SENAT
Report n° 230 (2006-2007) by M. Christian GAUDIN, Senator (for the parliament office for the evaluation of scientific and technological choices)
Disponible au format Acrobat (12 Moctets)
VII. INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION: A NECESSITY AND A GOAL
Polar research, at least in the Antarctic, is clearly characterized by international cooperation. It is the philosophy behind and the raison d'être of the 1959 treaty.
The state of mind remains heavily influenced by the period of exploration and scientific adventure. Indeed, a heavy human toll was paid in the discovery and exploration of the polar regions. A great many explorers lost their lives in these regions during scientific expeditions or while attempting to assist explorers in difficulty. Therefore, the bases and researchers are still obligated to demonstrate a certain solidarity. Today, this obligation for cooperation is essentially felt by those operators with the heaviest and most numerous logistical means.
Polar research, despite national rivalries and competition between researchers, has also been lastingly influenced by the last three International Polar Years of 1882-1883, 1932-1933 et 1957-1958. The scientific progress and discoveries made through cooperative work in these regions have imposed international cooperation as both a principle and an efficient work method.
These three aspects unique to the polar regions powerfully reinforce the culture of international cooperation already present in all of today's scientific domains.
For your rapporteur, in addition to these general elements, France must commit itself to two main themes of international cooperation: encouraging the development of a European process and organizing international partnerships.
A. HOW TO ENCOURAGE A EUROPEAN PROCESS?
The European dimension of our country's actions is fundamental, and polar research doesn't escape this principle.
It is both the expression of a political will to be affirmed and an absolute material necessity. However, it is indispensable to correctly determine the framework of cooperation, its objectives and limits, and to devise a strategy.
1. The European Union: a sufficient framework?
Of course, it is within the framework of the European Union that an organized programme for cooperation in polar research should be implemented.
Most European partners are already EU members, excepting Norway and Russia.
The PCRD is a powerful vector for the financing and federation of research via such important programmes as EPICA for ice coring and now DAMOCLES for modeling the Arctic Ocean and its impact on climate.
It also furnishes tools for prefiguring the future by allowing for the formation of networks such as ARENA for European astronomy in the Antarctic.
Finally, the European Union provides a framework for the presentation, selection and validation of the major research infrastructures at the European level, as is currently the case for the project of a German polar icebreaker, the Aurora Borealis .
Cooperation at the EU level is therefore essential, but perhaps insufficient.
Indeed, in addition to cooperation in terms of research, one awaits - perhaps, above all - a sharing of the logistics and infrastructure costs. However, as your rapporteur was able to discover during meetings with the European Commission in Brussels, the Commission would rather steer clear of these topics.
The Commission is opposed to the creation of a European Polar Agency . Just mentioning it provokes a chorus of protests. Indeed, the Commission doesn't want to see a new dismemberment preventing it from carrying out the necessary arbitration and reallocation of means. It is true that the idea of transforming the European Polar Board, which gathers together the directors of the various European polar institutes, into an agency might appear attractive, it is still too early. Neither today's frames of mind, nor the current on-the-ground cooperation allows us to take this step. Therefore, your rapporteur, without rejecting this idea in the long-term, believes that it is unrealistic to want to pursue this transformation starting today. Such a move would be premature and undoubtedly counter productive.
In addition, the polar operators are used to functioning at a research station according to what each one is capable of contributing. This situation increases, therefore, the differences in means between the big countries - or those with a strong polar tradition - and the other nations. The polar zones are not freely accessible, either because they are controlled by sovereign nations (as is the case in the north), or because the engendered costs make the continent accessible to a limited number of operators (as is the case in the south). What's more, this is the functioning principle behind the Antarctic Treaty, which, while being open to all comers, only allows those nations that are both interested and capable of intervening to manage the continent.
Today, it is up to the large polar agencies to promote by themselves a process of European cooperation.
Your rapporteur believes that France could pursue a European strategy at different levels:
- Fully play the game centered around those EU mechanisms seeking to coordinate and organize research around unifying projects. In this respect, it would appear absolutely necessary that IPEV become the agency of skills and means for managing those European projects under French direction . Indeed, it's not right that certain large programmes for which we make a determining scientific contribution aren't managed by France and that researchers who manage to win a European proposal do not benefit from the support they naturally expect from their laboratories or universities. In reality, it's up to IPEV to play this role and to maintain and make available the means suitable to following these programmes through, at the financial, technical and political levels.
- Promote our strongpoints and open our bases to the new EU members. They are genuinely interested and they have knowledge and know-how, but they often lack the necessary financial means. No country should be excluded from a process of European cooperation.
