Mikkelsen A., Langhelle O. (eds.) Arctic Oil and Gas. Sustanability at Risk?

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taken by the World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002 in

Johannesburg.

As such, sustainable development has been placed as the core political objec-

tive for the Arctic by the Arctic states. But what does the concept of sustainable

development entail and what does it imply? And following from these questions:

What are the implications of sustainable development for oil and gas activities in

the Arctic? Is it possible to speak about ‘sustainable’ oil and gas exploration at

all? What does it imply to ‘frame’ the Arctic from a sustainable development

perspective?

This chapter provides some initial answers to these questions. To be able draw

actual policy implications from sustainable development, there are a number of

issues that have to be resolved. These issues can be organized along two axes,

one horizontal and one vertical. The horizontal axis relates to the debates about

what sustainable development means, what should be included in the concept, and

how the different dimensions of sustainable development should be weighted.

This we refer to as the horizontal framing of sustainable development. On the

other hand, it relates to whether one operates at a global, regional or local level.

Our Common Future first and foremost addressed the global environment and

development concerns, and these global concerns have to be ‘translated’ to a

regional, national or local setting. The challenges of sustainable development may

vary across these levels, but they may also interact. The issue of climate change

is a good example. Although it is first and foremost conceived as a global prob-

lem, it has regional and local effects, and it also requires regional and local

efforts. How the global sustainable development agenda is ‘translated’ to

regional, national and local levels is referred to as the vertical framing of sustain-

able development.

This chapter, therefore, addresses the above issues in two ways, along the verti-

cal and the horizontal axes. In the horizontal, we explore the background of the

concept of sustainable development. In the vertical, we present an overview of

how sustainable development has been conceived within the Arctic, most notably

from the political processes related to the Arctic Council. Hence, the point of

departure here is not the global sustainable development agenda as such, but the

problems that have warranted attention from a regional and to some degree, local

perspective. Finally, we look at how oil and gas has been addressed within the

Arctic Council.

The global framing of sustainable development

The report from the Brundtland Commission has been referred to as ‘the key

statement of sustainable development’ (Kirkby, O’Keefe and Timberlake, 1995: 1).

Although sustainable development is a contested concept, much of the international

and also national follow-up has been firmly located within the context of the

Brundtland report and what is usually referred to as ‘the UNCED-process’

(Lafferty, 1996; Jacobs, 1999; Lafferty and Langhelle, 1999; Lafferty and

16 Oluf Langhelle, Bjørn-Tore Blindheim and Olaug Øygarden

Framing Arctic oil and gas 17

Meadowcroft, 2000; Langhelle, 2000; Dresner, 2002). The decision to convene

the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) was

formally taken by the General Assembly, 22 December, 1989 (GA/ res. 44/228)

(United Nations, 1989; Mugaas, 1997; Lafferty and Meadowcroft, 2000). Among

the purposes of the conference was:

To recommend measures to be taken at the national and international levels to

protect and enhance the environment, taking into account the specific needs of

developing countries, through the development and implementation of policies

for sustainable and environmentally sound development with special emphasis

on incorporating environmental concerns in the economic and social develop-

ment process and of various sectoral policies and through, inter alia, preventive

action at the sources of environmental degradation, clearly identifying the

sources of such degradation and appropriate remedial measures, in all countries.

(United Nations, General Assembly, GA/res. 44/228, 22 December, 1989)

The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED),

took place in Rio De Janeiro in June 1992 and resulted in five major documents,

referred to as ‘the Rio Accords’: the Rio Declaration on Environment and

Development; the Framework Convention on Climate Change; the Convention on

Biodiversity; a Statement of Forest Principles; and Agenda 21. Agenda 21 was

described as a ‘Programme of Action for Sustainable Development’ (Grubb,

Koch, Thomson et al., 1993; Lafferty and Meadowcroft, 2000). In the ‘Preamble’

of Agenda 21, the opening paragraph describes the problems – and partly the

solution – in the following way:

Humanity stands at a defining moment in history. We are confronted with

a perpetuation of disparities between and within nations, a worsening of

poverty, hunger, ill health and illiteracy, and the continuing deterioration of

the ecosystems on which we depend for our well-being. However, integration

of environment and development concerns and greater attention to them will

lead to the fulfilment of basic needs, improved living standards for all, better

protected and managed ecosystems and a safer, more prosperous future. No

nation can achieve this on its own; but together we can – in a global partner-

ship for sustainable development.

