Unrevised

Members present

Lord Teverson (Chairman)

Lord Addington

Baroness Browning

Lord Hannay of Chiswick

Viscount Hanworth

Lord Hunt of Chesterton

Lord Moynihan

Baroness Neville-Jones

Lord Oxburgh

Lord Soley

Lord Tugendhat

________________

Examination of Witnesses

Ben Ayliffe, Head of Campaigns for the Greenpeace Arctic Programme, Greenpeace UK, Charlie Kronick, Senior Climate Policy Adviser, Greenpeace UK, and Nathalie Rey, Deputy Head of the Political and Business Unit of Greenpeace International, Greenpeace UK

Q173 The Chairman: I open this public evidence session of the Arctic Select Committee and welcome members of staff of Greenpeace here for this particular session. Perhaps I could go through one or two things. I hope you have a list of the interests of individual Members so you can see those. This session is being broadcast live. We are also taking a transcription, which you will see and will have an opportunity to correct if you feel it is wrong.

I am grateful that you do not want to make any opening remarks, because we have a substantial piece of written evidence from you, and I thank you for that. It would be nice if you could introduce yourselves individually. I remind you before we go into questions that I do not expect all of you to answer all the questions. I will leave it to you as to who responds to which. Please introduce yourselves if you would like to.

Nathalie Rey: My name is Nathalie Rey. I am the deputy head of the Political and Business Unit of Greenpeace International. Until recently I was a senior oceans policy adviser, concentrating on international marine governance in areas beyond national jurisdiction and marine conservation.

Charlie Kronick: My name is Charlie Kronick. I am the senior climate policy adviser at Greenpeace UK and for most of the last seven years I have been working specifically on oil at the extreme ends of extraction and the relationship to capital markets.

Ben Ayliffe: My name is Ben Ayliffe and I am the head of the international campaign at Greenpeace against arctic oil drilling and, like Charlie, I have been working on oil, tar sands and things like and the Arctic for about the last five or six years.

Q174 The Chairman: Thank you very much. I will move on our questions. First, how fast do you see the pace of environmental change in the Arctic? Is there any reason to believe that there will not be, because of it, further increases in economic and industrial activity in the Arctic over the coming decades, regardless of those environmental shifts and, perhaps, despite all the barriers that there are in the Arctic to commercial exploitation?

Ben Ayliffe: Greenpeace’s view is that the change that we are seeing in the Arctic is both rapid and fundamental. The data from the scientists about the extent and volume of sea ice tell us that the Arctic is in a pretty bad way. The overall trend is worrying. The sea ice is declining at an increasing rate in all months of the year, with a noticeable decline in the summer months. Since about 1979, the start of the satellite records, the loss in the summer has been around 11% per decade, and the last eight years have seen the lowest eight minimum summer extents in the satellite record. The record low of 2012 was around 44% below the 1981 to 2010 average. The picture is pretty stark and I think that compels action, which is at the heart of the Greenpeace campaign.

I was up in Svalbard a couple of weeks ago with President Anote Tong of Kiribati, who we took up there to witness the change in the Arctic. I had an interesting discussion with one of the Norwegian ice pilots who was on board our ship, the “Esperanza”. He had lived up in that region for many years and he told me that he had seen noticeable glacier retreats in the archipelago, and that one of the fjords that we were crossing, Billefjorden, had been ice free for the past two winters, which was unheard of. He told me how creatures like the bearded seal, which rely on sea ice to haul out, were decreasing in numbers in Svalbard because the ice is disappearing and they are being replaced by seal species that need land to haul out. This is admittedly anecdotal evidence, but it really brought home to me personally that there is obvious evidence that the region is changing and that we need to act accordingly.

Charlie Kronick: I would add very briefly that the relationship of temperature change and decrease in sea ice has certainly encouraged the fossil fuel industry to feel that there are more opportunities for extraction. In Shell’s experience in Alaska in the summer of 2012, a reduction in winter sea ice does not necessarily mean there will be a reduction in ice during the brief exploratory periods. The weather conditions are still extreme. The sea conditions as a result of reduced ice are actually occasionally more extreme and, as has been highlighted by both the US Geological Survey and the industry itself, the clean up of a significant or even a minor oil spill in ice-covered waters or waters that are at least part of the year covered in ice is next to impossible with existing technologies.

The Chairman: I think we will come on to that later on.

Charlie Kronick: I will not go into the details, but it was the issue of whether that leads to the inevitability of further extraction. The commercial narrative says yes. I would say that the environmental, financial and management narratives would say no.

The Chairman: But is it not just inevitable, because of the way human societies or economies work, that when opportunities arise because of changes, whether we like them or do not like them, something is going to happen? Therefore, rather than try to stop it, should we not try to make it acceptable, controlled or regulated in the right way? I suppose that is what we are trying to get at.

Charlie Kronick: That is a fair question, but you have to look at that challenge of human inevitability in a certain set of circumstances with the broader context and so take your lens back to a little higher degree of altitude. The oil-demand scenarios put out by the IEA but equally by the companies themselves, whether it is BP’s annual energy statistics or Shell’s scenarios, look at a range of consumption scenarios and then relate them to climate change and average temperature increases. Within the event horizons that are projected by any responsible voice in the industry, any significant extraction of oil from the Arctic would be beyond 2030 or 2035 and would mean that we were at a level of oil consumption or fossil fuel consumption generally that was committing to a global average temperature increase of 4 to 5 degrees. If we, as a society or as a set of industrialised nations, are choosing to respond to climate change in any meaningful way, frankly that rules out that kind of exploration and exploitation in the Arctic. Does that mean there will be absolutely no activity there? Let us be clear, Greenpeace is not calling for a withdrawal from the Arctic and absolutely no activity there; we are focused on oil and gas extraction but also on the management of issues like fisheries and shipping.

The Chairman: Lord Hannay, I think you had a supplementary specifically on oil price.

Lord Hannay of Chiswick: Can you comment on the extent to which the current direction of the oil price is likely to affect the problems that you see in development of oil and gas reserves in the Arctic? Could it in fact shoot your fox?

