Russia prepares claim to rights over underwater mountain range

• published: 28 Jul 2015
• views: 6

SHOTLIST 1. Wide of Moscow State University 2. Banner reading (English) "Russian Geographical Society" 3. Wide of congress hall, venue of International Arctic Forum 4. Guests attending forum 5. SOUNDBITE (Russian) Sergei Shoigu, President of Russian Geographical Society/Russian Minister for Emergency Situations: "Today more than ever we need a national geography, a geography that helps the implementation of national interests. The objective of our forum is included in its name; The Arctic, Territory of Dialogue." 6. Guests in the forum 7. Close of notes being taken 8. SOUNDBITE (English) Olaf Orpheum, Senior Adviser, Research Council of Norway: "The situation in the Arctic Ocean, for the last four years, because the years between have been similar, have been remarkable. Nowhere else on Earth, nowhere else on Earth are we seeing such dramatic changes in the surface of the Earth as we are seeing now in the Arctic Ocean." 9. Close of International Arctic Forum banner 10. Wide of lobby 11. Mid of exhibit Arctic tent 12. Actor dressed as an Arctic inhabitant 13. Mid of Alexander Bedritsky, Russian adviser on climate change to the Russian President, talking to media 14. SOUNDBITE (Russian) Alexander Bedritsky, Russian Adviser on Climate Change to Russian President: "We defend our interests in the Arctic with all the civilised instruments that are given by international agreements, and I don't think it will escalate into a confrontation, even though some countries say that there is a need to reinforce their power potential and so on and so on." 15. Mid of guests 16. Set up shot of Christian Marcussen, Senior Adviser of Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland 17. SOUNDBITE (English) Christian Marcussen, Senior Adviser, Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland : "The Commission will look at the claims individually, so they are not going to decide which part is Russian or Greenland or Canada, so it will just look at the submission and see if it fulfils the regulation of article 76, and it's up to the coastal states to delimitate their area in the Arctic, so that's a later process." 18. Mid of corridor with tent STORYLINE Russia is optimistic about winning the United Nations' approval of its claim to Arctic territories, a senior Kremlin adviser said on Wednesday. Alexander Bedritsky, the presidential adviser on climate change, said that Russia was currently gathering additional scientific data intended to support its Arctic territorial claim. Russia, the US, Canada, Denmark and Norway have all been trying to assert jurisdiction over parts of the polar region that is believed to contain as much as a quarter of the Earth's undiscovered oil and gas. The competition is intensifying as shrinking polar ice opens up new opportunities for their exploration. Russia, Canada and Denmark are planning to file claims to the United Nations to prove that the Lomonosov Ridge, an underwater Arctic mountain range, is an extension of their respective continental shelves. Russia was the first to submit its claim in 2001 to the UN, but it was sent back for lack of evidence. Russia then staked a symbolic claim to the region by dropping a canister containing the Russian flag on the ocean floor from a small submarine at the North Pole in 2007. Bedritsky said a Russian polar expedition this year did some drilling for geological samples from the Arctic seabed that should back the Russian claim and more such data will be collected next year. "I don't think it will escalate into a confrontation," he told reporters on the sidelines of an Arctic forum in Moscow. Bedritsky said that Russia plans to submit additional data to the United Nations in 2012-2013, matching the claim by Canada expected for that year. You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/youtube/c7113295cea1d71523fc46ea3c522d48 Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork