you. This is a huge development. We need to have some really good strategic thinking. This is not something that Canada which is a middle power could do. Besides Canada wanted to focus very much and it did within the Arctic and on the economic staff but in terms of the relationship and how we're going to engage with those observers so we can bring Arctic perspectives forward to address contaminants and climate change issues. This is a big one. Next one, the chair of the Arctic International Council. His name is Michael Stickman. Mickey lives in Nalato on the shores of the Yukon River and for some years now he's been trying to persuade the Arctic Council to do a comparative project in riverine fisheries. We have talked to the Sami about using the Tana River in Northern Norway, the Yenisee in Russia because there are Kets who are linguistically related to Athabasca peoples in North America and then the Yukon. What we'd like to do is to get the United States to bring forward or to be open to bringing forward a comparative project that would look at Aboriginal fisheries in those rivers. I think I'd better end. I'm beginning to feel the icy glare. I have one last comment then. Yeah, the sign off. The Arctic Council has evolved and has been strengthened and has been reformed and is a success story. Now you wouldn't get that message if all you saw about the Arctic Council is what you read in academia. But there are very few academics who've actually been to and directly experienced an Arctic Council meeting. There are some obvious exceptions to that such as Oran Young who used to go to our Arctic Council meetings. But I think it's important for me to suggest here that the United States be cautious and mindful of where it's gonna get its advice and what sort of analyses it will rely upon. My very, very last comment is it's taken a long time to get to where we are. The torch is being passed to you. Use it well, guard it, protect it and so that you can hand it over in two more years' time. Thank you so much. Now Dave, what are you gonna do with all this advice is what we wanna know. We have about 10 minutes. What I'd like to do is throw out a few questions. I'm gonna tee off the Sasha's comment this morning about what do we want the Arctic to look like in 2050. So I'm gonna sort of reverse as we're thinking about what the Canadian chairmanship will have accomplished, the American chairmanship and so on. If historians look back in 2050 and say, well, what did they do? What was instrumental? How did they reform or evolve the Arctic Council? I wonder if that in some ways is a more purposeful way of thinking about the Arctic Council chairmanship. I don't have a wish list. I mean, I have lots of things. I have a worried list. My worried list, and it touches on many of the things that you have all said, I definitely worry about engagement with the observers. What we're hearing very anecdotally is that they are sitting and listening but they're getting very frustrated because they wanted to have a more meaningful conversation. And frustration, if it's not addressed quickly, becomes something that will become a point of contention potentially. I worry that the Arctic Council is creating more things outside the Arctic Council than inside the Arctic Council, whether that's the Arctic Economic Council, the Search and Rescue Agreement, the Oil Spill Response Agreement. At some point, where do you house these institutionally? Where are their connections? Who's coordinating and organizing those? And I worry, and Michael, your point on the implementation of these two agreements, where's the institutional home? Where's the confidence building measures on capabilities as we see where other Arctic states will be reconfiguring their security structures? How do we communicate that? I think that's an issue. And then my final worry is on the geo-economics. What are the consequences of uneven development in the Arctic? I hope we have one Arctic actor like Russia that is extremely focused on development. But we have the Americans who are quite reluctant at this point. Those are my words about a full-blown development model, yet they share a very precious sparing straight. Do we have to build our infrastructure, even if we're not going to be using it? We'll be more in a stewardship role if there's an accident in one part. How does that affect the other? So I have a worry list as well as a wish list. And I wonder if any of the panelists in a brief moment would reflect on sort of what will people say about us in 2050 and what we have done here. And Michael wants to go after it. Sheila Watt-Cloutier is a hero of mine. She often says it, she's writing a book with the title, The Right to Be Cold. I want an Arctic that still has some sea ice in summertime. Because if we lose the sea ice, we're into the death spiral of climate change. And anything we do in the Arctic is simply damage reduction. The ice is so important. I remember once being at Beachy Island in the central Canadian Arctic and seeing a feeding frenzy, a whole food chain, everything from sea butterflies, Arctic cod, seals, a polar bear, a young Inuk woman in the zodiac, part of the food chain. We would lose the ecosystem, it's so dependent on the ice. The indigenous peoples would be in even more of a predicament today without the sea ice. And we don't want to get into a situation where we've lost control of the geopolitics because climate change has spiraled out of control. So I want an Arctic with sea ice. And I want an Arctic in terms of governance that's more like the Mediterranean Sea than the South China Sea. I mean, from a governance point of view, those are the two real alternatives. Do we have cooperation, ecosystem management, relative security, safe tourism, safe shipping, no real prospect of major armed conflict or do we have the uncertainties and the territorial