Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Monday said the United States was "committed" to ratifying a convention on use of the world's oceans as she called for more international cooperation to protect the North and South poles.
With global warming opening up new navigation routes in the Arctic, Clinton said Washington would work with other countries surrounding the region "to strengthen peace and security and support economic development and protect the environment."
"The changes under way in the Arctic will have long-term impacts on our economic future, our energy future and indeed again the future of our planet, so it is crucial that we work together," Clinton said at the first international diplomatic conference devoted to the future of the North and South Poles.
"That starts with the Law of the Sea Convention, which President (Barack) Obama and I are committed to ratifying, to give the United States and our partners the clarity we need to work together smoothly and effectively in the Arctic region," Clinton told delegates attending the conference in Baltimore, Maryland.
The United States signed in 1994 the convention's text, after having secured changes to certain provisions deemed against US interests. But Congress never ratified the treaty, despite a lobbying effort by former president George W. Bush in 2007.
Clinton was hosting the first joint session of the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting (ATCM) and the Arctic Council, which the State Department called "the two most important bodies involved with diplomacy at the Poles."
The gathering was expected to be dominated by the fierce competition for oil and gas deposits in the continental shelf around the North Pole, sparked by climate change.
The US Geological Survey estimates that the Arctic holds about 90 billion barrels of oil and even bigger deposits of gas.
Source: AFP American Edition