Charlie Kronick: I hope not, not the Arctic ones anyway. The oil price has two effects: there is a push and there is a pull. The oil reserves that are being projected to be exploited in the Arctic are definitely at the high end of the cost curves, there is no doubt about that. If you look at the Citibank cost curve, which is reproduced by the IEA, the Arctic is at the far end of the expensive scale. So a flat oil price, or even a high but not particularly volatile oil price, does not lead one to conclude that there is going to be a high likelihood of extraction any time soon. There never was a high likelihood of extraction any time soon. We would certainly argue, and we have heard from many people in the capital markets, that the exploration, certainly in Alaska but to a certain extent in Russia and Norway as well, is about reserve replacement. I am sure you well know that oil companies are valued largely in the capital markets by their reserve replacement ratios. The question I would ask is: are these genuine plays for production or are they about reserve replacement?

The only thing I would add is that I think it is really important to separate oil and gas. On Arctic gas, that fox is definitely shot. It is just too expensive, given the glut of gas in the global markets. It has been volatile and the change that shale in North America has meant to global gas markets has been very rapid, so things could change again. For the foreseeable future, transporting gas in the high Arctic is too expensive, too much infrastructure is required, to be seriously considered.

Lord Hannay of Chiswick: Presumably your point about reserve replacement, which is very valid, is that reserve replacement has none of the risks that you see to the Arctic. It is only development that has that risk.

Charlie Kronick: I would just remind you that Deepwater Horizon was an exploration rig, not a production rig. There are just as many risks from exploration drilling as there are from production, perhaps more because there is less infrastructure in place.

Q175 Lord Moynihan: We have had evidence from the IAOGP that, “If ice is present, ice formations can help contain spills and reduce wave activity compared to open water”, and they go on to argue that there are other ways in which oil spills within an ice environment can be managed. Is it the presence of ice that leads you to conclude that there should be no activity in an oil and gas province where ice exists as opposed to any other province around the world? If so, what is your reasoning? Do you call, for example, for a withdrawal of any exploration and production activity in Alaska as a result of the presence of ice? Could you elaborate a little more, in other words, on how significant the oil spills could be in the context of ice-covered environments?

Ben Ayliffe: For the sake of clarity, the Greenpeace policy, if you can call it that, is that we consider offshore Arctic oil to be the region within 100 kilometres of the 30-year, 15% sea-ice maximum as defined by the Norwegian Polar Institute. Ice is the biggest driver in the concerns about drilling in the Arctic. There is the clear carbon logic argument as well—we should not be drilling for more of the oil that is causing the melting to happen in the first place—but ice poses significant, unprecedented challenges to the oil industry. To quote Shell themselves in Alaska, “There is no sugar coating this. If you ask me will there ever be spills, I imagine there will be spills”.

When you consider that there is no known way of cleaning oil that is spilled in ice, we do not think that you should be operating there. The challenge is mechanical recovery: booms and skimmers simply do not work in ice-infested waters; in-situ burning is disrupted by wind and things like that; and we do not know the long-term eco-toxicological impacts of putting chemical dispersants in the Arctic. The colder waters reduce the efficacy of the chemicals themselves.

All in all, a spill in the Arctic would be the nightmare scenario. You have issues of darkness and remoteness. In Alaska, for instance, they are 1,000 kilometres away from the nearest US coastguard station. Dealing with the sort of accident that we saw in the Gulf of Mexico, where BP had 50,000 employees and thousands of ships—the centre of the global oil response industry—that simply would not happen in Alaska.

Charlie Kronick: Or in Russia.

Ben Ayliffe: Or in Russia, yes, or Greenland. The risk is compounded by the threat of winter. If you had a blowout late in the season, it would be exceptionally difficult for the drilling of a relief well. We noticed a report out the other week where Shell was lobbying the US Government against their rules in Alaska that stipulate the use of a second drilling well in case of an emergency. The fact that a company like Shell, which made such a hash of drilling in Alaska in 2012, is now looking to water down the regulations in the USA is deeply worrying.

Lord Moynihan: Specifically, is it your position that you would call for a moratorium in any areas of the world where there was ice-impacted exploration or production activity, irrespective of whether it is technically within the Arctic or whether it is in—

Ben Ayliffe: The Arctic offshore, yes.

Lord Moynihan: Only within the Arctic offshore?

Ben Ayliffe: Yes.

Lord Moynihan: If there was development in the Antarctic, would you take exactly the same position and the same logic that you have expressed today?

Ben Ayliffe: That would follow, yes.

Q176 Viscount Hanworth: The idea of a moratorium on Arctic drilling is very attractive to those who have an environmental consciousness, but how would it be negotiated, established and enforced? Moreover, what would the response be to the proposal of a moratorium by the nations that have an interest, the Arctic nations that could plausibly pursue drilling?

Nathalie Rey: The process of agreeing a moratorium is that the Arctic nations themselves can come together and agree that they will not allow any further oil drilling in their EEZs. In theory, as they are coastal states of the Central Arctic Ocean, they would be able to agree a legally binding agreement that included not authorising any extractive activities in the Central Arctic Ocean until the necessary rules and regulations are in place. A moratorium is a temporary ban until the necessary rules and regulations are in place. Under UNCLOS it is possible for countries to come together and make such an agreement. The Central Arctic Ocean is an area beyond national jurisdiction, which falls under the International Seabed Authority. This is the body that manages deep sea mining in that region, so that would be involved. Sorry, what was your second question?

Q177 Viscount Hanworth: How would the various Arctic nations that have an interest in oil extraction and gas extraction react to a moratorium? What sort of resistance might there be? In particular, as far as I know, there is one productive oil well in the region, and that is Prirazlomnaya. Can you explain to me how productive that is and how resistant the Russians would be to the moratorium if it were proposed and if other nations were to adopt it or advocate it?

Charlie Kronick: I can talk about it in general and Ben will come back to the issue specifically of Prirazlomnaya. I would refer back slightly to the earlier conversation: the intention and the likelihood of these plays becoming productive in the near term, which I think will determine and to a large extent influence the political viability of a moratorium, particularly on the idea of further expansion of the industry. Just to be clear, we are not advocating the shutdown of the North Slope rigs in Alaska or Sakhalin Island. We are not talking about shutting down the existing industry; we are talking about stopping the further expansion of it. To a large extent, I think future economics will determine how possible it is to negotiate this kind of moratorium.

