| You are subscribed to Press Releases for U.S. Department of State. This information has recently been updated, and is now available. 08/28/2015 03:35 PM EDT Senior State Department Official On Secretary Kerry's Participation in the Conference on Global Leadership in the Arctic: Cooperation, Innovation, Engagement and Resilience (GLACIER)Special Briefing Senior State Department Official Via Teleconference August 28, 2015
MODERATOR: Thanks, Brad, and thanks to everyone for joining us on Friday afternoon. Happy Friday. As you know, the U.S. Department of State will host the Global Leadership in the Arctic: Cooperation, Innovation, Engagement and Resilience conference, otherwise known as GLACIER, in Anchorage, Alaska on August 30 to 31st, 2015, so next week, with foreign ministers and high-level leaders from the seven other Arctic nations as well as countries in intergovernmental bodies with strong interest in the Arctic. And Secretary Kerry obviously will be there; President Obama’s also scheduled to address the conference. We’re very fortunate to have with us today [Senior State Department Official] to talk a little bit about the goals and objectives for the conference and why we’re holding it, and then to answer some of your questions. An important reminder: This is an on-background call, so [Senior State Department Official] should be referred to as a senior State Department official going forward. So appreciate that courtesy professionally, and without further ado, I’ll hand it over to senior State Department official so [Senior State Department Official] can introduce the call and make a few remarks. SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Thank you very much, [Moderator], and good morning to everybody. I’m [Senior State Department Official]. I’m talking to you this morning from Anchorage, Alaska. It’s a beautiful day here in Anchorage, not a cloud in the sky, sunny, a little chilly at 45 degrees Fahrenheit, about 43 when I went out for my run this morning around the city. The excitement and momentum are building here in Anchorage as we approach the GLACIER conference. I’ve been here, I think, as I said, since Monday, and have been involved with one other conference, the Alaskan Arctic Conference, which was organized by former Lieutenant Governor Mead Treadwell, who is currently the president of Pt Capital, and Alice Rogoff, who owns the Alaska Dispatch News. I spoke at that conference on Tuesday to wrap that up. And over the intervening days, I’ve had an opportunity to meet with the mayor, the governor, and other senior officials here in Alaska. I visited the University of Alaska; I traveled down to Seward, Alaska to the Alaska SeaLife Center; and also took a walk out to, most appropriately, the Exit Glacier since we’re here for the GLACIER conference. It was a special treat to go out there not just to see the glacier and the beauty of the Alaska countryside, but also to see the dramatic changes that have occurred over the years, particularly looking at pictures and the geography out there on how that particular glacier has receded, and particularly over the last couple of decades. So it’s a great scene setter for me. I returned to Anchorage yesterday after the seward trip. I met with a series of people, including students at the University of Alaska. Today, I’ll be going out to Alaska Command to talk about our U.S. leadership efforts in the Arctic Council, doing a couple of interviews both on TV and with the press, and most importantly, speaking to all of you today. Saturday, I will go over and monitor the preparations being done at the Dena’ina Convention Center here in Anchorage. We have the entire convention center reserved for our conference. And on Sunday, delegates and – will come in from around the world. We’re expecting delegations from 20 countries and about 450 people made up of policymakers, diplomats, scientists, representatives of nongovernmental organizations, and most importantly, over half the crowd will be made up of Alaskans themselves, and a large portion of that is Alaskan natives, who are, of course, most impacted by the changes that are happening up here in the Arctic. GLACIER is going to be a historic event. The media outlets up here have been promoting not just the conference, but in particular, the fact that our final speaker on Monday will be the President of the United States. Even beyond that, he is coming in for the GLACIER conference, but I think as everybody knows now, he’s going to spend some time in Alaska and he will be the first president – the first sitting president to visit the American Arctic, going above the Arctic Circle here in Alaska. We have a jam-packed day on Monday. There’ll be an opening plenary session with senior officials, leadership from Alaska and Alaska native groups speaking to the entire session. Secretary Kerry, Dr. John Holdren, the science advisor to the President will speak, and then the ministers will be involved in a track for the remainder of the day covering various topics, talking about the challenges in the Arctic. And the other participants – the 300 or so other participants in addition to the delegations will be broken down into two separate tracks which will cover various issues throughout the day as well. Everybody’s brought back together at the end of the day for the final plenary session, at which time we’ll have the President speak to us and we’re all, as I said, very excited about that. This is obviously a very significant event for Alaska, but I think it’s also a