Antarctica: the engine room of global climate

Rebecca Archer

Welcome to The Remarkables - Grant Thornton's podcast that seeks to uncover stories about remarkable people doing incredible things for their community, bettering the world for future generations, and inspiring others to do the same.

I'm Rebecca Archer, and today I'm joined by Andrew Kelly, CEO at the Antarctic Science Foundation, an organisation bringing together people who believe in the potential of Antarctica to provide the answers we need for sustaining life on the planet. Welcome, Andrew. I'm excited to hear about the Antarctic Science Foundation, and why everyone needs to value Antarctica to ensure longevity for future generations.

Now, Antarctica has no government, and no one owns it. Can you explain how Antarctica’s model of governance works? And what's the timeline?

Andrew Kelly

Thank you, Rebecca, and thanks for the invitation to join you today. Antarctica is utterly unique in its governance. It is governed by the Antarctic Treaty, which was signed in 1959, by the 12 originating nations, and it reserves Antarctica for peace, research and science. And as a result, no one owns it, and that's what makes it so unique. We share Antarctica; we are stewards of Antarctica rather than imposing an ownership model on it. And that creates an environment of cooperation that we don't see anywhere else in the world.

Rebecca Archer 

Now, can you go into a bit of detail about the consultative nations of the Antarctic Treaty? So, for example, when does it end? All of those sorts of things.

Andrew Kelly

So, the treaty was signed in 1959, and it used the Svalbard Treaty of 25 as a template, which made Norway the steward of the Svalbard archipelago, and reserved it for nonmilitary purposes, resolve mining conflicts. And so, when it came to after the war, these nations that had been exploring and delving into Antarctica came together in ‘59, to create a treaty which, again was unique and wanted to have all of the hallmarks of cooperation.

So Antarctica is a non-nuclear zone; it is reserved for peace and research. All research plans and results are shared with the other consultative nations, which gather together once a year to talk about their plans for the future, the things that they've done in the past, and consult, discuss the treaty, which comes up for review in 2048. And given the geopolitical machinations of the world we live in in 2022, 26 years is a very short period of time to renegotiate the treaty. Changes to the treaty can be made, but they must be made by unanimous agreement and consensus, and all of the research facilities on the Antarctic continent are available for inspection by any other country. So, this creates a transparency, which again, is extremely unique in our world.

Rebecca Archer 

And so, what are your thoughts on what will happen once the treaty does expire? Are there risks that it might be disbanded? Where are we at with that?

Andrew Kelly

That's a great question. And again, given what's happening in our world today, with conflict and the gaming of borders and a bit of Sabre rattling, the Antarctic Treaty is under pressure because it is from another time. It was authored in arguably another era. So, I suppose one of the touchstones for where we may end up is the Madrid Protocol of 1991, which under Bob Hawk’s advocacy, and also with the French, they came together to outlaw mining in Antarctica. Now a little bit of history, Antarctica is part of Gondwana land, which was the huge continental mass that Australia, South America, India, China have all disseminated from each of those continents have are very rich in minerals, rare earths fossil fuels. So arguably, Antarctica will possess under three kilometres of ice in some areas, those minerals. And so, we have people and development that will take place for many years to come – and that will place pressure on the Antarctic Treaty. So, there are already discussions and postures being put in place for that renegotiation in in 2048. And arguably many of the young people that are doing their leaving certificates this year, who are in law school this year, they will be the people that will renegotiate the treaty in 26 years’ time.

Rebecca Archer

Now, Andrew, I'm curious about your career journey. How did you get to where you are now? When did your interest in this start to ignite, I suppose, and could you shed some light on the journey that you took to get exactly where you are now?

Andrew Kelly

I'm an Economist by training, I'm – as I say – I’m fully qualified to explain to you how the world doesn't work, and that led me into banking. I was in banking for almost a decade, and that was a great education for a young person.

I had a company thereafter, which I sold, and then that gave me the opportunity to think about what I would like to do next. And so, for the last 20 years, I've been involved in philanthropy – working in areas of homelessness, domestic violence, drug and alcohol, rehab, education, kids at risk, medical research, and now Antarctic environmental science. How did I get there? Well, I'm intensely curious. And so, these fields open up to me and my curiosity. I'm very keen to make a social impact through my work, and I consider myself a translator. So, I merely take that which scientists or social worker or teachers, educators are doing, and then translate that so that good people who want to make a difference through philanthropy can engage with that and understand it. So, my only skill is as a translator, bridging those two worlds from one to the other.