tensions that exist with regards to the South China Sea? And in terms of governance, look, we're only in the early days, but getting a handle on climate change, dialing down the thermostat is an absolute prerequisite and I commend the Obama administration for finally throwing itself at this problem. May the next president follow the model of President Obama? Yeah, thanks, Heather. And if I could just pass on a few comments. I guess getting to your first point, what we want things to look like 15, 20 years down the road, for us, and I believe the Premier mentioned this in his remarks, we got our devolution agreement from the federal government April 1st so about six months ago. That gives us responsibility for managing land, water, and resources in our territory. It's a big step forward for us and who better to manage those affairs than elected leaders from the Northwest Territories? Previously, we had bureaucrats, many of which had never stepped foot north of 60, dictating to us how we should do things and that's a big step and something that we feel very confident as a government that we can develop an economy, we can develop our resources and at the same time maintain that environmental integrity that's so important to the people of the Northwest Territories. It's a challenge and I think it's a challenge that our government is certainly up to and we'll see where we can take things but we have so much promise for the future but our future, if I wanna predict, we need strong, vibrant communities with an economy. People need things to do. We're trying our best to increase our graduation rates in our high schools. It's one thing to graduate children from high school. You have to have something for them to do when they're getting out of school so it's important for us that we focus on the people and opportunities for them as we develop the economy and as I mentioned, we will be developing our economy, we will be developing our resources and one thing's clear, we really have a lot of people trying to tell us what to do and to be quite frank, we'll do what we wanna do in the manner we wanna do it. Thank you. Well hopefully we'll look back and say in 2016 that in fact the heads of state of the Arctic countries met with the non-artic state observer ministers I guess there and of course all the permanent participants and we met and signed several agreements related to Arctic research and perhaps other topics. I hope at least during the US chairmanship that we can make headway and I think we will on protecting the Arctic Ocean and through this arguing the issues related to the polar code, discussing more and trying to solve some of the monitoring issues that are before us, but also starting and jump starting perhaps and discussing more the challenge of the infrastructure deficit and how to use public-private partnerships to close that deficit. And then finally I hope the United States spend some time on the intractable issue it seems of funding the permanent participants. Huge issue and as Terry has suggested kind of an embarrassing issue that we need to show the world and maybe through our leadership we can engage the non-artic state observers to contribute more. I know there's some sensitivity to that but nonetheless they have plenty of resources. They've signed up to the Art of Council and one of the principles of course is understanding and supporting the indigenous people of the Arctic. Thank you. That's very kind of you. In winter 1999 to 2000 I had the privilege and honor of leading a humanitarian assistance mission to Chukotka and we delivered food and basic necessities into Inuit and Chukchi villages. I remember being in Nemo, Yanderekinata, Sereniki and various others. I don't wish to see that ever again. I remember when we were there people had very little to eat. They had guac fermented walrus meat and there was nothing else there. Now we got there and I look I'm a middle class lad with an English accent living in Canada at a fully developed nation. I hadn't come across that level of deprivation before and it was done in minus 30 which gives a whole new meaning to it. So I think that's something we've got to avoid and that means the corollage to that is and I didn't think I would say these sort of things earlier in my career that yes we do need to find ways and means to promote appropriate economic development. People need jobs, people need work. We need to figure out how we can generate wealth in the circumpolar world but also do so without sacrificing all sorts of other things including environmental benefits. Thank you. Well I promised a rich day of discussion. We jammed a lot in today. My head's swimming and I don't know about yours but this has been fantastic. A very special thank you to John Higginbottom and CG for your intellectual leadership, your financial support and bringing great, great Canadian colleagues to Washington for this important discussion. A very big thank you to Penwar, to Minister Ramsey, Matt Morrison, thank you so much for your partnership here with our project. We learned a lot, we shared. Thank you Vince Rigby, Admiral Pat, had to leave a little early for sharing your thoughts. We wish you and the Canadian government great success in the next seven months. We know you go into a full frenzy before the ministerial. David Bolton's starting to sweat because he knows in about seven months this is gonna be his frenzy. But we thank you and for our colleagues that have shared their insights, considerable insights throughout the day whether that's on the economics, that's on the environment. It is looking at maritime issues, the whole range of issues. This is how we educate, this is how we communicate and I hope today's conversation is one part, a small contribution on our road to the US chairmanship. So please join me in thanking this panel and thank you for being with us today.