HARDtalk On the Road: Alaska (Part 2) HARDtalk

John Kerry. The last talks were back in September 2010. Now it is time

for HARDtalk. HARDtalk is on the road in the far west of Alaska,

America's frontier state. The fishing community here, big business

and the US federal government, all of them are locked in a bitter

argument over environmental sustainability and resource

exploitation. It is the corner of our planet that is suffering the

most dramatic effects of climate change. The climate economy that

made Alaska reach, now threatens it delicate ecosystem. It presents

America with a challenge. Is it ready to get serious about climate

change. A tiny Inuit settlement in the far north-west of Alaska. Is

clinging to a narrow spit of sand on the edge of the Bering Sea. This

community is home to 400 indigenous people whose lives depend on hunting

and fishing. These waters have sustained them for generations.

Now, the dramatic one of the retreat of the sea ice has left them with --

cruelly exposed. Thick sea ice used to protect them from the worst

effects of coastal erosion but not any more. In recent years, the

village has faced the threat of being washed away which is why the

US Army Corps of engineers have built this defensive wall of rocks

to keep the sea at bay. But it is only a temporary solution. The

engineers themselves believe that the town could be uninhabitable --

an inhabitable -- uninhabitable within a decade. Coastal erosion

have left a handful of Inuit settlements facing imminent

destruction and dozens more at serious risk. These villages are

desperate -- destined to be America's first climate change

refugees. Relocating them to higher ground would cost several hundred

million dollars. Community leaders in the village responded to their

plight by suing a host of big oil companies. They claim that they

conspired to downplay the link between climate change and carbon

emissions. The case was rejected. When you heard that the US Supreme

Court was not prepared to hear your case, how did you feel?

surprised. We failed in court but I think we have gotten, hopefully, the

attention of a lot of people who need to be paying attention.

Everyone is impacted. It is not just us, it is everyone. Do you feel that

your voices are heard in Washington? That the US government now see is

what you are going through as something they have to care about?

They listen to what you have to say... But they never take any real

action. They will put a Band-Aid on the situation, that is what all

disaster responses are, Band-Aids. For now, it is a community in limbo.

Clinging to tradition but with little to offer the next generation.

Unemployment and alcoholism and other social problems are rife.

Young people have little choice but to leave. Beyond the sound, there

are no roads, just a vast expanse of Alaska is Arctic tundra. At the most

northerly tip of the state, the town of Barrow. Much closer to the North

Pole than Washington, DC. This is America is very own climate change

front line. This year, the sea ice has been so thin and unstable that

the whale hunters could not cross it to get to open water. The hunting

season was ruined. For the first time in decades, not a single whale

was caught from Barrow. The whaling captain has been left hunting for

seal just offshore. Compare now to when you were a young boy, in terms

of the way the ice works and what you see, comparing it to 40 years

about eight, ten feet deep -- ten feet thick. Today, when it starts

freezing it is only about one foot. It is more dangerous for the younger

generation who do not know the ice yet. They are trying to learn.

is the impact on you and your family, your community? As a people

we have always depended on the whale for meat and the skin on the blog.

It feeds us for the whole year round. No whale means a tough year?

It will be a very cold winter. scientists say that this is going to

get worse. That the ice is going to melt on a much larger scale, that is

going to become more mobile and there is going to be less of it.

What do you think the prospects are of your prospects and your life in

the future? We will have to change a hunting tactics, we will have to be

more careful when we are out on the ice in the springtime. It is going

to be very hard to come from the ice in the future? Yes. Yes very.It is

known as the Arctic 's science city, a base for researchers

studying the effects of climate change. Out on the tundra, the thick

layer of permafrost is boring -- flooring --... Is releasing a thick

layer of methane. The layer of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere

could double increasing the warming trend. Out at sea, the Arctic ice is

retreating at a dramatic pace. As less of the sun 's energy is

reflected, more is absorbed in the water. In and around the town the

warming trend is driving rapid change. As DCIS melts, it becomes

harder for the polar bears to hunt offshore. Hungry bears now stuck on

land scavenge for food ever closer to humans. It is dangerous for both

men and there. Visitors venturing out of town are now required to

travel with an arm to bear died. I had eased out of Barrow on and all

the rain vehicle. -- armed bear guard. It is my last chance to drive

across the sea ice without falling through. Scientists are constantly

-- constantly monitoring the thickness of the Arctic ice cover.