significant event for the world. Whenever the United States gets involved in a project, whenever the United States puts its focus on problems or issues, there is usually action that occurs. And as an individual, as an American, as a retired Coast Guardsman, an employee of the State Department, I could not be more excited that we are now gaining this focus on our Arctic challenges all brought together here in this wonderful conference that’s going to occur on Monday. So with that as a sort of a scene setter, I’ll be glad to turn it over to you at this point and attempt to answer any questions that you might have. Thank you. MODERATOR: Thanks so much, [Senior State Department Official]. At this point we’ll open it up to your questions. Brad, can you go ahead and get our first questioner? Thanks. OPERATOR: Of course. And ladies and gentlemen, if there are any questions from the phone lines at this time, please press * followed by the 1 on your touchtone phone. You will hear a tone indicating you’ve been placed in queue, and all questions will be pulled in the order they are received. Our first question today comes from the line of Andrew Revkin with The New York Times. Please go ahead. QUESTION: Thanks for hosting the call, and it’s kind of neat that the President will be above the Arctic Circle; it’s important. Two questions. One is about – there’s some environmental groups that are complaining about Arctic drilling approvals that the President has made seem to be in contrast with his concerns about global warming and the statements and recent videos related to the trip. And the other is about the Law of the Sea. Russia has been pushing harder; they had a military presence on the sea ice near the North Pole for the first time this spring and they’ve filed a new claim at the UN, and the U.S. has still not – even though Republican and Democratic presidents have pushed for it – gone ahead with the Law of the Sea ratification. So is that going to be part of his message? SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Thank you, Andrew. It’s good to hear from you. Let me address the drilling situation first. What I would say in response to that is yes, there are people who are protesting against the drilling; there are people that are upset and believe that the President has gone too far in terms of opening up the Arctic. There is an equal number of people who believe that the – it has not been opened up enough. And I’m not talking about the oil companies; I’m talking about the citizens of Alaska, and in particular, Alaskan natives. The people of Alaska want sustainable development that also protects the environment. There has to be a balance; the Administration has been taking a balanced approach to this. The Administration has been looking at alternate energy sources, renewable energy sources. But at the same time, in a very pragmatic approach, we understand that we’re going to need the petroleum products at least for the foreseeable future, and certain segments of the Chukchi Sea and the Beaufort Sea have been opened up for leases, and the companies that are up there have been doing things under a legal process and with strict review by the Department of Interior and the United States Coast Guard, and that is proceeding. So while not everybody’s happy, I think there has been a very balanced approach and Alaskans are interested in development and in fact, for some of them, they don’t think things are moving along fast enough. So as I said, it’s been a balanced approach by the Administration and the fact that we probably have parties on both sides of the issue that are not completely satisfied is probably an indicator that we’re on a fairly safe course here. As far as the Law of the Sea and Russian claims, I’ve been articulating this for the last month or so since the Russians have submitted their most recent claim: They are doing things entirely under the process of the Law of the Sea Treaty. They – and in fact, this is not the first time they’ve submitted a claim. They submitted a claim before and the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf told them to go back and provide better science documenting their extended continental shelf claim. Much has been made over the fact that their claim includes the North Pole; not much of a fuss was made when Denmark made a similar claim. In fact, their claim encompasses the North Pole and a large section of the Arctic Ocean as well. And I’ve had preliminary looks at what Canada might submit as their claim; it also claims the North Pole and a rather large portion of the Arctic Ocean. So for me, it comes as no surprise that the Russians’ claim is so large; they have half the coastline of the Arctic Ocean and they have devoted a lot of science to documenting their claim, and they’re going through the proper process within the Law of the Sea Treaty. And my only regret is that the United States is not able to have standing under that treaty because we have not acceded to it yet. And we at the State Department and the Administration remain hopeful that at some point in the future the Senate will ratify that treaty so that we can become a party in that as well. Thank you. QUESTION: Thanks. MODERATOR: Great. Next question, please. OPERATOR: And we do have a question from the line of Dmitry Kirsanov from TASS. Please go ahead. QUESTION: Thank you for doing this. Great to hear your voice again, [Senior State Department Official]. I’m sorry I’m not in Anchorage. I’m here in D.C. Two questions, if I may. First, what kind of tangible results you expect from the GLACIER conference? And secondly, speaking about U.S.