Specifically around the Russian Arctic, it is very clear—not focusing on one producing well but the wells that Rosneft is planning further up into the Kara Sea with its various joint ventures—that the plays are entirely dependent on their foreign partners, whether that is Exxon; BP, which owns 20% of Rosneft, as I am sure you know; or Shell potentially with Gazprom. There is already quite a lot of tension between the active participants in the region, in the province, as to whether or not further expansion there is going to be good for one or the other. There is quite a lot of downward economic pressure on expansion in Russia. There is quite a lot of potentially downward regulatory pressure on expansion in the US and Canada.

Four or five years ago many people described it as inevitable that these resources would be exploited and I think that is no longer the case. Total’s decision not to drill in the high Arctic, the fact that Statoil has withdrawn from the North American Arctic, the fact that ConocoPhilips is paying for rigs that it is not using in the North American Arctic, tells us that there is not quite as much pressure for extraction and expansion as we were led to believe or as the narrative would have told you even two or three years ago.

Viscount Hanworth: How does Greenpeace imagine that in the long run the world can satisfy its energy needs if not by hydrocarbons? I hope this is not going off message.

The Chairman: It is quite a broad question but if we could just narrow it down.

Charlie Kronick: The first way in which we and pretty much everybody else who talks about energy consumption is that it is not about expanding sources of energy; it is about managing demand. To bring it back specifically to the context of the Arctic, oil demand in the OECD has already peaked. They will never sell more oil in North America or Europe than was sold in 2008, and not just for economic reasons; it is also for structural reasons. The growth in demand in China has slowed dramatically, and India is certainly an outlier, but the reality is that oil demand is slowing and peaking. Then the question becomes, first of all, how you manage the demand down further. The biggest change has been the big crash in price in renewables, particularly for solar, and one of the ways of grid balancing and managing generation of renewables in the future will be through storage in domestic storage and in electric cars. As well as an imperative for environmental reasons to reduce fossil fuel consumption, there is now a legitimate and pretty well recognised commercial pathway for taking oil consumption much lower than it currently is.

Viscount Hanworth: That fails to answer the question, because we are talking about the plausibility of a moratorium, and I think you have to be pretty persuasive about a future scenario whereby there is a diminishing demand for hydrocarbons.

Charlie Kronick: We would be happy to come back to that discussion.

The Chairman: Just following up Viscount Hanworth, do you see the Arctic Council as the medium for getting such a moratorium? In terms of really practical politics, if this was to happen—and I am looking for a fairly short answer—what route would you use that might be achievable? I think that is what we are trying to understand.

Nathalie Rey: The Arctic Council could be a possible forum, because all the key players that are involved in these discussions are already at the table. Until now it has shown itself not really as a policymaking body but more as a policy-forming body. It would probably have to reform quite significantly to be the forum, but it is a possibility.

The Chairman: We will come on to the next question then. If that does not work, what would?

Nathalie Rey: It is possible for coastal states to come together outside a legal body and agree that they will co-ordinate together to create a moratorium on oil drilling. It has already been happening with fisheries. The US Government have been leading discussions on having a moratorium on high seas fishing, so it is perfectly possible for countries to come together and have these discussions outside a legal entity such as—well, the Arctic Council is not a legal entity as such—outside a body.

Ben Ayliffe: I would just add that the US has recently been talking about the possibility of pan-Arctic drilling standards. This is not the same, obviously, as a moratorium on Arctic drilling, but it gives some indication that there are mechanisms and that if the will is there there are ways and means of enforcing stricter regulation on drilling.

The Chairman: Thank you very much.

Lord Oxburgh: If I may follow that up, the Norwegians distinguish the high Arctic from the less high Arctic, and of course they have a progressive process of going further north each time and testing the water. Do you have any comments on that, because I think it is relevant to this?

Ben Ayliffe: On their success or their policy in general?

Lord Oxburgh: Both.

Ben Ayliffe: The Norwegians with Statoil talk a good game about environmental protection and having gold standards, but they would be in no better position to deal with a spill close to the ice edge in places up in the Hoop field where they were this summer. They have drilled six wells in the northern Barents this summer and found no oil. Again, it indicates to us that the NORSOK drilling standards that the Norwegian authorities present as the gold standard are not ice-specific. We think that a lot would need to happen for them to come anywhere near being robust enough to meet the challenges. It also goes back to the idea that the Arctic is not perhaps the land of milk and honey for the oil industry that we have been led to believe, because yet again, much like Cairn Energy in Greenland, they have found dry wells.

Q178 Lord Oxburgh: How do you think the Arctic Council has been doing so far in trying to balance economic considerations against environmental considerations?

Nathalie Rey: I would argue that the Arctic Council has not been doing well on either side, environmentally and on sustainable development. On the environment side, the clearest evidence is the lack of marine protection in the region. There are very few marine protected areas in the region. It has one of the lowest representations globally. There is no clear strategy on how to implement such a global network of marine protected areas, even though this is part of international commitments made by many of the countries within the Arctic Council. Under the Convention on Biological Diversity, there has been an international commitment for 10% marine protected areas by 2020. It is clear that they are definitely not going to achieve that in the Arctic. The Arctic Council began as a body for environmental protection and we are seeing, especially recently under the Canadian chairmanship, a swing towards economic development with the establishment of the Arctic Economic Council, which seems to be more a forum to give business and oil companies a direct link to the senior officials.

In the way the Arctic Council has been operating it has been almost zealously guarding its national jurisdiction by not wanting to allow in new observers, which has changed recently. It makes it very difficult for organisations or new countries to be observers. It recently revised its rules and procedures, which are very stringent and reflects the over-defensive way it guards its interests and is being very cautious when putting things on the multilateral table.

The Arctic Council has been very successful in coming up with very good scientific reports—excellent reports on Arctic biodiversity and ocean acidification—but it has not been successful in ensuring that there has been action to ensure protection.

Lord Oxburgh: How do you think observer states can actually influence this?

Lord Hunt of Chesterton: Are you an observer?

Nathalie Rey: We have tried—we have an application that has not been accepted yet—for many years already.