The results of the work showed that the ice is getting thinner and

younger. Ice that last for more than three or four years is now a rarity.

The total volume of ice has fallen by more than 50% in a generation.

Some scientists now talk about the death spiral of the Arctic ice.

Welcome to HARDtalk. Explain to me why it is such a big problem that

the ice is disappearing. The polls cool the planet. As we lose the

ice, the ability to cool the planet decreases. All the surface that we

can see here is reflecting the sun back out, it is cooling the planet.

You can think about a glass of water with ice cubes in it. That glass of

water is going to stakeholder until all that ice is gone. The minute

that ice is gone it can really start heating up. If you take that analogy

to the whole planet, you have a planet with ice at the polls, we are

heating up that planet at the ice is offering that heat. When the ice is

gone, global warming is going to have a greater toll. Scientists

claim that the ice in the Arctic, on the waters of the Arctic will be

completely gone in summer I2030. anything I would say the models are

very conservative. I am still in that 2030 came but if I saw it go

sooner I would not be surprised. is the most visual indicator of the

massive change that is coming to the Arctic but it is not all about the

ice, is it? If you look inland there are very important changes to.

active layer of the permafrost is getting larger, that exposes a whole

set of other problems that we only just realising. Potentially, the

release of this carbon dioxide, it is almost equivalent to the amount

of carbon dioxide in fossil fuels. In terms of the climate impact,

things could warm up almost twice as fast. You seem to be giving everyone

watching us to have reasons to be alarmed. We can justify these

numbers scientifically, we can be rejected -- objective when we tried

to report it and yet they are scary numbers. Alaska 's role in the

climate story is about cause as well as a fact. -- effect. As America

warms it continues to be a vital source as a cut -- source of vital

carbon fuels. Alaska's North Slope is a -- America is great as oil

reserves. As the oil runs out, America is desperate to tap new

sources of foreign oil. Offshore, the company Shell has begun

exploratory drilling despite a chorus of protest from environmental

groups. Those concerns grew louder when a rig ran aground off the

Alaskan coast. Operations are currently suspended. The prize is

too valuable to ignore, 13% of the world undiscovered oil and 30% of

natural gas assets asked thought to lie with in the Arctic Circle. Look

too HARDtalk. If you'll state of Alaska was a nation it would be one

of the most oil dependent in economic terms in the whole of the

world. Do you think that is sustainable? Americans consume 19

barrels of oil per day. The forecast for that supply and demand is in the

20 million barrels per day for the next 30 to 40 years. Where do you

want that oil coming from? Do you want it coming from a state like

Alaska where we take care of our environment, we comply with very

stringent environmental standards... With respect, your

industry does not have the greatest track record. Am thinking about what

is happening right now. They have been a whole series of incidents

occurring. A rig has run aground, the operation has been forced. The

federal agencies say they are not fully prepared for the operations

they have undertaken. The reality is there a 27 billion barrels of oil in

the sea. And they should probably stay there. I disagree. We have

safely drilled 30 wells in the Arctic. It can be done. I am

confident it will be done. I am confident it will be done safely.

Even the boss of another oil company in France has looked at the Arctic

and said the risks are too big, a spill would do too much damage.