- Give ever greater European coherency to bilateral partnerships.
2. The practical and political limitations of cooperation
European cooperation in the polar domain will only grow if the practical and political limits to its development are taken into account from the very beginning. Otherwise, France risks being deceived and discouraged.
First and foremost, at the political level, one should take into account those missions accorded to the various polar operators by their governments, because, for most of our partners, the objective of polar research is not just scientific.
For example, ever since the Falklands War and Argentina's contesting certain austral possessions of the United Kingdom, this country has decided to give important means to the British Antarctic Survey, to the detriment of the nation's historic organization in the region, the Scott Polar Research Institute (SPRI). However, the BAS must work almost exclusively in that portion of Antarctica claimed by Great Britain. It is not allowed to use a certain proportion of its means for research carried out outside this zone or in the Arctic. As for SPRI, it has seen its means greatly diminish and has had to focus on the Arctic.
As for Germany, following reunification, the government asked the Alfred Wegener Institute to actively cooperate with Russia in the polar domain.
This cooperation has first and foremost been developed within the framework of a study on the Laptev Sea, gathering together more than 150 Russian and German researchers. This zone is extremely interesting, because it's an important location for the formation of the ice shelf and Arctic drift due to the out-flowing of several rivers. The German-Russian research programme includes studies on permafrost (its evolution and the evaluation of its role as a carbon sink and source of greenhouse gases), the effects of environmental changes (biogeochemical dynamics and the reaction of the Arctic ecosystems), terrestrial and marine interactions along the coast, and environmental changes in the recent (100 years) and distant (5 million years) past.
Following the success of this initial collaboration, Germany opened a laboratory at AARI in Saint Petersburg, via the AWI and the Institute of Marine Sciences in Kiel. This laboratory, named after the Russian scientist Otto Schmidt, was created in 2000. Its main objective is to train young Russian scientists via grants in the fields of meteorology, oceanography, marine chemistry, biology and the geosciences. A summer school and professor-exchange programme are also organized. The grants are underwritten by the German Ministry of the Sciences, for a renewable period of twelve months. Over the past six years, 150 scientists from 16 Russian research bodies have benefited from these grants.
The success of this programme encouraged the Norwegian Polar Institute to join. The resulting bilateral Norwegian-Russian laboratory was named Fram, after the ship on which Fritjof Nansen carried out the first transpolar drift at the end of the 19 th century. The laboratory is dedicated to the study of climat change in the Arctic. Its functioning principle is the same as that of the Otto Schmidt laboratory, which it is almost an integral part of, since the two laboratories share the same site.
What's more, the Russian, German and Norwegian officials clearly indicated to your rapporteur that the site still has two free rooms of the same size as those occupied by the Norwegians and that they would very much like for France to set up operations there. In the opinion of your rapporteur, the answer is obvious: we need to follow up on this proposal . Indeed, it is surprising and regrettable that we have not yet been able to offer the Russians any real collaboration.
Since 2002, the University of Saint Petersburg has offered a Masters programme in English to some twenty Russian students on the polar and marine environmental systems (POMOR), in partnership with the above-mentioned German institutes, the University of Bremen and the research institute on the Baltic Sea. The first semester is dedicated to in-class studies, while during the second semester, the students have the possibility of pursuing a 1-month internship at one of the German institutes. Upon completion of the programme, the students receive a double-diploma from the Bremen and Saint Petersburg Universities.
Germany also gives much greater importance to the Arctic, out of tradition and because of its cooperation with the Scandinavian countries.
Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Finland are also strongly present and have their own particular priorities due to their strong polar and marine tradition and to their geography.
Denmark's connections with Greenland result in Denmark's strong presence in the ice-coring that is carried out there. For Denmark, it is a "national priority" to find old ice showing the state of the Greenlandic icecap at the moment at which it could have completely disappeared, 120 to 125 thousand years ago.
At a practical level, one must then take into account the geography of the installations and the scientific traditions.
From a logistical point of view, on the Antarctic continent - which is larger in size than Europe - it is impossible to enact a programme of cooperation on principal between European countries. The installations are too distant from one another to imagine implementing a generalized sharing of resources. It is completely impossible to serve the western bases using the same logistical means as for the eastern bases. Therefore, no logistical cooperation is possible, for example, between France and the United Kingdom in this regard; the same is true for Germany. Similarly, the pooling of naval means is subject to specific constraints. The German icebreaker the Polar Stern cannot dock at Dumont d'Urville because of its draught and the base's insular location; the same is true for the American icebreakers serving McMurdo and operating in the Ross Sea.