Lord Hunt of Chesterton: You share that privilege with the European Union.

Nathalie Rey: We are still waiting to hear on that. On the roles of observers, I think they can have a very strong influence in supporting an environmental agenda and to seeing the benefits of opening up the Arctic Council to show that they also have an interest in what happens in the Arctic, especially environmentally. That only serves to legitimise the Arctic Council by having a wider membership rather than overzealously guarding the territory by not letting in interested parties that clearly do have an interest.

Lord Oxburgh: Do you monitor the UK’s role as an observer?

The Chairman: We will come on to the UK’s role in the last question I think.

Lord Oxburgh: If we can just get an answer on the Arctic Council.

The Chairman: By all means, yes.

Nathalie Rey: I think the UK could have a role in supporting—

Lord Oxburgh: It is not a matter of “could have”. Have you been watching what the UK has been doing?

Charlie Kronick: Not in great detail. We reviewed the policy that was published last autumn that revealed some interesting tendencies.

Lord Oxburgh: That is fine. Thank you.

Q179 Lord Soley: The Chairman asked about the practical politics of what you are suggesting, and in your answer you said that the Arctic Council was governed perhaps too much by national interests. Is it not the hard practical reality that Russia will not allow it to become anything else and that at the end of the day they are the major power with the major coastline in the Arctic? You know to your cost the problems that you have dealing with Russia and trying to get them to accept that the Arctic Council might transfer into an international body of the type you would like to influence as an NGO.

Ben Ayliffe: I would say that it is not necessarily just Russia. I think Canada and Norway in the past have had similarly quite regressive views on the role of the Arctic Council.

Lord Soley: Does not that make it worse?

Ben Ayliffe: I was going to come on to say that I think this goes to the heart of the future legitimacy of the Arctic Council, because what happens in the Arctic affects much more than those Arctic littoral states. The changes that we are seeing in the Arctic can be tackled only in part by global efforts on climate deals and things like that. So if the Arctic Council wishes to maintain its credibility and its central role in the future governance of the Arctic, it has to open up. You could not imagine countries like China or India, which have already expressed strong interests in the north, agreeing to the status quo where they are in effect kept on the side-lines of what is an increasingly important and geostrategic forum.

Lord Soley: The implications of what you are both saying are that the Arctic Council either cannot survive or, if it does, it will have to be overtaken by some much bigger international organisation. That is what you are saying, is it not?

Ben Ayliffe: I think it has to have more of a global mind-set. One of the concerns that we have had in the past is that it does very good science but it has always felt like a boys’ club for the top of the world. As I said, the challenges that the Arctic faces cannot be solved by Arctic littoral states and other members of the council alone. It will ultimately have to change in some form or other or lose its relevance.

The Chairman: If I could come back on the governance or the moratorium side, there is the example of the Ilulissat Declaration of 2008. Is that model relevant in any way?

Nathalie Rey: The declaration basically wants to maintain the status quo. It says that it does not need to have a new, legally binding agreement to cover the Arctic. The Arctic Five feel that existing international instruments are enough. We would argue that because of the importance of the Arctic a legally binding agreement is needed that is relevant and much more specific to the Arctic.

The Chairman: I suppose what I was trying to get at was that that was an example of the five leaving the other three behind and getting on and trying to do something, but you are saying that it should be much broader internationally rather than smaller.

Nathalie Rey: It should be broader. In a way it was sort of saying, “Hands off, we are fine as it is”, and we would argue that there needs to be greater—

Lord Hannay of Chiswick: On this question of exclusivity that you have taken issue with and said that the Arctic Council is too exclusive, you do not appear to have the same criticism of the Antarctic treaty, which is just as exclusive but happens to do the things that you want it to do?

Ben Ayliffe: I have not worked on the Antarctic treaty. Our focus is very much on the Arctic, and the power plays that we see in the Arctic at the moment are such that we cannot not be involved.

Charlie Kronick: We are not a Government; we are the first to admit it. Our legitimacy comes partially from our supporters and partially from our participation over a long period in this set of questions and issues. Our focus on the Arctic and governance in the Arctic is a pretty instrumental one and we are not trying to cover that up. We feel very strongly, as I tried to say but not adequately, that there needs to be a very strong move away from the status quo in energy consumption and the industrial model of energy production that we are currently pursuing and that would be accelerated by expansion into the Arctic.

One of the main reasons why we have engaged with Arctic governance in a different way than in the Antarctic is that at the moment it is a frontier that is being pressed for expansion, whereas the Antarctic is currently maintaining a probably uneasy status quo. Of course there is pressure to remove that moratorium, but this is a bit like triage, to use an unfortunate metaphor. We—and not just us but global climate science and environmental policy—are trying to engage where we feel that engagement needs to take place. It is tactical as well as strategic.

Q180 Lord Hunt of Chesterton: I have a question about your notion of the Arctic sanctuary. You have already commented that these marine protected areas have not been strong and that the UK has not been brilliant either. They are difficult things to do, although some countries like New Zealand have been very successful. Broader than the notion of the Arctic sanctuary, what are the forces that will enable these kinds of sanctuaries or marine protected areas to develop in the Arctic?

Nathalie Rey: There are international commitments already by Governments to establish a global network, so there is a political imperative. There is a scientific imperative in that the sanctuary, the Central Arctic Ocean area, has been identified as an ecologically or biologically significant area by scientists. There is a scientific imperative that says that this area is unique; it is biologically productive; it is an important area for threatened species and biodiversity. There have been commitments internationally. I do not know if any of you have read about the UN report that was released at the beginning of the Convention on Biological Diversity’s 12th conference of parties, which basically says that we are failing quite dramatically on reaching the targets that were set for 2020 if we carry on this track.

A huge game change needs to happen and prioritising those areas that have already been identified by science as being important, is going to give clear progress towards putting in place marine protected areas. I think it is challenging, because especially on the high seas there are very few marine protected areas, yet that is why we are calling—

Lord Hunt of Chesterton: Is the Arctic Council pushing for these marine protected areas? You hinted that they discussed it but decided not to do it. Is that right?