Arctic is going to be developed. Who do we want in the lead? Do we want a

country like Russia, who doesn't have the same type of environmental

standards to be the first to develop Arctic oil? Body wanted to be the

US? The indigenous peoples in Alaska are making a link between the

production of fossil fuels in this state and the dramatic climate

change that is affecting their entire way of life. CU in the oil

and gas Association except that now, climate change is so serious

that he will have the factory team to your strategic vision for the

future? I think the oil and gas industry understands that we are in

an ever-changing climate. We have to adapt. We are the leaders in

technology to do just that. Do you accept that Alaska's climate is

dangerously warming? I do not accept that. If you look at the data, it is

not changing any different. Our temperature changes are not

dramatically different than what they were. Look at the data from the

past 25 years. Alaska is warming twice as fast as the average across

the lower 48 states. I think if you look at longer term data, that is a

short snapshot in time. Look at the trend, talk to scientists out there

on the ice. They say it is likely that the Arctic will be ice free in

the summer by 2030. What do those scientists say? Is it industry's

fault really just a natural climate change? See you do not believe in

man-made climate change? I believe it is a factor, but I do not believe

it is the sole leading factor. think this idea of man-made climate

change and its association with fossil fuels and the burning of

carbon is a myth? I did not say that. If it is not a myth...What I

did say was, as the climate changes, as it changes, we adapt to those

changes. There are a few more potent symbols of dramatic climate change

in Alaska than this glacier, far south of the Arctic Circle. This

visitor 's centre was opened in 1986 as a viewing platform from which to

see the glacier spilled into the lake. 37 years on, it is no longer

visible. It has receded back around the corner, and continues to shrink.

The dramatic retreat of this glacier has become a symbol of the speed and

scale of Alaska's warming. For many years, it was something this

state's politicians, and the nation, wanted to ignore. For now, that is

not an option. In June, President Obama pledged significant action,

not just words, to combat climate change. I refuse to condemn your

generation and future generations to our planet beyond fixing. That is

why today I am announcing a new national climate action plan. I am

here to enlist your help in keeping the US a leader, a global leader, in

the fight against climate change. A low carbon, clean energy economy can

be an engine of growth for decades to come. I want America to build

that engine, I want America to build that future. In Anchorage, the

president's words were met with little more than a shrug. This city,

this state, owes its existence to oil. Revenues from the industry make

up more than 90% of the State budget. The oil riches mean the

state does not impose any income tax. Every Alaskan gets an annual

pay-out of around $1000. When it comes to balancing two conflicting

pressures, a rapidly changing climate and the demands to expand

the state's carbon fuelled economy on the other, their reasonable doubt

what the prayer Richie is. Federal government knew that Alaska

would have a hard time was it had a solid resource base to work. This

man, from Alaska's Department of natural resources, says the state

has no choice but to exploit the riches within. Welcome to HARDtalk.

The reason an inevitable tension between the desire to exploit

Alaska's immense natural resources and the desire to conserve this

unique wilderness. You think the state of Alaska has got the balance

right? The exploitation, we refer to it as resource development, is

crucial to the economy. It is the only thing we have here. So when the

oil industry says, we need the right to exploit the waters off the North

Coast in a new offshore field, you have to say yes, do you? No. We only

say yes if they can show they can do it in a responsible manner. The bar

keeps getting higher. But the truth is, he do say yes? We do say yes.

There has not been a project you have said no to. We have said no.

Some areas are often limits. predominant mindset seems to be that

it was the mantra of the Republican Party to drill. We need oil and gas

exploration for the economy. We have enough resources to last for many

generations to come. We have developed a permanent fund to

capture some of that so that eventually it will help in the

future. We are in the Department of natural resources. I am interested

in the people of the top of this department like yourself are now

seeing to yourselves, man-made climate change is a real issue and

we have the factory team to the calculations we make -- we have two

fact all it in. How would you propose that happens? People bring

that up a lot, that when you are managing natural resources to

provide for the people, how do you draw a line and say, we only want to

develop this much oil, because we think that will contribute this much

to climate change, and if we contribute any more, it will

contribute more to climate change. That is an impossible determination

to make. If I were sitting here with a group of indigenous peoples, where

they see that their village, right on the water, is being eroded away

because the sea ice is melting and the storms are much more ferocious,

would you say to them, the fact that climate change is affecting you is

not going to be factored into our determination to exploit our

resources? You have got to ask them if they would rather ask shut down

the pipeline and stop development. Will that help the situation? It

will make the light off in their village. -- turn off. Within a

generation, the Arctic Ocean may be ice free in the summer. This region

is warming faster than any other on earth. That in turn they encourage

more exploitation in Alaska, more carbon emissions, adding to the