(United Nations, 1993: 12)

As pointed out by Lafferty and Meadowcroft (2000: 13), sustainable develop-

ment was never formally defined in the UNCED outputs, and sustainable devel-

opment is treated somewhat differently in the various UNCED documents. As

Lafferty and Meadowcroft (2000: 13) argue, this was no doubt a reflection of the

different forums in which the texts were negotiated. It could be argued, however,

that the different treatment of sustainable development also reflects different

opinions of how sustainable development should be understood. Nonetheless, the

meaning of sustainable development was taken as essentially given and deriving

18 Oluf Langhelle, Bjørn-Tore Blindheim and Olaug Øygarden

from the Brundtland report (Lafferty and Meadowcroft, 2000: 13). To understand

the concept of sustainable development within the UNCED process, therefore, it

is necessary to turn to the Brundtland report.

Our Common Future

The Brundtland Commission was not the first to summon ‘sustainable develop-

ment’, but there are different opinions concerning the origin of the concept

(O’Riordan, 1993; Worster, 1993; Jacob, 1996; McManus, 1996; Langhelle,

2000; Dresner, 2002). The World Conservation Strategy (1980), published jointly

by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources

(IUCN), the World-Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and the United Nations

Environment Programme (UNEP), is often seen as one of the first to make use of

the term, but the earliest expression, to our knowledge, relates to work done

within the World Council of Churches in the early seventies. The following,

which could have been a quotation from Our Common Future (WECD, 1987), is

actually from a report made by a working group within the World Council of

Churches in 1976:

The twin issues around which the world’s future revolves are justice and

ecology. ‘Justice’ points to the necessity of correcting misdistribution of the

products of the Earth and of bridging the gap between rich and poor countries.

‘Ecology’ points to humanity’s dependence upon the Earth. Society must be

so organised as to sustain the Earth so that a sufficient quality of material and

cultural life for humanity may itself be sustained indefinitely. A sustainable

society which is unjust can hardly be worth sustaining. A just society that is

unsustainable is self-defeating. Humanity now has the responsibility to make

a deliberate transition to a just and sustainable global society.

(Cited from Birch et al., 1979; Langhelle, 2000)

Although this report speaks of a transition to a just and sustainable global

society, not sustainable development, there are several stipulations made on the

relationships between social justice and physical sustainability. On the one hand,

justice is here not necessarily functional for physical sustainability: a just society

can be unsustainable. On the other hand, a sustainable society that is unjust is not

worth sustaining. In one sense, this can be seen as a contradiction, but it need not

be. It implies a view that justice and physical sustainability in principle and prac-

tice can be reconciled.

What the Brundtland report accomplished was to ‘relaunch’ sustainable devel-

opment by casting it in a form that could appeal to a wide range of political

actors, and at the same time deriving legitimacy from the UN-sponsored process

through which it had been formulated. As such, the report drew together diverse

strands of the international discourses of environment and development. As we

shall argue, however, in drawing these diverse strands together, the Commission

made some crucial changes from the more traditional conservationist usage in the

Framing Arctic oil and gas 19

World Conservation Strategy (IUCN/WWF/UNEP, 1980), changes which have

implications for the framing of oil and gas extraction in the Arctic.

The World Commission: reframing environment

and development concerns

The first reframing that was made by the World Commission was the merging of

environmental and development concerns. As Gro Harlem Brundtland points out in

the introduction of the report, when the terms of the mandate for the World

Commission were being discussed, some wanted to limit its concerns to environmen-

tal issues only. This would, according to Brundtland, be ‘a grave mistake’ because

The environment does not exist as a sphere separate from human actions,

ambitions, and needs, and attempts to defend it in isolation from human

concerns have given the very word ‘environment’ a connotation of naivety in

some political circles ... But the ‘environment’ is where we all live; and

development is what we all do in attempting to improve our lot within that

abode. The two are inseparable.