However, these difficulties should not preclude a common reflection on equipment and materials, even the creation of a sort of trading group. Just the same, it is striking to observe the different operators acquiring small amounts of equipment which are often identical and designed for the same purposes, when group purchases would undoubtedly result in substantial savings. This is particularly true for the most expensive materials, the cargo tractors serving the continental stations, with each operator building a few prototypes with their own specificities based on a different base model. Wouldn't it be possible to develop a generic model, given the fact that these vehicles are all designed to carry out the same tasks in similar zones?
On Spitzberg, the situation is completely different, because the archipelago is easily accessible by air and sea and all the scientific bases share the same location.
Finally, in scientific terms, the programmes for cooperation can only be carried out if pertinent scientific sharing can take place. Each country excels in one or more domains and we must work with the existing synergies and complementarities. Therefore, it is unrealistic to pursue a programme of scientific cooperation covering the entire spectrum of polar research. Rather, it is preferable to pursue flexible partnerships adapted to the particular interests and competences of their members. In the realm of science, cooperation cannot be an objective in and of itself.
3. Towards an Italian-German-French engine?
These considerations and recent developments lead your rapporteur to propose that we concentrate our efforts on combining the Franco-Italian and Franco-German partnerships, so as to encourage a European-based process.
The Franco-Italian partnership is rather obscure in the scientific world. However, as regards polar research, this partnership is particularly important, because it was thanks to a Franco-Italian initiative that the Concordia base - the only permanent European base in the Antarctic interior - was able to be built and today functions. This cooperation has been undertaken on an equal basis by both partners, who are rightfully very proud of the result.
The costs and scientific work are shared - in particular, all the recurring observation activities - so as to avoid any overlapping means.
Logistics are also pooled and are divided into two different routes: Dumont d'Urville and the supply trek on the one hand, and Mario Zuchelli and the C-30 plane on the other.
This partnership was the subject of a bilateral draft agreement on 4 October 2005 on the organization of the scientific relations between the two partners. The agreement just recently took effect on 9 January 2007, the two countries' having completed their internal formalities for approval in November and December 2006. This agreement can now be implemented.
As regards the Franco-German partnership, it has essentially been developed on Spitzberg. Indeed, France and Germany have decided to combine their research bases and encourage the development of cooperative programmes. While this programme represents a limited financial engagment, it nevertheless has symbolic importance, because France and Germany are the only two countries to have taken such a step in Ny-Ålesund. What's more, in this little village of researchers, the partnership has had an important impact, with certain partners visibly struggling to consider them truly united and accept such a demonstration of European-level cooperation.
This process also questions certain habits, because, as at Concordia, it naturally becomes inconceivable to carry out the same measures twice.
Today, our two partners are open to the creation of a Rome-Berlin-Paris triangle for polar research. For Germany, this would mean progressively setting itself up at Concordia and taking advantage of this permanent infrastructure. For their part, the Italians would like to join the Franco-German base on Spitzberg.
Indeed, they have been on the island since 1997. This plan arouses real interest and for certain components already benefits from the official support of the Research Ministers.
However, to carry out this plan, much remains to be done and several obstacles must be overcome. Your rapporteur has identified three principal prerequisites to ensure its success:
- The necessity for a high-level scientific project , the only means of justifying in the long-term an enlarged presence at the two sites, combined with real complementarities and cooperation between the partners;
- Real savings thanks to a sharing of means and, at Concordia, a clear convention allowing for the participation of a third permanent partner. In the case of Dome C, this would translate as a sharing of the operating costs, rather than asking Germany to buy a share of the capital corresponding to the cost of construction - a solution that would not be acceptable to Berlin;
- A process of cooperation which is open and, therefore, politically acceptable to the other partners. This is an important point. As your rapporteur has already pointed out, these two partnerships are already unique in each hemisphere - adding a third partner would have a much greater political impact that will bother several countries. They could complicate its being carried out. This is particularly the case with regard to Norway, which is not favourable to the development of a European research body on Spitzberg (because it would escape Norway's control) and which prefers to maintain bilateral connections. We must also be careful of the reactions of those partners that cannot participate, at least in the short-term, such as the BAS or other European countries that could feel marginalized.
While this Franco-Italo-German plan must be favoured, it must not be incompatible with other forms of cooperation which, indeed, it could give rise to. The first country concerned by this plan could be Spain, which has expressed its strong interest in participating scientifically and operationally at Concordia. Spain represents a good example of a third party capable of strengthening the European presence in Antarctica.