Nathalie Rey: They have been talking about marine protection, but the responsibility within exclusive economic zones is on the countries themselves. They have been making very slow progress. There has been no discussion within the Arctic Council for the Central Arctic Ocean yet, but ultimately countries are lagging seriously behind on their commitments on marine protected areas and in particular in the Arctic.

Q181 Lord Hannay of Chiswick: I notice from your evidence that you believe that shooting seismic is a bad thing generally in the Arctic. Surely the line you have taken on this is identical wherever in the world you are shooting seismic to explore underwater reserves. It is no different in the Arctic from anywhere else. There are oil companies shooting seismic all over the world. Without it you would not be able to find fossil fuels. Is there any difference about the Arctic? Do you have any hard evidence that shooting seismic does serious damage to marine resources?

Ben Ayliffe: The reason why the seismic in the Arctic is so important to us is that the region itself is so fragile. The baseline science on the Arctic ecosystem has not necessarily been done to the same extent that it has been done elsewhere. We are currently involved in a legal case in Nunavut alongside the Clyde River community, who are bringing a legal challenge against the Canadian Government over seismic testing in Baffin Bay. We can certainly pass on the scientific evidence that we have put together alongside the Clyde River people. The concern is not only the acoustic damage that it does to cetaceans in Baffin Bay but the disruption of migration routes and things like that. That specific risk, coupled with the general lack of scientific understanding of the nature of the Arctic’s ecosystem, is why we are taking such specific interest in this case.

The Chairman: Following up a little on Viscount Hanworth’s earlier question, we are not trying to solve the whole issue of climate change as part of this Committee’s work. We could, but what we are interested in is any specific areas of localised mitigation that you feel could take place through regulation or governmental action or anything else. Do you have any examples of those? You might not have any.

Charlie Kronick: I am curious to hear what your follow-up question is. I am not quite clear what you mean when you say “specific areas of local mitigation”.

The Chairman: Well, black carbon or emissions from vessels that go through. I do not know. If there is nothing there then do not answer.

Ben Ayliffe: We would certainly strongly support environmental protection being at the heart of the IMO Polar Code. Similarly, I would assume that there is no reason why, for instance, the transport of heavy crude through the Arctic should not be under the same sort of regulation that it is in the Antarctic, for instance.

Viscount Hanworth: I should uncover what lay behind my previous question. It was the matter of whether or not Greenpeace is trenchantly opposed to nuclear power, because that in the long run is surely a way in which you can staunch the use of hydrocarbons. If Greenpeace have no scenario for the replacement of hydrocarbons, then that rather weakens their position vis-à-vis the drilling.

Ben Ayliffe: I do not think an Arctic sanctuary will stand or fall on the basis of our support for nuclear power or not, frankly.

Lord Moynihan: I will, if I could, follow up on Lord Hannay’s question, because I think it is a very important one and I am not sure that we have quite got to the bottom of your policy on this. You are arguing that shooting seismic can be damaging acoustically and affect migration routes. Those were the two arguments that you put forward, but they apply equally to shooting seismic off the Isle of Wight. Is there a firm Greenpeace policy about shooting seismic for oil and gas activity anywhere in the world?

Ben Ayliffe: No. We have one on the Arctic.

Lord Moynihan: But, again, logically why would you apply it to the Arctic and not apply it to offshore Isle of Wight?

Charlie Kronick: At the moment neither Greenpeace nor anybody else, as far as I know, is calling for a ban on drilling for oil offshore of the Isle of Wight. There are plenty of people on the Isle of Wight who might have a view on it. But to be as clear as we can be about this, the Arctic is a key threshold, a key frontier, for the oil industry, a key indicator of climate change. As much as we have a policy—Governments have policies and Greenpeace has practice, I guess—we are very definitely trying to find outcomes, and the outcome that we are after is a ban on drilling for oil and gas in the Arctic. Seismic is a part of that.

Lord Tugendhat: Sorry, can you repeat what you just said?

Charlie Kronick: I will try. I always try to repeat exactly what I said but I cannot guarantee I will do it word for word. The objective of the Greenpeace campaign on protecting the Arctic is to call for a moratorium initially and a ban on drilling for oil and gas within the confines defined by Ben earlier. The enabling conditions, whether it is allowing seismic shooting or reducing the requirements for drill rigs from two down to one for drilling relief wells—any of the things that make drilling in the Arctic for oil and the ultimate production of hydrocarbons in the Arctic more likely—is something we are working very hard against. It is not that we have a particular view—certainly I do not, nor do any of my colleagues—on the global significance of seismic testing in the context of the whole oil and gas industry. We are talking very specifically about the Arctic here today.

Q182 Lord Soley: I think we are on a difficult question for you in a sense. My concern about Greenpeace is not the outcome of an agreement about climate change. I am absolutely with you, but there is something odd about always going for what I would call the big bang solutions: moratoriums or whatever. The question is: would you not be more effective looking at practical, immediate local mitigation centres? Climate change does not start in the Arctic; it starts everywhere else and causes a problem in the Arctic. I have seen Greenpeace make assumptions so many times about science that have proved to be wrong. Surely the case for local mitigation and the case for you putting those forward is much more practical and realistic and therefore more likely to work?

Ben Ayliffe: The Arctic campaign is not the only campaign that Greenpeace runs. We run strong campaigns on things like coal in India, deforestation, all these things.

Lord Soley: Big bang things.

Ben Ayliffe: No, it is all about climate mitigation as well. The Arctic is at the frontline of climate change. That is why we are there to stop it being open to drilling. I would add that we do work very closely with the licensing and regulating of oil and gas in the Arctic nations to make it as strict as we possibly can.

Lord Soley: But if you had your moratorium, the Arctic would still be in trouble because the problem is outside the Arctic.

Ben Ayliffe: Of course it would be, yes. That is absolutely right. We completely agree that the Arctic, as I said before, is fundamentally changing, but I do not think inaction is acceptable. Alongside the Arctic campaign, we have an international climate campaign that is looking for stronger regulation on the release of greenhouse gases.

The Chairman: I think we are getting into a discussion about Greenpeace tactics or otherwise and it is not really what this Committee is doing.

Charlie Kronick: We would happily carry that on at some other time.

The Chairman: It is a great conversation that we could have maybe down the pub another time, but I do not want to get any further down that just at the moment.