-Russian bilateral cooperation in the Arctic, it was sort of shielded from the general downturn in the bilateral relations recently; at least, that was my understanding. Is it still the case, or this cooperation is also suffering now as a result of the general tensions and – in the bilateral relationship? SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Good morning, Dmitry. It’s good to hear from you again as well. Let me just clarify that second question. It was a little bit garbled. You wanted to know if some portion of bilateral relationships had deteriorated, and I didn’t quite pick up on that. QUESTION: No, I wanted to know if the cooperation in the Arctic, if the bilateral cooperation in the Arctic is still going on quite well or not. It was kind of shielded from the general downturn in the relationship, and I wanted to know if this is still the case or not. SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Okay, so let me go back to your first question. Well, actually, as long as we’ve clarified that, let me talk to the second question first of all. I would say that our relationships, our bilateral relationship as it regards the Arctic, is still good. I think there’s always going to be some small level of underlying tension because of other issues that are going on and because of the sanctions over the activities in Ukraine and Crimea. However, I deal directly with the Arctic officials. Vladimir Barbin, who is Russia’s senior Arctic official, is one of the most professional persons that I have dealt with. He has given us very thorough reviews of our Arctic Council chairmanship program. He’s one of the most important participants in that. We rely upon him in terms of keeping and advancing our chairmanship program going forward. As you know, nothing is accomplished within the Arctic Council without the consensus of all eight countries, so we view our cooperation with Russia as very important to making sure that we – that the Arctic remains an area of cooperation and peace and advancing our various program issues. So I have seen no issue there. I’ve met a number of times with Ambassador Kislyak in Washington talking about our Arctic issues. He will lead the delegation here to the GLACIER conference, and I’m confident that our great sense of cooperation will continue at least for the foreseeable future. The tangible results – I’ll tell you, officially what we are saying is – and these are the things that you can actually reach out and touch – there’ll be a chairman’s summary statement for the activities of the GLACIER conference that will be put out by the Secretary of State, and also the eight Arctic countries are working on a joint statement on the climate which I think will add momentum and some – and the Arctic Council, or rather the Arctic countries’ voice to efforts that will be accomplished in Paris later in the year during COP21. So those are the two things that you can actually reach out and touch, but I think there’s a third deliverable that is probably the most important one, and that’s just simply raising awareness of the challenges of the Arctic. And I would say a subset of that is it’s raising the awareness of the Arctic for the American people. I’ve stated many times when I’ve spoken publicly that there’s a challenge for the United States because we are so disconnected from our Arctic; it’s not necessarily a part of our culture. This is a grand opportunity for us to raise awareness of the American people because we need to have the American taxpayers, American citizens understand that they have fellow citizens that live within the Arctic that have needs that are becoming even more serious because of the challenges brought about by the changing climate. So this is a tremendous opportunity when you can get the Secretary of State, leaders of 20 countries, various scientific and policymaking organizations, and then the President of the United States coming in to draw attention to these challenges. QUESTION: Thank you, sir. SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: You’re welcome. MODERATOR: Great. Next question, please. OPERATOR: And if there are any additional questions at this time, please press * followed by the 1 on your touchtone phone. You’ll hear a tone indicating you’ll be placed in queue. And one moment please for our next question. And our next question comes from the line of Matt Simon with Chinese TV. Please go ahead. QUESTION: Yeah, thanks again for doing this. A question about – you mentioned Alaskans being interested in development but also concerns about climate change. I’m looking to connect the dots a little bit on that, there is, obviously, a changing way of life for many Alaskans and people living in the Arctic or near the Arctic. How much is that a concern that’s going to be addressed about, for example, no longer using dog sleds, now they can afford snowmobiles? The sort of life changing as a result of increased development and, obviously, more money coming in? SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: I think it’s very easy for people, and I don’t presume one way or the other whether you’ve spent any time in the Arctic. I’ve spent a lot of time up on the North slope in Barrow and other places, and people always focus on things like snow mobiles and other things. What I would focus on is we have people up there in a very challenging, demanding, harsh environment who sometimes have to struggle