(WCED, 1987: xi)

The second reframing that was made was the ordering of environment and

development. Sustainable development starts with people. Compared with the

World Conservation Strategy (IUCN/WWF/UNEP, 1980), Adams (1990: 59)

argues that ‘Our Common Future starts with people, and goes on to discuss what

kind of environmental policies are required to achieve certain socio-economic

goals’, while the World Conservation Strategy ‘started from the premise of the

need to conserve ecosystems and sought to demonstrate why this made good

economic sense (and although the point was underplayed – could promote

equity)’. The orientation towards people obviously contributed to a more

development-oriented approach within the Commission, leading a number of

commentators to portray the report as strongly anthropocentric (Adams, 1990;

Kirkby, O’Keefe and Timberlake, 1995; Lafferty and Langhelle, 1999; Reid, 1995).

The World Commission defined sustainable development as ‘development that

meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future gener-

ations to meet their own needs’. This definition, according to the report, contains

within it two key concepts:

– the concept of ‘needs’, in particular the essential needs of the world’s poor to

which over-riding priority should be given; and

– the idea of limitations imposed by the state of technology and social organiza-

tion on the environment’s ability to meet present and future needs. (WCED,

1987: 43)

Seen in the light of common usages of the word ‘sustainable’, this reframing

has further important implications, also for how oil and gas activities can be

viewed from a sustainable development perspective in the Arctic. The implica-

tions of the reframing are most easily seen when contrasted with other usages of

the term ‘sustainable’. The term itself is derived from the Latin sus tenere, mean-

ing ‘to uphold’ (Redclift, 1993), which does not, of course, imply any specific

normative content. Dixon and Fallon (1989) provide a basis for further clarifica-

tion by identifying three types of usage.

1 As a purely physical concept for a single resource. Here the scope of sustain-

ability is limited to particular renewable resources considered in isolation,

with sustainability simply implying a usage no greater than the annual

increase in the resource, without reducing the physical stock. Maximum

sustainable yield, maximum sustainable cut, and so forth, are examples of the

underlying logic of this approach. It is also in this usage that the exploitation

of oil and gas by definition is unsustainable. Any consumption will reduce

the stock and hence be unsustainable in the long run.

2 As a physical concept for a group of resources, or an ecosystem. With this

usage, explicit attention is devoted to different aspects of the ecosystem. For

example, forestry managed in accordance with maximum sustainable cut

may create problems with increased soil erosion, changes in water yield,

wildlife habitat and species diversity. As a result of system interaction, what

may be considered as a sustainable usage of a single resource may actually

be found to be unsustainable within the context of the entire system. From

this usage, it is possible to argue that oil and gas activities could have

profound negative impacts on the ecosystem as a whole. Hence, the activities

can be unsustainable if the goal is to sustain the ecosystem as such.

3 As a socio-economic physical concept. Here the goal is not a sustained level

of a physical stock or the physical production of a given ecosystem, but an

unspecified ‘sustained increase in the level of societal and individual

welfare’ (Dixon and Fallon, 1989: 6) or, more directly, in accord with the

language of Our Common Future, a sustained level of need satisfaction and

equal opportunities.

This third type is the usage developed by Our Common Future (Dixon and

Fallon, 1989; Langhelle, 1999), and it is clear that oil and gas can be exploited

in a meaningful sense within this usage of sustainable development, since what

is to be sustained is not the resource itself but the level of need satisfaction

and equal opportunities. A further consequence of the above framework, is

that it is not, as Meadowcroft also notes, a particular institution, nor a specific

pattern of activity, nor a given environmental asset which is supposed to be

sustained, but rather a process, the process of development (Meadowcroft, 1997).

Sustainable development, understood as a process of development which is to

be sustained, leads to the consequence that an activity which is not itself sustain-

able could be a part of an ongoing process which is sustainable (Meadowcroft,

1997). This applies not only to social behaviour, but also to activities like the

consumption of renewable and non-renewable resources. Thus, contrary to the

20 Oluf Langhelle, Bjørn-Tore Blindheim and Olaug Øygarden

Framing Arctic oil and gas 21

first two usages, the third usage of sustainability, identified by Dixon and Fallon

(1989), may have implications for the use of renewable resources contradictory to

the first two.

