NUUK: Top diplomats from eight Arctic countries met in Greenland's tiny capital Thursday to set down rules for opening the vast region to fishing, tourism, oil and mineral exploration as global warming melts the ice.
"We're going to raise the visibility of Arctic issues," US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said, speaking to reporters on a boat tour in a fjord of Nuuk.
The chief US diplomat was accompanied by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and their counterparts from Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden, who were set to gather for a group working session at 1600 GMT.
Speaking alongside her Danish counterpart Lene Espersen, Clinton said the challenges in the region were not just environmental.
"There are other issues at stake. The melting of sea ice, for example, will result in more shipping, fishing and tourism and the possibility to develop newly accessible oil and gas reserves," she said.
"We seek to pursue these opportunities in a smart, sustainable way that preserves the arctic environment and ecosystem," she added.
She had earlier warned pollutants such as black carbon, methane and hydro fluorocarbons, so-called short lived climate forcers, were a problem that needed more attention.
Sweden, which took over the two-year rotating presidency of the council at the meeting, also preached sustainable development for the region.
"Sweden wants to give priority to issues that will promote environmentally sustainable development of the Arctic, while making it possible to maintain positive cooperation between the Arctic states and with the indigenous peoples of the region," it said.
The eight top diplomats and government representatives were due to sign an Arctic Search and Rescue Agreement, which the US State Department said will be the first binding international agreement among the eight states of the Arctic Council, which was founded in 1996.
Russian deputy foreign minister Vladimir Titov told the RIA Novosti news agency the agreement "will be the first pan-Arctic document in history."
He added the document was developed under the co-chairmanship of Russia and the United States and "is aimed at improving the timeliness and effectiveness of delivering aid in extreme situations."
In August last year, a Russian oil tanker set off for China on a previously impassable route through the Arctic Ocean. Cruises with tourists are also venturing into the Arctic, particularly around the US state of Alaska.
Earlier this month scientists said that warming in the Arctic is occurring at twice the global average and is on track to lift sea levels by up to 1.6 metres (5.3 feet) by the end of this century, a far steeper jump than predicted a few years ago.
Another important issue in the Arctic is that one-fifth of the world's undiscovered but technically recoverable reserves of hydrocarbons are located north of the Arctic Circle, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS).
The region accounts for about 13 percent of the world's undiscovered oil and 30 percent of the undiscovered natural gas, USGS data shows. About 84 percent of the resources are offshore.
Exploration off Greenland has yet to produce any commercially exploitable reserves, but that did not stop British firm Cairn from boosting its investment there by one billion dollars on the back of "encouraging" first results.
A news conference was planned for 1915 GMT, but Clinton was not expected to take part as she was scheduled to return to the US before that.
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