Secretary of State Rex Tillerson flies to Alaska today for a meeting of the Arctic Council — a multi-government group that includes Canada, Russia and five other Arctic nations. Under the Obama administration, the U.S. chaired the council for two years and made climate change in the region a central issue.
But no one is sure how the U.S. will approach the issue or its role on the council after Tillerson hands over the rotating charimanship to Finland, given that the Trump administration has already backed away from several key Obama initiatives to fight climate change.
While much of the meeting will be taken up by formalities, “if there is to be drama in Fairbanks, it may come in the form of the traditional closing statement, and how much it refers to global warming broadly or specifically to the landmark 2015 Paris climate accord, in which the United States and most other nations agreed to reduce their carbon emissions,” says The New York Times. “Negotiations have been continuing for weeks on the language of the statement, which is approved by consensus.”
The Arctic has been especially hard hit by climate change, with temperatures increasing twice as fast as in other regions. Sea ice is sparser than it ever has been and permafrost is quickly disappearing. “A new study this week suggests that Alaska’s vast tundra is now releasing more carbon dioxide than it stores, adding to the warming effect in the atmosphere,” says the Times.