The environmental dimension of sustainable development

Where is the environment in this framing of sustainable development? The envi-

ronment, so to speak, comes in the back door. The qualification that development

(a sustained level of need satisfaction and equal opportunities) must also be

sustainable is a constraint placed on this goal, meaning that each generation is

permitted to pursue its interests only in ways that do not undermine the ability of

future generations to meet their own needs. Hence, environmental sustainability

(or physical sustainability) is not the primary goal of development, but a precon-

dition for this goal in the long term and for justice between generations. Thus,

physical sustainability becomes an inherent part of the goal of sustainable devel-

opment: ‘At a minimum, sustainable development must not endanger the natural

systems that support life on Earth: the atmosphere, the waters, the soils, and the

living beings’ (WCED, 1987: 44–45).

This, however, also implies that not every environmental problem is necessar-

ily a sustainable development issue. This is important because it partly determines

the scope of sustainable development and how environmental effects are to be

judged from a sustainable development perspective. The first is a reflection of the

fact that the World Commission’s primary concern was the global environmental

(and developmental) problems. The second is a reflection of the minimum

requirement and the notion of ‘endanger’. The point is concisely put by Malnes:

A policy that procures development by dint of damages to the environment

violates the proviso only insofar as these damages are detrimental to future

development. Policies are not to be judged on account of their environmental

effects as such. This is the World Commission’s point of departure.

(Malnes, 1990: 7)

It is thus as a prerequisite for development that the injunction to conserve

plants and animals in Our Common Future must initially be understood. It is

because the environment is vulnerable to destruction through development itself

that the constraint of sustainability is placed on the goal of development (WCED,

1987: 46; Malnes, 1990: 5). As such, an activity with negative environmental

effects is not necessarily contradictory to sustainable development, but it can be.

But which environmental issues are not peripheral to sustainable development?

Arguably, the environmental problems of sustainable development will differ

along the vertical axes of sustainable development. At the regional and local level,

environmental problems that threaten human need satisfaction today are no doubt

sustainable development issues. They threaten the first priority of sustainable

development, human need satisfaction and ‘the essential needs of the world’s poor

to which overriding priority should be given’.

From the specific framing of sustainable development in Our Common Future,

therefore, environmental problems that threaten human need satisfaction, today or

in the future, are the subject of sustainable development. Environmental problems

that endanger the natural systems that support life on Earth – the atmosphere,

waters, soils and the living beings – relate to sustainable development.

Accordingly, the environment, which is vulnerable to destruction through devel-

opment, is itself part of the sustainable development agenda.

The global challenges of sustainable development

In the follow-up UNCED process, Agenda 21, adopted at the Rio Conference in

1992, addressed a number of issues under the umbrella of sustainable develop-

ment. The first section of Agenda 21 addressed the social and economic dimen-

sions of sustainable development under the headings of international cooperation,

combating poverty, changing consumption patterns, demographic dynamics,

protecting and promoting human health, promoting sustainable human settlement

development and integrating environment and development in decision-making.

The second section was called ‘Conservation and management of resources for

development’, and focused on the atmosphere, land resources, deforestation,

fragile ecosystems, agriculture and rural development, conservation of biological

diversity, biotechnology, protection of the oceans, freshwater resources, toxic

chemicals, hazardous wastes, solid wastes and radioactive wastes (United

Nations, 1993: Chapter 9–22).

All the above problems are no doubt important sustainable development issues.

There are, however, two environmental problems in particular that were seen as

crucial to sustainable development in Our Common Future: climate change and

loss of biological diversity. Of the ‘Rio Accords’, these problems were the only

problems that materialized as international Conventions and thus ‘hard law’.

These issues are not solely environmental issues but sustainable development

issues. In both cases, development conflicts with the environment. Climate

change and loss of biodiversity may threaten human need satisfaction, today or in

the future, both problems may endanger the natural systems that support life on

Earth, and both problems are closely associated with development itself.

Climate change implies the potential for human activities to alter the Earth’s

climate to an extent unprecedented in human history with severe but also unpre-

dictable and unknown consequences for humans and ecosystems. Loss of biolog-

ical diversity is perceived as a global problem that presents a conflict between the

short-term economic interests of nations and the long-term interests of sustain-

able development (WCED, 1987: 160). The dilemma is, of course, that given the

first priority of sustainable development (meeting the essential needs of the

world’s poor, to which overriding priority should be given) and expected popula-

tion growth rates, ‘a five- to tenfold increase in manufacturing output will be

needed just in order to raise developing-world consumption of manufactured

goods to industrialised world levels by the time population growth rates level off

next century’ (WCED, 1987: 15).

