NATO and Russia to join in dialogue at icebreaker

Members of NATO and Russian Federation will have their first ever open dialogue on the future of international security in the Arctic this week, amid growing concerns about the consequences of climate change in the region.

Diplomats, academic scientists, government administrators, elected officials, industry executives and directors of international institutions will be meeting at a high-level conference at the University of Cambridge, which aims to address the security implications of the environmental state-change in the Arctic Ocean as a result of global warming.

Scientists predict that within the next few decades the Arctic, which has been covered by sea ice year-round for at least the last 800 thousand years, will become seasonally ice-free, offering new opportunities for the countries and organisations laying claim to the region to tap into its huge reserves of gas and oil. The area north of the Arctic Circle is believed to hold about one quarter of the world's natural gas and oil reserves.

The Arctic coastal states - Russia, Norway, Canada, Denmark and the US - are all asserting their legal rights to sea floor in the Arctic Ocean toward the North Pole, raising the possibility that the region may become a source of political instability, as well as one witnessing dramatic environmental change.

There also are global implications around the possibility that the Arctic Ocean may become a new great trade route between the Pacific and Atlantic, and a source of tension as maritime traders seek to exploit the opportunity that affords.

The conference, at the University's Scott Polar Research Institute, will for the first time bring together members of both NATO and the Russian Federation around changes of the Arctic as matters of environmental security.

Organisers argue that the Arctic Council, the high-level forum that was established in 1996 initially with the eight Arctic state and indigenous peoples organizations, also needs to consider the role various nations' armed forces will have in ensuring safe, secure and reliable activities in the Arctic Ocean.

Professor Paul Berkman, Head of the Arctic Ocean Geopolitics Programme at the Scott Polar Research Institute, said: "The Arctic Ocean is witnessing the largest environmental state-change on Earth, which is introducing political, economic and cultural instabilities that involves a number of nuclear-capable states."

"Such instabilities are the underlying elements of any security challenge. As a result, we can no longer ignore the fact that there are security issues in the Arctic Ocean that need to be addressed to ensure that there is lasting stability in the region."

"The biggest risk in the Arctic is complacency about the risks of instabilities. The Arctic states and the world have a responsibility to consider strategies that both promote cooperation and prevent conflict - two sides of the coin of peace that are insufficient without the other."

The Cambridge event is an Advanced Research Workshop, sponsored by NATO's Science for Peace and Security Programme as well as a variety of other organisations, including Shell International and the World Wildlife Fund's International Arctic Programme.

The Arctic states and Greenland (which is formally classed as a dependency of Denmark) will be joined by representatives from a number of other nations which typically sit as observers on the Arctic Council, including Germany and the United Kingdom.

The event's stated aims are to address openly the changes taking place in the Arctic as a matter of international environmental security, to build trust between the states involved, and to consider what strategies could be employed to promote co-operation and prevent future conflict between them.

The Workshop will aim to build directly on the "Forum For Dialogue" that was hosted by the Russian Geographical Society in Moscow last month, where Russian Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin, spoke about the Arctic as an area for global advantage.

Professor Berkman added: "This could turn out to be a critical period not only for the Arctic, but for future relations between the Arctic powers. It seems that the cooperation and trust among the Arctic states has matured since the cold war and is now strong enough to go the next level - to consider strategies and dialogues that prevent conflict. National security policies are being declared and states are adjusting their strategic deployments in the Arctic Ocean, but peace in the region has yet to be explicitly established as a common interest."

"The aim of this workshop is to address those issues and initiate the sort of dialogue which will guarantee the future of the region as one of peace and stability."

The Environmental Security in the Arctic Ocean workshop will be held at the Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge, from 13 to 15 October. Further details, including the full agenda and list of speakers, can be found at: http://www.spri.cam.ac.uk/research/aog/events/