Q183 Lord Addington: Now I think we come on to the thing about Greenpeace’s work with indigenous groups. We have information about your relationship in Canada with the Inuit population, and little banners saying “Go away greenshit” is not a great endorsement of your public relationships there. How are you looking to work with other groups in the entire spectrum? Would taking their views into account locally be a good way to go on from this? Are you going to consult more closely in any future planning you are going to do?

The Chairman: Generally, how do you feel that we should deal with this whole issue of indigenous people, not just from your own backgrounds?

Ben Ayliffe: Greenpeace’s position is that the Arctic peoples should be at the heart of decision-making in the far north. That is absolutely central to what we do. We have no permanent friends and we have no permanent enemies, and that is the same in the Arctic. Of course there are people who disagree, indigenous communities who disagree with things that we have done in the past. That is not to say that we would agree with everything that happens among Arctic peoples, but obviously we are making concerted efforts to work as closely as we can with Arctic communities.

I would also point out that the people of the north are not one homogenous bloc. In 2010 and 2011, we got a very rough ride in Greenland. I was part of the work up there, but in Greenland now the steps that we have taken to engage with the Inuit people, the Government and schools and the tours that we do up there have changed the view of Greenpeace. I am not saying that we are loved by everyone, but we are making small incremental steps in improving our relationship. We have released a report on alternative development possibilities for the Greenland people and elsewhere. I just mentioned the Clyde River people in Canada, who we are working together with us on a case involving seismic testing. We have a very strong relationship with the Komi and the Nenes people of Russia and the Sami people in Finland. We completely understand that working with indigenous communities in the far north is central to the ultimate goal that we look to achieve.

Charlie Kronick: Can I add a couple of things? First of all, I think the historical antipathy to Greenpeace, particularly in the Canadian and North American Arctic, has been around the indigenous seal hunting and whaling. Greenpeace in Canada, internationally and in the UK has publicly acknowledged that our historical position was wrong.

The Chairman: It was my fault as Chair when I looked through these questions – this one again is too much about Greenpeace and not enough about indigenous people, so I apologise for that.

Charlie Kronick: I wanted to move on and come back to the investigation.

Q184 The Chairman: Perhaps we could move on to how Greenpeace feels the international community and the specific Arctic states should deal with those problems, or maybe you do not think that there are any?

Charlie Kronick: Development in emerging economies where there are low incomes or low provision of healthcare and education are global problems and not just Arctic problems. What is interesting about the work that was commissioned from the University of Copenhagen about development in Greenland was that it does look at extractive industries. There is no sense that there can be a complete absence of extractive industries, so that means there is potential for manageable mining. I will not use the word “sustainable”, because in the end it is a resource that can be exhausted. Is that sustainable? I have no idea, but it certainly can be managed. The same is true of sealing and other things, and of course fisheries is an extractive activity that already provides the most economic benefits to those countries and communities. I do not think there is any question that those things can contribute and increase their contribution to development in those regions.

Now there is potentially, certainly as far as oil extraction goes, a conflict with commercial fisheries for a global market but also for indigenous and aboriginal sustainable whaling and other fishing activities. So we would argue that the question that needs to be asked and the conversation that needs to take place is between those Governments and the indigenous peoples of their countries, which may or may not have a particularly open and robust dialogue at the moment. It is certainly not true in Russia and parts of Canada and Alaska, where the national Governments are not taking anywhere near seriously enough the aspirations and current activities of those indigenous people.

But we would argue that the real threat to growth there is potentially, first of all, ongoing climate change and, secondly, the local implications of a pretty severe accident, particularly from oil. So the tension is there, absolutely, but it is not between environmentalists and development; it is between which development pathway is going to deliver the most to those communities and whether there are other ones that will get in the way of that. That is a role for the Arctic Council but, more importantly, for the national Governments.

Lord Addington: Carrying on from, I have a supplementary question that comes in here that I was trying to get to. If you agree that you have made mistakes in the past, and it is good to see that you do, and that some of these mistakes and some of the positive things have been made by Governments, which models do you think the British Government should be supporting? Where do you get the best results from? If you have had bad experiences, presumably we can learn from them.

Charlie Kronick: Maybe this is the best way to answer the question. Our bad experiences were from imposing our values and our expectations on a set of communities that we did not consult, where we did not have relationships and we did not know the outcomes that those communities themselves wanted. That was the case particularly with indigenous whaling and sealing. Where Governments, whether it is the UK Government or the Governments of the littoral states, can be most effective is by engaging with those communities and trying to establish a development pathway that meets the local and regional economic as well as environmental and cultural needs.

Lord Addington: That is an aspiration. Do you have a practical example that we could refer to?

Ben Ayliffe: It is anecdotal and we would be happy to provide more evidence on this. We can happily put down more information about how we have gone about trying to improve, say, the relationship with Greenpeace and the indigenous communities.

Lord Addington: Not just yourselves.

Ben Ayliffe: No, sure. What I mean by that is that my colleagues in Greenpeace Nordic who run that side of the work will have much more of an understanding. We are happy to provide something.

The Chairman: We accept that invitation. If you would do that, it would be very useful to us in connection with the very good point made by Lord Addington about actual examples of things that you feel have worked well. I do not think we have many of those in our evidence so far.

Q185 Lord Hannay of Chiswick: Could we look at fisheries again? We have touched on it very briefly, but now it is more central to this question. First of all, could you say a little about what Greenpeace sees as the likely implications for fisheries of the present trajectory in the warming, the melting of sea ice and so on? Secondly, could you say something about what you think the appropriate governance arrangements would be, such as regional fisheries agreements and high seas agreements, if a much larger amount of sea, including the high seas, becomes capable of being fished in? Finally, a third point, could you comment on the relevance of the fisheries meeting that took place between the Arctic Five—the five littoral states—in February this year? Can the five in fact aspire to regulate fishing on the high seas? That is surely beyond their reach, is it not?