just to get running water into their homes. They depend upon diesel generators that are burning a very expensive diesel fuel. They have sanitation problems and other things. And while you may see a couple of snowmobiles or automobiles going around, it’s just an introduction of modern conveniences up there that normal citizens and the rest of our countries take for granted and have expectations, and it is a challenge for the people who live up in the North. We have a high incidence of communicable diseases. We have higher than average suicide rates in the North. And all of these things are brought upon by sort of these rapid changes that are occurring in this very harsh environment. And one of the tracks that we have for both our Arctic Council chairmanship and within the GLACIER conference itself is how do you improve the economic and, most importantly, the living conditions of the people in the North. Clearly, economic conditions help facilitate improved living conditions. And how do we meet those challenges? A for instance that I’ll give you is I said we have these small grid electrical power systems that many of the villages, particularly across North America, both Canada and the United States, that are highly dependent upon diesel generators, which are both expensive and produce pollution in the form of black carbon which accelerates the deterioration of the ice. How do we come up with alternative power sources, renewable energy sources? How do we use those to sustain the water systems? People in other southern latitudes take for granted they can turn on the faucet and have running water. It’s much more of a challenge when you’re dealing at 45 degree below zero at certain points in the year. You’ve got to heat up water just so it will get through the pipes. You’ve got to insulate pipes so it doesn’t thaw the permafrost, and then get it back up into homes again. And consequently, it’s very expensive for people who don’t make a lot of money to begin with. So it’s not an easy problem to confront. These people are entitled to the same conveniences and modern devices that other are as well, and they want these things. Telecommunications is another issue. I’ve been up in Barrow when they’ve tried to send out the results of a CAT scan so that it can be analyzed by a doctor down in the lower 48, and it took three hours to transmit the CAT scan because they have no fiber optic cables. They have to rely upon old microwave technology. So people have expectations of trying to come into the 21st century and have some of the same conveniences and other things that other Americans have. So it’s a huge challenge, but these are some of the issues we’ll be talking about during GLACIER and then carrying on during our chairmanship of the Arctic Council. MODERATOR: Thanks so much. I think we have time for just a couple more questions. Next question, please. OPERATOR: We do have a question from the line of Tim Ellis with KUAC Radio. Please go ahead. QUESTION: Hello again, [Senior State Department Official], and welcome back to Alaska. SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Thanks, Tim. Good to be here. QUESTION: You bet. Say, I think your previous question or two leads perfectly into what I wanted to ask you about, which is our listenership and our people up here in Alaska – a question oriented toward folks up here. You alluded to that in your conversation there about the difficulty of living in a fairly harsh climate, maybe less so now than it was a few decades ago, but in any case still pretty chilly during the course of winter. High energy costs up here, ironically, because this being the oil patch of the North, but lack of refinery and transportation and God knows why else. It’s a very expensive, as you know. And so what I’m wondering is, do you have any thoughts – do you suppose the President might want to share some thoughts on how a place like the state of Alaska can do well economically with an industry, with an economy that’s based on fossil fuel, the extraction of this stuff ironically causing this whole climate change feedback loop and causing more problems? Any kind of proposal, initiative that the President or the federal government may be formulating on helping the state of Alaska to transition into an economy that’s not so dependent on fossil fuels, or at least to bridge to other ways to base the economy up here? Will anything like that be talked about during this conference, any sort of announcements or initiatives that might be mentioned during the course of the conference? SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Tim, I wouldn’t presume to predict or to state what the President might announce while he’s up here. That’s something clearly that the White House has been working on and I don’t think they want anything out there in advance. And to be completely candid, I just don’t know. What I do know and what has been gratifying to me is that there have been many people that have been consulted, myself included. And I believe I’ve been listened to because they’ve been coming to people who have experiences in Alaska, who have at least – and I’m – I would never presume to have a complete feel for all the needs of the people of Alaska, but I’ve been up here enough so I think I have a fairly good handle on it. And what I can say is the White House has been very receptive to listening to people who have some idea about the challenges that are being faced up here. The President started out with producing a couple of years ago the National