Alaska's indigenous people feel the heat of climate change

The cemetery has already been moved twice, the old school is underwater and the new one is facing the same fate as erosion constantly eats away at the land in Napakiak.

The tiny village located in southwestern Alaska, along the meandering Kuskokwim River, is one of dozens of coastal indigenous communities across the state that are on the front lines of climate change, their very existence and way of life threatened by the warming temperatures.

"The shoreline keeps eroding much faster than predictions and we are continuously having to move back from the river to higher ground," city council member Walter Nelson told an AFP team on a recent tour of the isolated village of 350 residents, most of them Yupik Eskimos. "Here, we are dealing with climate change on a daily basis."

Waving his hands left and right, he points to houses and other structures, most of them on stilts, that are affected by rapid coastal erosion and thawing permafrost -- a once-permanently frozen ground on which many Alaska native villages are built.

"It's a constant race against time and right now the local grocery store, the fire station and a city building are top of the list for relocation," Nelson said. "The school will be next but we won't be able to move it. We will have to tear it down and build a new one."

The same drama is playing out across all of Alaska's coastal communities, many of which are not accessible by road, except in the winter, when the rivers freeze and turn into ice roads that are increasingly non-existent because of the warming temperatures.

According to a 2009 report by the Government Accountability Office, the majority of the state's more than 200 native villages are affected by erosion and flooding, with 31 facing "imminent threats."

Among those in danger of going underwater is Newtok, located near Alaska's western coast, where all of the roughly 350 residents should complete the daunting task of relocating this summer to a new village about nine miles away.

Further south, in Quinhagak, which sits along the Bering Sea and near the mouth of the Kuskokwim River, local leaders are also mulling moving the entire village of 700 people to safer grounds.

"We've already moved twice and the last time was in 1979," said Warren Jones, president of the local Yupik corporation known as Qanirtuuq, Inc. "But the erosion is happening too quickly and now we're preparing land for the new site which will be further inland."

- 'Existential threats' -

According to scientists, Alaska has been warming twice as fast as the global average, with temperatures in February and March shattering records.

"From 1901 to 2016, average temperatures in the mainland United States increased by 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit (one degree Celsius), whereas in Alaska they increased by 4.7 degrees," said Rick Thoman, a climate expert at the Alaska Center for Climate Assessment and Policy.

"This is disproportionately affecting rural communities in Alaska, many of which are facing long-term existential threats," he added. "Some communities are one storm away from not being habitable."

In Napakiak, which is surrounded by miles and miles of flat tundra dotted with small lakes, and is only accessible by small plane or by boat, Harold Ilmar's full-time job for the last decade has been to protect the village from storm surges, flooding and the river constantly eroding large chunks of land.

On average, he moves about five structures a year to higher ground and, with the meager means at his disposal, tries to push back the waves chiseling away at the banks with sandbags and plastic sheeting.

- 'Metal coffins' -

"It's non-stop and during emergencies, I even work weekends," he says.

"I think it would be better if we just moved the whole village to higher ground, right up there," he adds, pointing to a bluff about a mile away from the shore.

Like their counterparts in other native communities, Napakiak officials in recent years have been making the rounds, travelling to conferences across the country to sound the alarm about climate change and their sinking villages.

"We keep telling people to come out here because seeing is believing," said Nelson. "They're not going to understand what's happening over the phone."

He said the village has even started using more sturdy metal coffins instead of wooden ones for burials, as many bodies could not be recovered intact when the two previous cemeteries washed away.

"We have two mass graves now filled with the remains of people we couldn't identify," he said.

Nelson acknowledged that in the long-term, given the speed of erosion and increased flooding, Napakiak may end up underwater with its residents possibly joining the growing number of climate refugees forced to abandon their land.

"We thought that 2016 and 2018 were the warmest but 2019 is breaking all records," he sighed. "Every year it keeps getting warmer.

"Who knows what we are going to face in the next 10 years."

US presses industry-friendly climate stance in Arctic
Washington (AFP) May 2, 2019 - The United States is seeking a business-friendly approach to climate change at an upcoming meeting of Arctic powers, a US official said Thursday, amid a report that Washington is trying to eliminate language on warming.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is set to travel Monday to the northern Finnish city of Rovaniemi for talks of the eight-nation Arctic Council, hoping to demonstrate firm US interest as China steps up investment in northern areas made increasingly navigable by melting ice.

A US official said that negotiations were ongoing about how the Arctic Council will address climate.

"When we don't agree with our friends and allies, we talk with them about it directly, we engage with them closely, and that's what we're doing in the Arctic Council," the official told reporters on condition of anonymity.

"Climate is a complex global issue and it's a global challenge all around, and this administration supports a balanced approach that promotes economic growth and improved energy security while protecting the environment," she said.

The Washington Post, quoting unnamed diplomats, said that US negotiators have sought to remove references to climate change from an Arctic Council declaration before Pompeo would sign off on it, eager to avoid any international commitment, however non-binding, on the issue.

President Donald Trump has mocked global efforts to combat climate change, saying they are unfair to US industry, and withdrew the United States from the 2015 Paris climate accord negotiated partly by his predecessor Barack Obama.

Pompeo has said that he accepts the wide scientific consensus that temperatures are rising but that he does not consider the issue to be a top priority.

Global temperatures have risen one degree Celsius (1.8 Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial levels. The Paris agreement enjoined countries to keep the rise "well below" two degrees Celsius.

But the world is far off-track to meeting that goal, with a UN report last year finding that a 1.5-degree rise will likely occur as early as 2030.

The report warned that warming between 1.5 and 2 degrees will likely increase devastating heatwaves and other disasters and, with the melting of Arctic sea ice, could lift ocean levels by a dozen meters, beyond the point of no return for low-lying coastal areas.

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Alaska's indigenous people feel the heat of climate change
Napakiak, United States (AFP) May 2, 2019
The cemetery has already been moved twice, the old school is underwater and the new one is facing the same fate as erosion constantly eats away at the land in Napakiak. The tiny village located in southwestern Alaska, along the meandering Kuskokwim River, is one of dozens of coastal indigenous communities across the state that are on the front lines of climate change, their very existence and way of life threatened by the warming temperatures. "The shoreline keeps eroding much faster than predic ... read more