This trilateral process is today under way , thanks to the signing of an initial agreement for the creation of a tripartite research programme at Concordia. While the details have yet to be worked out and while the agreement represents only a first step in this direction, it is clearly suggestive of future developments.
This project is part of the international TAVERN programme. It is aimed at quantifying the tropospherical aerosols and the variability of thin cloud cover in order to precisely establish the radiation balance of the eastern Antarctic plateau.
Carried out under the aegis of the AWI, it includes the University of Bologna (Italy). It will lead to the installation of a radome 4 metres in diameter and a stellar photometer at Concordia. They will be installed starting in 2009; an AWI technician will then winter there to carry out the experiment during the austral winter.
For these basic reasons, your rapporteur would like for the development of European cooperation to be more clearly indicated in IPEV's missions .
B. WHAT INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION FOR FRANCE ON THE EVE OF THE IPY?
Polar research is, by nature and tradition, international. What is the level of this cooperation today? What effect can we expect the International Polar Year, which begins in March 2007, to have in this domain?
1. Excellence, proximity and longevity: three key criteria for cooperation.
For a country such as ours, which cannot be present at the highest level in every sector of research and which does not have the means to carry out a policy of systematic cooperation with all the countries present at the poles, your rapporteur believes that it is desirable to pursue a three-part strategy founded upon excellence, geographic proximity and long-term cooperation.
· Excellence
This entails, first and foremost, giving priority to those domains in which France makes a real scientific contribution. Your rapporteur has already discussed several such domains: in particular, glaciology, biology and astronomy. France has a genuine interest in strengthening its globally recognized position by taking the lead in its partnerships. As has also already been emphasized, this also entails the material means and personnel necessary for both the scientific research and the logistics and management of the cooperative programme.
· Geographic proximity
The partnerships must also - at least in Antarctica and for logistics - meet certain criteria regarding proximity. The United States, Italy, Australia and New Zealand are the four countries whose bases are the closest to our own. These four countries must be favoured, without our necessarily maintaining a special approach toward them. While your rapporteur observed an excellent level of cooperation with the first two countries, cooperation with the latter two was less evident. Therefore, with regard to Australia and New Zealand, we should consider the subject of logistics, even if New Zealand would be in little need of assistance considering the proximity of its Scott base to the American McMurdo base. However, Australia's Antarctic logistics are located at the same site (Hobart) as France's.
It could also be scientifically interesting to include them in the development of Concordia, in particular with regard to the station's astronomical research.
A lack of scientific integrity thwarted an experiment carried out with an Australian team, but this unfortunate experience shouldn't discourage all cooperation.
Cooperation with the United States has greatly increased over the past few years. The current IPEV director played an important role in this development. He managed to impose our country vis-à-vis those "Anglo-Saxon" partners discouraged by certain events in the past. Today, our bilateral relations are characterized by mutual confidence and esteem. It is striking to note the laudatory mentions made of French research, as much by the National Science Foundation as by the laboratories. At the logistical level, France can benefit, under certain conditions, from American logistical means - in particular, seats on the Christchurch (New Zealand) - McMurdo air link. France furnishes the United States with technical aid in certain areas - for example, ice-coring techniques for setting up the Ice Cube experiment.
France also cooperates with the United States in Alaska, where certain French researchers can successfully carry out research programmes.
However, as far as your rapporteur knows, this rich relationship has yet to be formalized by any general cooperation agreement or by the creation of a shared laboratory acting as the cement for a lasting collaboration, whatever the future may hold. Yet this is an approach that could be pursued in several scientific areas, considering the links that already exist between France and the United States, in particular in the field of glaciology. Closer partnerships could also be set up in the biological domain, where the French positions are especially strong.
· Longevity
Finally, the longevity of cooperation - in other words, its stability and lasting quality - is an important element for developing useful connections. In this regard, the links that have been developed with Russian researchers in the field of glaciology would seem to be a good example for us to follow.
They all resulted from the strong personal connections that united Claude Lorius with several Vostok researchers in his field of research.
It was via these connections that the record depth of 3,623 m was reached in 1998, which allowed for the reconstitution of the Earth's climate and atmosphere over the past 420,000 years, covering four complete glaciation cycles. This ice core also allowed researchers to discover Vostok, a sub-glacial lake the size of Corsica. It was possible to progressively transform these experiments into a lasting link - that extended beyond mere personal relationships - between the LGGE in France and the AARI in Russia, in the form of a European research group (GDRE).
It was created in December 2004 by the CEA, CNRS, LGGE and IPEV. Its main objectives are:
- continue the studies on the climatic records of the Vostok ice core;
- develop and carry out geophysical and microbiological measurements in the already existing coring holes.