Arctic Strategy. Since then, we’ve developed an implementation plan for all these various issues and challenges that are being faced within the American Arctic. And they all – many of them involve a need for resources during a time when we have a crunch on our federal budget and people are looking to reduce the budget rather than add to it and most of these things in the Arctic are new starts. But what is encouraging is that the White House is looking at these things now and trying to find ways that we can help Alaska and our Arctic. So I’m very hopeful that there will be some positive things that will come out of this, some positive announcements. But more importantly, the President – it’s obvious that the President has chosen climate change as one of his legacy issues. It is the broader global issue of climate change, but as he’s learned more about the American Arctic and the rather significant impact that climate change is having on his country, he’s made the time to come up here and take a look at it himself. So I couldn’t be more pleased. He – I was watching a segment on the television here this morning that went back in a retrospective of presidential visits to America, and as you know probably better than I do, most of them are limited to Elmendorf. The President’s here because he wants to learn. He wants to talk to Alaskans, and I think we all should applaud that and remain optimistic and hopeful that good things will come out of it. MODERATOR: Great. Next question, please. OPERATOR: And we do have a question from the line of Nicole Gaouette with Bloomberg News. Please go ahead. QUESTION: Hi. My question has been asked and answered, but thank you very much for the call. MODERATOR: Great. SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: You’re welcome. Thanks for coming in, Nicole. MODERATOR: Thanks so much. And I think we have time for just maybe one more question, so our last questioner, please. OPERATOR: Sure. Our last question then comes from the line of Lisa Friedman with ClimateWire. Please go ahead. QUESTION: Hi. Thanks so much for this call, and thanks, [Senior State Department Official], for all these comments. I’m hoping we could go back to the discussion of Paris and that you could put this trip in context of the UN negotiation session coming up. To what extent does the Administration see this as a way to build momentum, and how do you expect – bilateral discussions on the sidelines, what about? And do you see this as a place where the Administration might try to develop agreements on things like black carbon that you talked about earlier that’s affecting the Arctic and could go a long way in bridging the gap between what countries have pledged to do and what science says actually needs to be done? Thanks. SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Yeah, the agreements, of course, as you know, we had a task – within the Arctic Council we had a task force on black carbon. And during our chairmanship we are – we will be working to take action on the recommendations of that task force within the eight countries of the Arctic Council. And also we believe that those member states – those observer states – if they want to be observer states and continue in good standing within the Arctic Council, that they should adapt those recommendations as well. And of course, the Arctic Council’s voice should be heard in Paris as well, and I’m sure that the Administration’s climate change policies will reflect that as they go forward. The – there’s a certain level of – I don’t want to diminish this – let’s just say that GLACIER gives us the opportunity first and foremost to show and tell. This is a buildup to COP, but it also is a buildup to our U.S. chairmanship of the Arctic Council. So it’s sort of two purposes here: to raise awareness of the American Arctic but also to show that the global issue of climate change is impacting the U.S. – well, the entire Arctic, but the President’s focus, of course, will be on the United States. So the GLACIER conference itself will not come up with any binding agreements similar to what we do within the Arctic Council because this is not held under the auspices of the Arctic Council. We had this opportunity to gather the countries and to get the President. A conference of this magnitude, if done under the rules of the Arctic Council, requires you to submit agendas and plans and everything else and work to gain the consensus of all eight countries. In this particular case, it’s United States leadership saying we want to hold this conference to draw attention to these issues, and this has been put together – I think for a conference of this magnitude, it’s been put together in record time. We want – would not have been able to do that if we ran it as an Arctic Council event because it would take many more months of negotiations, et cetera. And clearly this – the timing is right now, if you’re using this as a preliminary and as a buildup to COP. So I think that probably – I hope that – response to your question that you’re looking for. QUESTION: Thank you. Yeah. MODERATOR: Great. Thanks to everyone for joining us, as I said, on this lovely Friday, both here in Washington and obviously in Alaska as well. I really appreciate the Senior State Department Official joining us and walking us through the upcoming GLACIER conference. And thanks again to everyone for joining us and have a happy and healthy weekend. Take care. Stay connected with the State Department:
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