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Jonas Gahr Støre (Photo: Harry Wad)

Experts often warn of the financial costs of climate change. But some countries could stand to benefit from the warming of the planet. Melting ice caps in the Arctic could lead to new transportation routes. And that could be lucrative for a country like Norway. Anchor Lisa Mullins speaks to Norway’s foreign minister, Jonas Gahr Støre. Download MP3

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Lisa Mullins: In Cancun, Mexico, today the spirit of compromise at the Global Climate Summit appears to be holding.  Observers are crediting India with easing a deadlock between the United States and China on the big issue of how to monitor greenhouse gas emissions, and progress is being reported on ways to provide money and technology to help poor countries adapt.  After last year’s Devicive Summit in Copenhagen, progress on climate change can’t come too soon for many observers.

Jonas Stoere: It is going to create instability, migration, destruction of livelihoods.  Not in my country, probably, but it’s going to happen mainly in poor countries, and it’s going to disturb and upset weather patterns for decades to come.

Mullins: That is Norway’s Foreign Minister, Jonas Stoere.  Norway’s among the countries that could actually benefit in some ways from the warming of the planet.  Less ice in the Arctic Ocean is already leading to shorter shipping routes.  Minister Jonas Stoere says that that could be lucrative to a country like Norway, because the new route cut down on the cost of moving goods.

Stoere: It can sail from Rotterdam to Yokohama to important ports and save 40% time.  So for part of the maritime industry, this is an interesting scenario.  Not as an all around the year route, but as a route, a few months of the year, simply indicating that infrastructure in the world is changing.  What we will see in this century, that melting ice, while being an illustration of climate change, is also changing transport routes.

Mullins: Now, who owns this sea that we’re talking about?

Stoere: United States, Canada, Denmark with Greenland, Norway, and Russia.  They have in this area, like in any other coastal area, 200 nautical miles of economic [xx].  Then you have the Arctic Ocean in itself, which goes beyond these borders.  Well, then that is regulated by the law of the sea, as is the middle of the Atlantic, or the middle of the Pacific.  If there were to be resources to be found, as it might really happen out at certain depths and at so far away from shores, there’s a special setup for regulation for how you can explore those resources.

Mullins: There is one disagreement, and maybe you can tell us the status of this right now, and that is the jockeying for position among these five countries.  Specifically, Russia took the act, maybe symbolic, maybe not, of a coupe of years ago planting it’s flag, basically saying, ‘You know what, this territory, now that we all have access to it?  It’s ours.’

Stoere: You know, 99 years ago, a Norwegian planted a flag on the South Pole.  Amundson skied all the way to the South Pole and planted his flag.  That did not make the South Pole Norwegian.  If you plant the flag, Russian, or Norwegian, or any other, at 3000 meter depths of the North Pole, doesn’t make it either Russian or Norwegian.

Speaker: I’m curious about this though, because here Norway is a formidable, but very small state, compared to Russia.  When Russia decides to plant its flag, you say that it was nothing more than kind of a token gesture.  Still, I wonder how you, and I think you’re proud of the way your country has dealt with Russia on this, how you did see it, and kind of how you applied your own negotiating skills to dealing with Russia in this.

Stoere: Well, you know, we had this overlapping claim, 175000 square kilometers, where there was a dispute between Norway and Russia on how to draw the line.  We negotiated that we don’t see it for 40 years, and my colleague said [xx] and myself.  We reached agreement on the 27th of April, this year.  It’s not really if you go to the different areas where there are still disagreements.  They are not potential hotspots in my view.  I don’t think you’ll see a conflict around who owns the North Pole as such.

Speaker: There are also environmental concerns in terms of there’s more traffic out there from various countries who are using this as a shipping lane.  There’s also the chance of more collisions, of more spills for instance, and it still, make no mistake for people that don’t know the area, that it is still a very rough and inhospitable place to get, for instance, rescue crews to.

Stoere: You’re right.  You’re absolutely right.  Let me touch on these issues.  What scares me is the vast accidents really come from transport.  That raises the question: how we regulate transport in these areas?  We are negotiating a [xx] code for how sailing routes and regulations will be dealt with in the future.  Then there is search and rescue.  In an enormous area, Norway and Russia have followed a very detailed set of collaboration on how we do search and rescue, sharing information, sharing surveillance, for example.

Mullins: OK.  So it’s shifting seas in so many ways, and there are benefits and there are detriments of many different kinds that your country is going to be dealing with.

Stoere: Yes, but what really makes me concerned is the responsibilities.  Are we dealing with those responsibilities?  Safe to your passage, safe to your sailing, safe to your environment regulations, and my message [?] shares to counter those who are saying.  Here’s the new major conflict developing  using Cold War language to understand what’s happening in the Arctic.  I’m a former officer from the Norwegian Navy.  I know what it is to live next door to the Soviet Union and Russia.  So I don’t forget why we had those instincts, but I also see that modern Russia will approach the Arctic in a way where there are also numerous shared interests that we can explore, and that should be the mission of modern foreign policy.

Mullins: [music] Jonas Gahr Stoere is Norway’s Foreign Minister.  He spoke to us about the new transport routes in the high north caused by the warming of the Arctic Ocean.  This is P. R. I.

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