Kyoto comes to Baffin Island
Updated on 10 May 2005
The Inuit challenge the United States, claiming pollution is wrecking their environement and their way of life.
"They watch and wait but not one seal comes near them. It's the ice, says Abraham, it's melting." - Jonathan Rugman, Baffin Island.
This is no dim and distant threat: for Inuits of Canada's far north - the real impact of global warming is happening right now. Scientists reckon some parts of the Arctic are warning ten times faster than the rest of the planet.
From Baffin Island in the Canadian province of Nunavut, Jonathan Rugman sent this report:
40 miles south of the Arctic circle, Abraham and his friend Jonah are out on a hunting trip. Inuit warriors of the 21st century, speeding for over an hour across the frozen ocean till they reach the water's edge. They test the ice to see if it can take their weight and keep rifles loaded in case they spot a tasty seal. They watch and wait but not one seal comes near them. It's the ice, says Abraham, it's melting.
"I started hunting with my father and there's a big difference now. We get a lot less ice to travel across, to reach where the seals are. " - Abraham Keenainak, Inuit hunter
For the Inuit, global warming is not a scientific theory. It's an everyday reality. We visit one fjord that was once frozen for nine months of the year, but is now solid for just six. The Inuktitut language has well over 50 expressions for snow and ice, but no words for the warm weather birds now appearing here. Last year's summer was the hottest recorded in a century - an environment changing so fast that locals like Jonah can barely keep up.
" What I have noticed are the flowers. Some flowers that I've never seen are growing from the ground. There used to be glaciers all year round, but now in summer they're gone." - Jonah Kilabuk
I stand on the edge of a region which Inuits call "Auyuittuq" which means "the land that never melts". Well, melting it is. Scientists reckon the winter temperature has gone up by 4 degrees in the last 50 years and they're projecting it could go up another 7 degrees over the next 100 years, with potentially devastating consequences for wildlife and the people who live here.
Scientists believe that around 250 million acres of seasonal Arctic ice has disappeared in the last quarter century. Less ice means fewer places for the seals to lay their pups. And that means fewer seals for the hunters and polar bears to eat; bears now threatened with extinction because the melting ice stops them from reaching their prey.
So Inuit leaders in their arctic homeland of Nunavut - a territory so vast it's four times the size of France, fear their delicate ecosystem is dying.
Sheila Watt-Cloutier is on her own hunt for justice. In a few weeks this former social worker will file a petition at the Inter American Commission on Human Rights in Washington DC claiming that the United States threatens her people's existence because it contributes to global warming.
"25-26% of the entire emissions in the world come from the United States of America. There has been no human face to this issue whatsoever and connecting climate change to human rights, we are putting the human face on this debate. " Sheila Watt-Cloutier chair, Inuit Circumpolar Conference
This is a strategy to force public hearings on climate change, like one held on Baffin Island last week. And Miss Watt Cloutier has a powerful ally. One of America's leading Arctic scientists, Dr Robert Corell. His work funded largely by the US government, now backing the Inuit cause:
"There's good evidence that the rest of the world is creating change up here to which they have had no fundamental role. They don't produce much CO2 or other greenhouse gases, but they're the recipient of the change around the world. So I do support their freedom to express their opinion. " - Dr Robert Corell, American Meteorological Society
But is global warming always to blame?
"I am not so worried about global warming. Nature will look after itself. And then the world will eventually come to an end." Inusiq Nasalik, Elder of Pangnirtung
One hunter did indeed fall through the ice when it cracked up unexpectedly, his skidoo disappearing forever into the sea. Though when I asked him why the ice had cracked he blamed a freak wind, not climate change. And in the hunter's home town of Pangnirtung, an old whaling station so remote the airstrip is the only way out, the most revered Inuit elder claims the planet is doomed anyway.
"I am not so worried about global warming. Nature will look after itself. And then the world will eventually come to an end." Inusiq Nasalik, Elder of Pangnirtung
And if it does get warmer, Inuits stand to make money. This is Frobisher Bay - the Elizabethan explorer who found it, mistakenly thought he'd discovered the fabled North West passage to China. But if the ice melts Frobisher's dream of new routes for shipping and commerce could come true.
"Is there an economic upside to Global Warming? Well that's hypothetical in my opinion. There could be, but there could be a lot more losses to our culture as a result. " - Paul Okalik MLA (Member of the Legislative Assembly of Nunavut) and Premier of Nunavut
So while Inuit music thrives - what else is under threat? Well ice hockey - the number one sport, is feeling the heat. One local pond here used to freeze in October. But autumn is now so warm that Baffin Island's annual hockey season can't begin till December. And the window for Arctic explorers is closing too. Last month Tom Avery led the fastest dog team ever to reach the north pole, a journey becoming ever harder to complete.
"A trip this year going from the Russian side had to be evacuated shortly before reaching the Pole just because there was so much open water. They couldn't actually reach it.
There's no doubt that open water is now the big threat on North Pole expiditions and at some point in the next 10 years it will be absolutely impossible to reach the Pole having started from land." - Tom Avery, Polar Explorer
But Inuit hunters, scraping the ice to attract non-existent seals, the first among us to learn what a greenhouse world really means. This is no sport - its a livelihood, and when the hunting fails its time for a picnic lunch - frozen fish, locally caught, eaten raw by men whose message to the planet is rarely heard.
"Are you seriously going to stop Americans from consuming fossil fuels just to keep your ice here? Are they really going to listen?" - Jonathan Rugman
"I don't think so, they are not going to listen, they have not listened at all." - Jonah
"So action against the Americans is a waste of time?"
"No, I don't think it's a waste of time. They have to realise. They're are blind. That is all I can say." - Jonah Kilabuk"
Jonathan Rugman, reporting for Channel 4 News in Baffin Island Canada.
INTERNET LINKS
About Kyoto: Wikipedia defination
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Protocol
Defra website: Climate Change - Action to tackle Global Warming
http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/climatechange/index.htm
American Meteorological Society
http://www.ametsoc.org/
Inuit Circumpolar Conference
http://www.inuitcircumpolar.com/
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