Canada and Sweden to Share Data
Canada and Sweden have agreed to cooperate on scientific matters in the Arctic. The new five-year arrangement will allow the two countries to collaborate on some activities, including marine surveys, and exchange data on a variety of issues, including the development of new fisheries, as well as environmental and marine navigation regulations, the AFP reports.
“Collaboration with Sweden will help Canada’s scientists collect data to better understand northern ecosystems, which in turn will help us develop more effective evidence-based policies to protect our polar regions,” Kirsty Duncan, Canada’s minister of science, said in a statement.
The deal would also allow for the gathering of data to underpin Canada’s claim to an extended continental shelf. Canada filed the U.N. application in December 2013. Its Arctic claim included the North Pole, but did not, at the time, include seabed rights. Canada, Russia, Denmark, the U.S. and Norway have overlapping claims.
Under the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, coastal countries are entitled to economic resources within 370km (200 nautical miles) of their shorelines. If a country can prove that its continental shelf extends beyond that limit, it may be granted further rights. Countries had to submit evidence of their claims within 10 years of ratifying the agreement.
Arctic sea ice is melting as those deadlines arise. Environmental change in the region may make the region more easily accessible to oil and gas development, shipping and other commercial activities. The Arctic may hold as much as 25 percent of the remaining undiscovered and retrievable oil, gas and minerals.
Warmer Temperatures Would Prime Arctic Waters for Biological Invasion
Ongoing climate change in the Arctic could encourage biological invasions. More shipping means more ballast water being discharged into the Arctic Ocean – along with any species they may have picked up somewhere else.
A new study shows that species that would never have survived in the Arctic’s cold and dark waters in the past, may soon find parts of the Arctic more welcoming, reports Hakai magazine.
The researchers gathered samples of ballast water from ships coming into Svalbard and tested whether the non-native organisms they found could survive in the conditions of today and those predicted for the future. They found current practices on ballast water did not prevent the transfer of non-native species and that under a greenhouse gas emissions scenario, where global average temperatures rose by 4C (7.2F) by 2100, six of the species they identified could become settled there.
Container ships and bulk carriers transiting through Arctic waterways may contribute to the spread of invasive species. Their ballast tanks hold water and provide stability, but the water comes from one location and is let go in another. Shipping is the main way invasive marine species are spread from one location to another.
Invasive species introduced into the Arctic could disrupt ecosystems and economies. The green crab, a European species introduced to New England coasts that eats native oysters and crabs, has been blamed for almost $44 million in annual losses.
Paris Deal Adopted
On Saturday, after an extra day of negotiations, representatives from nearly 200 countries adopted an agreement to limit global warming, with the hope that some of the worse effects of climate change will be averted.
The deal includes a global average temperature limit of “well below 2C” (3.6F) and urges countries to make effort to keep warming under 1.5C (2.7F). Carbon Brief gives a rundown of the text in the final draft and what it means.
Emissions are to peak “as soon as possible” and they should “achieve a balance between anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals by sinks” by the second half of the century. The wording signals that a good deal of unrecovered coal, oil and gas must stay in the ground, reports the New York Times.
Over the weekend, it was widely reported that former NASA scientist James Hansen had declared the Paris climate talks “a fraud.” Only taxes on greenhouse gas emissions would have the strength to reduce emissions quickly, he told the Guardian. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry countered the criticism and maintained that the deal would spark a transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy.
Recommended Reads
- Nunatsiaq Online: Nunavut Researchers Head South to Test Scientists’ IQ
- Nunatsiaq Online: The Raglan Agreement at 20: How It’s Shaped Nunavik’s Mining Industry
- Nunatsiaq Online: More Clouds Lead to More Arctic Warming: New Study
- The Guardian: Entrepreneurs Turn Billion Dollar Seafood Waste Into Profitable Profits
- The Arctic Journal: A Year in the Ice
- The Diplomat: Russia-Vietnam: Cooperation in the Arctic?
Top image: Nearly 200 governments have adopted a global agreement that for the first time asks all countries to reduce or rein in their greenhouse gas emissions. (AP Photo/Francois Mori)