In these two domains, the GDRE has already obtained important results. A new dating method, based on the amount of trapped air, has been the subject of high-level publications. Indeed, this method allows scientists to determine with great precision the local insolation and the exact date via astronomical calculations. It furnishes a never-before-seen level of precision in the analysis of these ice cores.
As regards microbiology, much work has been carried out on the regelation ice of Vostok Lake. Initial analyses have shown that this ice contains very little biomass, but that the bacteria contained therein are thermophilic.
2007 is an important year , marking the 50 th anniversary of the Vostok base (16 December 1957) and the renewal of the GDRE.
Your rapporteur greatly hopes that the GDRE is renewed, considering the great interest of the shared research carried out there.
Today, AARI is requesting a larger, structured cooperation with France.
Your rapporteur is favourable to this development. It would mean both developing our links in Antarctica - but with other bases than those of Vostok (Mirny which was cited as a possibility) - and to set up a partnership in the Arctic.
In particular, it was proposed that France participate in the German-Norwegian-Russian laboratory covering the region of the Laptev Sea: the coastal system, the formation of the trans-Arctic drift, and studying the ice shelf.
This participation would also be coherent with France's technical participation in the Aurora Borealis icebreaker project. For the time being, only Russia has really committed itself financially to this project, alongside Germany. France is expected to furnish the technology for long oceanic ice-coring developed on the Marion Dufresne . This contribution is important, because one of the ship's main objectives is to be able to carry out sedimentary sampling in the Far North.
However, your rapporteur regrets that France has not been able to assert a greater commitment alongside Germany. Justifiable on the scientific level, such an action would have a symbolic effect, with the Germans waiting for a significant participation on our part with regard to their large, European-level research infrastructures.
The financial situation of polar research does not allow, given our current means, to free funds, what with other areas having the priority.
However, within the framework of the new five-year period and the global reevaluation of the Franco-German relationship by the next President of the French Republic, your rapporteur would like for this dossier to be re-examined. Our relations with Germany and Russia - especially in the scientific domain - and the importance of being significantly more present in the Arctic - a strategic zone that is increasingly accessible, particularly in those scientific areas in which France predominates - are important arguments to be weighed.
Germany's objective is also to make the Aurora Borealis an infrastructure of federative research at the European level, by using it as a floating university. This is in line with our own objectives as regards European cooperation.
2. Developing a network for the stations
In addition to bilateral and multilateral cooperation, either one-off or over several years, there is the question of creating a network for the observatories and research data in the polar regions.
This issue would appear particularly topical on the eve of the International Polar Year, especially as several research domains are already organized at the world level to collect and make available their data.
In particular, this is the case with regard to several geophysical networks: seismic, terrestrial and spatial magnetism, monitoring of the ozone layer.
The idea of setting up a network for the Antarctic stations has also made much progress in the domain of atmospheric analysis, as was recently shown by the Vorcore programme, which consisted of carrying out measurements from a balloon touring the continent within the vortex. Not only were the balloons launched from the American McMurdo station - which gave them top priority and ensured their implementation at the very beginning of the season -, but the French researchers were afterwards able to benefit from the competition of other stations along the coast, which launched balloons to carry out complementary measurements during the French instrument's transit.
Could this concept be applied to other research domains - in particular, biology?
Each country has benefited from its position to study those animals found either in its territory or near its base, thereby creating a national tradition of observing certain species. This has been the case for France, whose researchers have had access to an exceptionally rich biodiversity. The Dumont d'Urville base's exceptional proximity to a colony of emperor penguins is now well known to the general public, but the French possessions offer, almost without exception, exceptional working conditions for biologists. A similar process can be observed in other countries possessing austral islands: the United Kingdom (South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands), Australia (Macquarie Island), New Zealand (Campbell, Auckland and Bounty Islands) and South Africa (Prince Edward and Marion Islands).
However, in several cases, those species present on an island or in a coastal colony can also be found somewhere else, despite the distances which separate them and their generally philopatric nature. It would therefore appear to be of great interest, with several species threatened by climate change, to set up an enlarged observation network to include the principal countries concerned.
It should here be pointed out that Antarctica is one and a half times the size of Europe, with a maximum population of only 5,000 researchers working at some fifty stations.
France should, if it provides itself with the necessary means, play an important role in this domain, because its database is undoubtedly the oldest (40-50 years), the most precise and the largest in terms of the number of species observed in the Antarctic Ocean.
These considerations could be applied to the Arctic Ocean, which also forms a rather homogeneous ecosystem.