Nathalie Rey: Commercial Arctic and sub-Arctic fisheries are very valuable, with millions of tonnes of fish per year. There is increasing evidence that the fisheries are being affected by the shifts in distribution patterns of fish stocks, and we are seeing fleets increasingly going further north fishing into previously unfished areas, especially on the Atlantic side of Arctic waters. In 2009 the US Government, through the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council, issued a moratorium on commercial fisheries because of climate change as a precautionary approach, not knowing the impacts of fisheries on that area. In 2011 the Canadian Government, with indigenous residents, froze the expansion of fisheries into the Beaufort Sea. That was in response to the concerns about the impact of these trawlers on the environment and indigenous peoples’ livelihoods.

The nature of the Arctic area is very fragile. It is very vulnerable to bottom trawling, the very destructive fishing practice that drags very heavy nets on the seabed, destroying cold-water corals that take hundreds of years to develop. These are very vulnerable and important habitats for fish stocks and there are non-commercially targeted fish stocks that are being caught as by-catch. Those fish often play a very important role within the Arctic marine food chains. So there is a real problem there. At the same time though there are not much data. We know very little about the areas. Many areas have not been mapped yet and the fishery data are very scarce as well. This scientific uncertainty of what is happening there means that we need to take a very cautious approach to expanding the fisheries.

As you said, there are not the appropriate governance arrangements for the area. The Central Arctic Ocean is not covered by a regional fisheries management organisation. There are some international agreements that have articles that are relevant to fisheries but nothing specific to the Arctic. There are some regional agreements but there are also gaps in coverage there. Greenpeace has been calling for a moratorium on the industrial scale fishing from north of south Svalbard and St Matthew Island and the high seas areas. Ideally we want a sanctuary in the Central Arctic Ocean that would not allow any fishing because of the vulnerability of this area to fishing practices.

The fisheries meeting that you were referring to was the US Government-led initiative. Since 2008 they had a resolution wanting to ensure a moratorium on industrial fishing in the Central Arctic Ocean and to get agreement with their Arctic neighbours. They were trying to get countries on board at the meeting they had at Nuuk. This was a closed meeting of Governments. We have heard that it was Russia especially who were not too keen on the idea of a moratorium, but the countries have agreed to put in interim measures. Until they see that that the area is open to fisheries, they will just not agree to a moratorium yet, but only to interim measures.

What we have been calling for, and what is needed, is a regional oceans management organisation covering the Arctic region, not just for the Central Arctic Ocean but the EEZs of the Arctic coastal states. There is an interconnectedness of all the waters and it does not make sense to have an agreement covering just a small portion. It would be pointless if just the Central Arctic Ocean was protected but other areas did not have similar protection, because you have to take an ecosystem-based approach.

Lord Hannay of Chiswick: Thank you. That is very helpful. But do you not think that there is a slight liability for confusion and contradiction between ideas such as moratorium or sanctuary and ideas for a regional fisheries regulation, which after all will presumably envisage the catching of some fish but in a regulated and controlled manner? I confess to you that I have much more sympathy with the second than the first in that respect. I think your objective of looking for a regional agreement to regulate fisheries before the fish stocks are seriously damaged is a thoroughly laudable one, but is there not a contradiction or a conflict between that and talk of sanctuaries and moratoriums?

Nathalie Rey: We are calling for an oceans management organisation that does not only deal with fisheries but with all extractive activities happening there. Part of that oceans management organisation should also deal with the importance of marine protected areas, which are the cornerstone of an ecosystem approach. If scientists have identified these areas within the Central Arctic Ocean, and it is practically the whole of that area, as an ecologically or biologically significant area, that should be part of such a body’s responsibility to protect them: regulating fisheries also.

The Chairman: Which are the major fishing nations there at the minute? Who is going up there with large ships? I do not mean the local populations. Who is going out up there?

Nathalie Rey: The Greenpeace ship tours in 2010 and 2014 have seen mainly Russian fishing vessels going up there, but the distant water fishing nations are also watching developments closely.

The Chairman: So the Chinese, the Spanish, the other major fishing nations are not there at the moment?

Nathalie Rey: No, not that far north yet.

Viscount Hanworth: Presumably the crucial issue is the distribution of fish stocks. I was somewhat doubtful of fish on the high seas or the central Arctic region. Maybe it is a question of extending the territorial waters to encompass the fish stocks. Would that not be the appropriate recourse so that each littoral nation could be charged with defending its own fish stocks? The problem now is that it is the tragedy of the commons; everybody gets in there before the other person can pre-empt the fish.

Nathalie Rey: If you are extending your territory with the claims that have been put through the UNCLCLS, that only covers the seabed. That does not apply to the water column above, so that would stay high seas. It is possible, though, if you are sharing fish stocks and resources, for countries to come together to agree to put a regional fisheries management organisation in place. There needs to be a co-ordinated approach between the countries. It is not just a case of countries taking national action; they need to co-ordinate, because often you are sharing the same fish stocks that can be highly migratory as well.

Viscount Hanworth: But there are limited coastal waters from which you can exclude other nations.

The Chairman: Viscount Hanworth, we have two more issues that we need to go through. Fisheries is an important area that the Committee will be moving on to in a couple of weeks’ time.

Q186 Baroness Neville-Jones: I am advised that I need to repeat what I said in our previous informal session about declaring my interest as a member of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.

Could we turn to British policy, which you take up in your submission to us in paragraph 62, which you describe as being incoherent? Could you elaborate a little on what the incoherence of British Government policy consists in?

Charlie Kronick: I will do my best to be coherent. The UK has an internationally expressed commitment to a global average temperature increase of two degrees or less, which was expressed in the Copenhagen declaration and has been reiterated since. Through the Climate Change Act there are legally binding commitments to reduce our carbon emissions and the recommendations linked to that Act virtually decarbonise our power sector by 2030. So there is a very strong domestic agenda to reduce both our global contribution to climate change and our national activities that will add to climate change. On the other hand, the Foreign Office’s policy document on the Arctic, which I believe came out at the end of 2013, expressed a pretty strong commitment to facilitating the further expansion of the extractive industries, particularly in the Arctic, on the basis that that was good for UK plc and in the national interest.

