96
Arctic Yearbook 2015
Young (2013: 147) notes that in subsequent years since the U.S. became “a laggard in the realm of
environmental governance … [and] has emerged as a stumbling block for those working to enhance
environmental governance.” The U.S. has not ratified the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea nor
the Kyoto Protocol. On the other hand, it would appear that as Young (2013: 162) suggests,
“Increasingly, success in the creation and administration of these regimes will require the cultivation
of coalitions among the public sector, private sector, and civil society,” a trend that has gained
significant momentum in light of numerous economic reports such as the 2006 Stern Report, that
provided an unsettling account of the costs of climate change.
“The solution for our energy problems is going to be corporate America, that is actually private
enterprise,” said Tom Steyer, founder and former CEO of the hedge fund Farallon Capital
Management, “that’s when we get the policy framework right the people in that sphere will come up
with creative, imaginative and innovative solutions that will blow our mind.” Steyer has invested $65
million to launch renewable energy centers at Yale and Stanford (Bloomberg 2014). The market would
seem to concur. Where cheap oil is thought to be a threat to renewable energies Citibank reports,
“Fundamental factors—increasing economic competitiveness, energy security, and environmental
goals—all remain potent forces driving ever more rapid adoption of renewable energy globally”
(Parkinson 2015). Reporting on the 2015 Bloomberg New Energy Finance summit Bloomberg
business said “The question is no longer if the world will transition to cleaner energy, but how long it
will take” (Randall 2015). These examples and others suggest that global markets are undergoing a
transformational shift, redirecting capital toward the development and consumption of sustainable
renewable heating and power sources. Still, the pace at which renewables are developed will depend
on numerous factors. In 2013, for example, lower system costs and policy uncertainty precipitated a
decline in investment. Yet “new financing structures provided low-cost financing through capital
markets” and net investment into added renewable power capacity continued to trend upward
outpacing fossil fuels (Renewable Energy 2014: 25). In 2012, renewable energy was an estimated 19%
of global consumption, 9% of which was traditional biomass (Renewable Energy 2014: 21), 40% of
which utilizes modern bioenergy technology and methods.
Conclusion
The extent to which environmental protection of the Arctic region has evolved is often a condition
of extreme circumstance. Emerging from the Cold War years was a glum picture of how extreme
geopolitical differences could wreak havoc on a region whose people had no part in the destruction
of the environment. Likewise, today the visual depictions of a melting cryosphere has brought
heightened awareness to the Arctic as a region where the human race has once again debased the
environment, this time as a condition of industrialization. Black carbon is but one of the vast number
of issues that government must address in order to make progress toward an environmental
sustainability future. In this regard, the Arctic Council has set the stage through scientific evidence
and guiding principles, but institutional limitations preclude enforceable procedures. Consequently,
the capacity for effectiveness relies on the desire of nations, writ large, to provide the strategy and
structure capable of promoting and supporting a transition to environmentally friendly practices.
Arctic Council Environmental Initiatives