22 Oluf Langhelle, Bjørn-Tore Blindheim and Olaug Øygarden

How is this to be done without compromising the needs and opportunities of

present and future generations when it comes to climate change and biological

diversity? How is the conflict between intra- and intergenerational justice to be

solved? These questions illustrate what John Dryzek (1997) calls the core story

line of sustainable development:

The core story line of sustainable development begins with a recognition that the

legitimate developmental aspirations of the world’s peoples cannot be met by all

countries following the growth path already taken by the industrialized countries,

for such action would over-burden the world’s ecosystems ... sustainable devel-

opment is not just a strategy for the future of developing societies, but also for

industrialized societies, which must reduce the excessive stress their past

economic growth has imposed upon the earth.

(Dryzek, 1997: 129)

This framing of the problem also goes to the heart of both the UN Framework

Convention on Climate Change and the Convention on biological diversity

(Langhelle, 2000).

The World Commission argues that different limits hold for the use of energy,

materials, water and land (WCED, 1987: 45). The limits to be met first are the

availability of energy and the biosphere’s capacity to absorb the by-products of

energy use. These limits may be approached far sooner than the limits imposed

by other material resources, because of the depletion of oil reserves and carbon

dioxide build-up leading to global warming (WCED, 1987: 58–59).

Indeed, this

situation may already be imminent. Climate change thus constituted the first limit

to global development in Our Common Future. Climate change, therefore, is

fundamental to sustainable development (Langhelle, 1999).

The most radical changes proposed by the Commission in this context were

based on climate change as perhaps the most pressing developmental constraint.

To avoid an ecological disaster owing to the problem of climate change, Our

Common Future recommends a low-energy scenario of ‘a 50 per cent reduction

in primary energy consumption per capita in industrial countries, to allow for a

30 per cent increase in developing countries within the next 50 years’ (WCED,

1987: 173). This ‘will require profound structural changes in socio-economic and

institutional arrangements and it is an important challenge to global society’

(WCED, 1987: 201). Further, ‘the Commission believes that there is no other

realistic option open to the world for the 21st century’ (WCED, 1987: 174).

Our Common Future argued that ‘the total expanse of protected areas needs to

be at least tripled if it is to constitute a representative sample of Earth’s ecosys-

tems’. This was described as a ‘prerequisite for sustainable development’, with

the further remark that ‘failure to do so will not be forgiven by future generations’

(WCED, 1987: 166). The current target set by the now 168 states that have signed

the Convention is to have ‘at least 10 per cent of each of the world’s ecological

regions effectively conserved’, and to protect areas ‘with particular importance

to biological diversity’ [Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)/COP7,

Framing Arctic oil and gas 23

Decision VII/30, 2004]. By 2010, terrestrially, and in 2012 in the marine area,

‘a global network of comprehensive, representative and effectively managed

national and regional protected area system’ is to be established.

Sustainable development and indigenous people

Indigenous people were addressed in a general way in Our Common Future,

mainly under the heading of ‘Empowering Vulnerable Groups’ (WCED, 1987:

114). Although the treatment of indigenous people only constituted three pages

in the report, the policy prescriptions and conclusions were quite strong. Within

the framework of sustainable development, it is not only the environment that was

seen as vulnerable to destruction through development itself, but also indigenous

people. Indigenous people had ‘become victims of what could be described as

cultural extinction’ (WCED, 1987: 114), and also the victims of social discrimi-

nation, cultural barriers, exclusion from national political processes and exclusion

from the processes of economic development. A more ‘careful and sensitive

consideration of their interests’, therefore, was described as ‘a touchstone of a

sustainable development policy’ as opposed to ‘insensitive development’.