We would argue quite strongly that that represents a fundamental inconsistency in the outcomes that the UK Government would like to see. The Chair has referred specifically to the Environmental Audit Committee from the other place expressing a view on a moratorium. The Government response to that request or recommendation for a moratorium was that it was in the UK national interest to pursue at least the possibility of extraction in the Arctic. We really do feel that those two objectives are incompatible, largely for the reason that if there is to be economically successful exploitation of Arctic hydrocarbon reserves, it will be at the cost to the global climate. It is a clearly expressed position from the UK Government that they are working in the opposite direction.

Baroness Neville-Jones: Do I understand from that that you take the view that any country that does not support a ban on hydrocarbon exploration in the Arctic would be pursuing an incoherent policy from the point of view of climate change? That seems to me to be what it amounts to, which is most countries.

Charlie Kronick: Absolutely.

Baroness Neville-Jones: I see. All I would say is that I think climate change policy goes a great deal wider than simply whatever one might say about policy in relation to the Arctic.

Charlie Kronick: I could not agree more. It extends far wider, but the specifics of exploration for oil largely, and to a lesser extent gas, in the Arctic is absolutely inherent in what would represent a coherent policy globally as a response to climate change. There is no question that the economic or the reserve replacement imperative for adding oil and gas reserves puts a huge negative pressure on the likelihood of a successful climate outcome. That is exactly why Greenpeace has focused its work on the Arctic, because it is both a pressure point for future investment or current investment and it is at the frontline of the climate change that we are already experiencing, never mind the future impacts.

Baroness Neville-Jones: As has been previously said, of course, the Arctic is not the origin, it is the victim, of climate change.

Charlie Kronick: Absolutely, and if this was the only place we were working on—

Baroness Neville-Jones: I would like to move on. You list a whole series of things, huge areas of policy I might say—important ones, I entirely agree—where you think HMG ought to be more active. You do not say in terms that the UK ought to be supporting a ban on hydrocarbon exploration. I would like to ask you about the other things that you recommend the British Government ought to be doing, which is not after all a member of the Arctic Council or really an Arctic power. Would you prioritise between the various things that you have listed? Some of it is fisheries, some of it is other agreements. I suggest to you that Governments are more effective if they seek to do things where they could be really effective and not try to do everything, particularly when the countries more directly concerned are not necessarily going to co-operate.

Ben Ayliffe: Looking at the policy document, my focus is on Arctic oil, and there is a very clear and present threat from oil companies in the Russian Arctic and the Norwegian Arctic. We think that should necessitate a response from the UK Government, as they say, to advocate for the highest environmental drilling standards. I am not clear what work the FCO has done to advocate or support that. I am not aware of anything, so that would be a good start. The main thing that I would urge is visible action—a statement that, “We believe strongly that there should not be drilling in the icy waters of the Arctic”. That would be a start, but beyond that there is fisheries management. I think the role that the UK will play in the lead-up to the COP summit in Paris will be important. But we are more interested in seeing real evidence of action first and foremost.

Q187 Lord Soley: I think you have largely covered some of this, but when I mentioned the problems you had with Russia, which did seem rather drastic, you indicated that you had problems with other countries too in the Arctic. Can you tell us something about how the other Arctic states are reacting to Greenpeace’s arguments and how much they see it as a threat to their economic interests?

Ben Ayliffe: I think that depends on where you are. The Finnish Government, for instance, have publicly backed the call for the creation of a sanctuary. If you had told me 18 months or two years ago that we would have an Arctic Council member doing that I would have laughed. I think that is an indication that there are movements. We have heard positive signs coming from Sweden, but we are not blind to the fact that there is a degree of entrenched self-interest certainly in Canada, Russia and Norway. We are gathering support with people around the world, and the campaign that we are running is trying to involve people in decision-making in the north. We have generated a lot of support within Arctic nations for our campaign.

Lord Soley: What are your problems with Norway?

Ben Ayliffe: Norway has, on the face of it, a very proactive approach to environmental sustainability, but that is not quite backed up by the actions of Statoil. We tried to stop their drilling in the Hoop field in the Barents Sea this summer through a variety of non-violent direct action and legal challenges. We think it is slightly odd that you would have a Government who are pushing for climate mitigation elsewhere in the world at the forefront of drilling in the Arctic. Again, their rhetoric does not match their actions.

Lord Soley: Could their argument be that they think they can manage it, whereas you think it should not happen anyway?

Ben Ayliffe: We do not think they can manage it. As I said before, we do not think their drilling standards are robust enough to deal with the technical challenges that they will face up there, but of course there is the climate imperative too.

Lord Soley: I am talking simply about what the difference is. They take the view that they can manage it; you take the view that they cannot. That is the core of your argument?

Ben Ayliffe: Yes, and they should not.

Charlie Kronick: Can I just add a tiny bit? I know that we are close to the end. I think the question that you have raised is an interesting one, and I think it also comes back to Baroness Neville-Jones’ question about where interests lie. Part of the UK interest, for example, is in direct economic interests. BP is a very significant holding in UK pension funds. It is not as significant as it was before the Deepwater Horizon in terms of being a dividend payer, but it is still a highly valued company in the UK economy. It owns 20% of Rosneft, one of the Russian national oil companies. I would say that a catastrophic outcome for Rosneft will have significant direct economic impacts in the UK because of BP’s holdings.

Lord Soley: I think we are on to a circular argument here, frankly, but the issue is really that we have very direct economic interests in seeing climate change reversed.

Charlie Kronick: That is exactly the point I was trying to make.

Lord Soley: Well, yes, but if we are going to do that there are different ways of doing it.

Q188 Lord Hunt of Chesterton: You are calling for some new international body, this management of the oceans, and there are various existing ones, the international body dealing with oceans, OSPAR. Why are you advocating for what sounded like some new international ocean bureaucracy when we have quite enough already?

The Chairman: A one-sentence answer maybe from the three of you.

Nathalie Rey: OSPAR only covers a very small portion and there are other bodies that are not specific to the Arctic. If you want to have a co-ordinated and coherent approach to the Arctic, then you need to have a body that is actually focused on the Arctic itself.

The Chairman: I think that is a good answer. Was there anything else you wanted to add? No? Thank you very much. It has been a very good evidence session, with some good penetrating questions and some excellent answers as well. Thank you very much indeed. At this point I bring the public evidence session to an end. Any members of the public listening or in the room, thank you for attending.