Kerry’s Arctic Prize and rousing speech Former Secretary of State John Kerry is honoured in Reykjavík
J
ohn Kerry accepted the Arctic Circle Assembly Prize from former Icelandic President Grímsson and then gave a rousing speech on the climate issue. He said the award was much appreciated as it comes from someone on the frontline of the climate struggle. The former Icelandic president has been tireless in pointing out the importance of the Arctic and the need to respond. Kerry himself had been in Svalbard while acting Secretary of State and the scientists had urged him to go to Antarctica to see for himself what is happening and the effects of climate change. He had flown out the day Donald Trump was elected President and did not feel like returning but decided to return to fight another day. Twenty scientists had explained to him that Antarctica was ground zero of climate change. He had been shocked at what he saw and heard. A New Zealand scientist told him that Antarctica was the canary in the coalmine. Changes were more rapid in the Polar Regions and ahead was a threshold, beyond which there is no point of return.
No insurance for Mother Earth
“There is what is called the precautionary principle; we buy insurance for our homes, we buy insurance for our cars, we buy fire insurance. We buy various insurances, we buy a life insurance. And given that the evidence is even more compelling, we should be buying insurance for Mother Earth—but we are not. The Arctic is warming faster today than any other region on earth,” Mr. Kerry said. He continued: “There are places where temperatures are increasing at twice the global average increase. It was above freezing in the Arctic in February last year; we had the hottest July we’ve ever had in recorded human history, we’ve had the hottest single day in July in human measurable history, and this July contributed to the hottest year in human history, which is the hottest decade in human history and the decade before that was the second hottest
decade in human history, and the decade before that was the third hottest.
That black carbon pollutant
And you would think that when people see this happening there would be the urgency to come together in order to do what we said we would do in Paris and before that in Rio [de Janeiro], where I was, and before that in Kyoto, where I was, and all the negotiations we’ve had. The ability of future generations to be able to live and prosper in the Arctic the way that people have for thousands of years is in jeopardy as we gather here. Now over the last three decades, both the increase in temperature and corresponding decrease in ice observed in the Arctic are at an unpresented level at least in the 1500 years we are capable of measuring,” Mr Kerry said. Mr Kerry said that we are struggling with black carbon emissions, a pollutant that is up to 2,000 more potent that carbon dioxide. Everybody knows that the dark surface that collects on the snow and is visible to the naked eye, has covered sea ice as well. It is dark, absorbs the sunlight, retains the heat melts and forms a blanket over the ice. “And guess what”, Mr Kerry said. “It doesn’t take a PhD to know that a combination of heat and ice produces melting. Pretty fundamental but we have 130 climate deniers in the United States Senate. And the President of the United States tells people it is a Chinese hoax. We have to face facts. Everybody is entitled to his own opinion but you are not entitled to your own facts. There is no baseline of truth any more. There is no referee for that truth. People can lie—and they do—and, as Mark Twain once said, “A lie can travel half way around the world before the truth can even get its boots on”. But now, a lie can travel around the world with the push of a button. And it does. If we want to know where the problem is, we have to look in the mirror. Here we are and we know what science tells us to do, yet we are still struggling with the full framework implementation of action
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against black carbon. It’s not just the air that is under assault, it’s the water and the oceans that are under attack, too.
Why we are not winning
We have taken some strides. Every one of you is working on this. We are trying, just not hard enough, frankly, and we are not getting the job done. We still have a problem. Iceland understands this problem and has done something good about it. Too much money was chasing too few fish. We had the drift net ban at the UN but there are pirates on the high seas. They have small boats going from mother ships on the high seas and they go into fishing zones. We are not winning. Sorry to say this. But I am an optimist and I’ll share this with you. I‘ll tell you why we are not winning. We are not winning when overfishing is said to cause $83billion a year in lost revenues. There are over 500 Dead Zones where life simply cannot exist because there is no oxygen. 51% of the oxygen we breathe comes from the ocean. You want that equation to change? In 2050 there will be definitely more plastic in the ocean than there are fish. This is not a future challenge. It is happening now,” Mr Kerry said. After his speech President Grímsson handed former Secretary of State John Kerry his award, warmly greeted by the appreciative audience at the Harpa Reykjavik Concert Hall and Conference Centre.
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