In addition to the recognition of traditional rights and empowering of indigenous

people, Our Common Future argued that this should be accompanied ‘by positive

measures to enhance the well-being of the community in ways appropriate to the

group’s lifestyle’ (WCED, 1987: 116). The challenge is to find the ‘fine line between

keeping them in artificial, perhaps unwanted isolation and wantonly destroying their

life-styles’ (WCED, 1987: 116). This did not, however, exclude broader measures of

human development. The provision of health facilities, improvement of traditional

practices, correction of nutritional deficiencies, the establishment of educational

institutions and economic development where the local communities ‘derive full

benefit from the projects, particularly through jobs’ were the main recomm-

endations. Where to draw the ‘the fine line’ was by no means fully answered in Our

Common Future. In the recognition of traditional knowledge, however, the report

acknowledged a ‘terrible irony that as formal development reaches more deeply into

rain forests, deserts, and other isolated environments, it tends to destroy the only

cultures that have proved able to thrive in these environments’ (WCED, 1987: 115).

The Rio Summit further established and strengthened the concerns of indige-

nous people within the framework of sustainable development. Indigenous

people’s concerns were addressed in their own chapter in Agenda 21, and the

Principle 22 in the Rio Declaration reads as follows:

Indigenous people and their communities and other local communities have a

vital role in environmental management and development because of their

knowledge and traditional practices. States should recognize and duly support

their identity, culture and interests and enable their effective participation in

the achievement of sustainable development.

(United Nations, 1993: 7)

The ‘vital role of the indigenous peoples’ was reaffirmed in the Johannesburg

Declaration on Sustainable Development in 2002 (United Nations, 2002).

24 Oluf Langhelle, Bjørn-Tore Blindheim and Olaug Øygarden

Sustainable development in the Arctic

What then about sustainable development in the Arctic? How should sustain-

able development be translated to the Arctic – what we have called the vertical

framing? What are the implications from the global approach to sustainable devel-

opment for the Arctic as a region? And if the question is posed the other

way round, what are the specific challenges for sustainable development seen from

the Arctic? Here we have to turn to other sources than the UNCED process. As

Heininen remarked in the Arctic Human Development Report (AHDR), ‘not all

efforts to highlight Arctic concerns in international fora have been particularly effec-

tive’ (Heininen, 2004: 211). The Arctic Council, however, has made several attempts

to specify and translate sustainable development to the Arctic.

The official Intergovernmental Arctic cooperation started in the environmental

sphere. It is often traced back to 1989 and the initiative from the Government in

Finland to discuss cooperative measures to protect the Arctic environment. This

again, was inspired by Mikhail Gorbachev’s Murmansk speech two years earlier,

October 2, 1987. Gorbachev’s speech advanced a wide range of topics for dialogue

and negotiation with other Arctic and North Atlantic states, including economic

cooperation, environmental issues and indigenous people (Scrivener, 1989, 1996,

1999; Archer and Scrivener, 2000; Vanderzwaag, Huebert and Ferrara, 2003;

AHDR, 2004; Koivurova and Vanderzwaag, 2007). The Finnish Government

initiative culminated with the Arctic Environmental Protection Strategy (AEPS)

established in 1991,

a strategy that was politically – but not legally – binding for

the signatories (Haavisto, 2001; Koivurova and Vanderzwaag, 2007).

The AEPS strategy contained an explicit reference to Our Common Future and,

although the strategy primarily addressed the environmental challenges, several

of the paragraphs in the Strategy were highly influenced by the Brundtland report.

It was explicitly stated that the Strategy ‘should allow for sustainable economic

development in the North so that such development does not have unacceptable

ecological and cultural impacts’ (AEPS, 1991: 6–7). The objectives of the

Strategy were outlined as follows:

i To protect the Arctic ecosystem including humans;

ii To provide the protection, enhancement and restoration of environmental

quality and the sustainable utilization of resources, including their use by

local populations and indigenous people in the Arctic;

iii To recognize and, to the extent possible, seek to accommodate the tradi-

tional and cultural needs, values and practices of the indigenous people

as determined by themselves, related to the protection of the Arctic envi-

ronment;

iv To review regularly the state of the Arctic environment;

v To identify, reduce and, as a final goal, eliminate pollution. (AEPS, 1991: 9)

In addition, the Strategy outlined a number of guiding principles which were

highly influenced by Our Common Future. Among them the following general

principle: ‘Management, planning and development activities shall provide for

Framing Arctic oil and gas 25