Doc 8.1 Oct 2014. Letter from PPs regarding CO2 emissions.
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Issue Date
2014
Authors
Arctic Council Permanent Participants
Subject
Abstract
"The Arctic Council Ministers met in Kiruna in May last year and signed the Kiruna
Declaration. On the occasion of the eight Ministerial meeting of the Arctic Council, the
Ministers among other things “express[ed their] concern that global greenhouse gases
are resulting in rapid changes in the climate and physical environment of the Arctic with
widespread effects for societies and ecosystems and repercussions around the world,
reiterating the urgent need for increased national and global actions to mitigate and
adapt to climate change,” (our underlining).
The Ministers further “recognize[d] that climate change in the Arctic causes significant
changes in water, snow, ice and permafrost conditions, with cascading effects on
biodiversity, ecosystems, economic and human living conditions in the Arctic with
repercussions around the world, and that substantial cuts in emissions of carbon dioxide
and other long-lived greenhouse gases are necessary for any meaningful global climate
change mitigation efforts, and commit to strengthen our efforts to find solutions,” (our
underlining)
In protecting the Arctic environment, being one of the Arctic Council’s key tasks, the
Ministers “note[d] with concern the potential impact of acidification on marine life and
people that are dependent on healthy marine ecosystems, recognize that carbon dioxide
emission reductions are the only effective way to mitigate ocean acidification. And
request the Arctic States to continue to take action on mitigation and adaption and to
monitor and assess the state of Arctic Ocean acidification” (our underlining).
Finally, the Ministers “confirm[d] the commitment of all Arctic States to work together
and with other countries under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate
Change (UNFCCC) to conclude a protocol, another legal instrument or an agreed
outcome with legal force no later than 2015, and urge all Parties to the Convention to
continue to take urgent action to meet the long-term goal aimed at limiting the increase
in global average temperature to below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels,”
(our underlining).
2
As Permanent Participants to the Arctic Council, the Aleut International Association, the
Gwich’in Council International, the Inuit Circumpolar Council, The Russian Association
of Indigenous Peoples’ of the North (RAIPON) and the Saami Council, also participated
in the Ministerial meeting in Kiruna and were pleased to see the text of the Kiruna
Declaration, and welcomed these commitments made by the Foreign Ministers of the
Arctic Council member states. The Aleut, Gwich’in, Inuit and Saami people as well as
the Indigenous Peoples of the Russian North and its cultures depend on intact and
productive ecosystems in the Arctic, and we are equally concerned about the effects
climate change has had and currently has on our living conditions." /.../