Rebecca Archer 

What a great way to put it. So, Andrew, what exactly was it about Antarctica that you were so passionate about and wanted to become involved in? And can you also tell me a little bit about what the foundation actually does on a practical level?

Andrew Kelly

So, the foundation drew me – and I had a passable knowledge of Antarctica when I applied for the role. Antarctica, as I have discovered, is the engine room of global climate, the world's air conditioner. It drives our oceans; it drives all of our weather systems. And so, we are both having an effect on Antarctica, and it definitely has an effect on us. For at least 100 million years, it has received carbon and heat and returned fresh air, fresh currents and cooling to the globe. So, my understanding of Antarctica was around the Heroic Age of expedition with the likes of Shackleton and Mawson – certainly understanding it through a very basic knowledge of climate science. But what I've learned is that Antarctica is bottomless – both from my curiosity, I continue to learn something about Antarctica every day, but also to the role of the foundation. The foundation backs – through our supporters’ generosity – tenacious, dedicated researchers to go to Antarctica and do projects, which will arguably and indeed already do, give us the answers that we need to live sustainably on this planet. I often describe Antarctica as the greatest library known to humanity, but we've barely read any of the books. And in that, is that this paradox, which is that it's almost like another planet. We can only get there about five months of the year, the rest of the time, if you're there, you're staying there. And if you're not there, you can't get there. It's easier to get people on and off the International Space Station most days of the year than it is to get them in and out of Antarctica. And so, that very slight window that we have each year to do transformational, critical research means that those minutes, those hours, those days are so important. And so, that's the work of the foundation, to go and get the ask the questions and retrieve the answers.

Rebecca Archer 

And so, I understand that the foundation's Antarctic projects do fall on to three main themes. So that's vulnerable wildlife, climate and impact and healthy oceans. Can you tell us more about that?

Andrew Kelly

Antarctica, in general, across those three themes is a much like a canary in the coal mine. It is a record of our impact on the climate, and it is a series of interconnected and complex systems. We have the continent, which is twice the size of Australia, and grows to four times the size of Australia when the sea ice freezes during winter. It drives our oceans; the circumpolar current around Antarctica, through the Southern Ocean, drives all of the oceans around the globe. And so, understanding our effect on the Southern Ocean and the circumpolar current is very important for us to promote healthy oceans and the effects of changes to salinity, changes to heat in those waters, and also pollution.

That then has a knock-on impact to the wildlife. So, krill are the most important little animal, you know, in Antarctica’ it's a keystone species. It is predated upon all of the larger animals that we know of – the seals, the penguins, the whales – and forms the basis of a nursery, which feeds into all of our oceans and all of our fisheries around the world. So, understanding the effects of warming oceans and waters on krill, changes in salinity, changes in their environment is very important because arguably, they underpin all that comes out of the ocean. And then from a climate perspective, that large, massive ice 27 million cubic kilometres of ice plays an enormous effect on reflecting heat and radiation back into space – that big white surface. Now, when that melts, there's less of it to reflect heat and radiation back into space. And that will create, when it melts, to create rising sea levels, which will have obviously damaging effects on countries and people who live close to the ocean.

So, you can see across those three themes, and those three areas, that they're all interconnected, and our knowledge of those areas will ultimately help us to mitigate for climate disruption and create strategies that underpin and undergird communities and populations that live near the sea. Those of us – all of us who rely on the oceans for food, and communities everywhere that are affected by extreme weather events.

Rebecca Archer 

And I can only imagine that working with the Antarctic Science Foundation means that you're exposed to meeting a great deal of fascinating human beings. Can you give us some examples, or maybe even tell us a story about some of your favourite moments through working with the foundation or the most memorable moments that you might have captured through that foundation work?

Andrew Kelly

You're right! It really is a great gift every day to be able to work with, and talk to, leading scientists in their field, and I never take that for granted. A terrific story of late: the foundation supports PhD students in their research, and arguably PhDs are where real innovation occurs. And they drive research and labs. There's a young researcher that the Foundation supported recently called Page Moroney. She's a researcher in WA, and she's really into sea slugs – Antarctic Sea slugs. And she was telling me about them and they're fascinating, and her work is very impressive.

Again, as a non-scientist, I asked her so what is it about the sea slugs, that means that predators don’t come and pick them off like a, like a marine chicken nugget? And she said, “Well, that's a really interesting question, Andrew, they've got this venom that they excrete out into the water, which says, you know, I'm not tasty go somewhere else.” She then went on to say that she looked at that venom, it was comprised of 28 compounds. They did an assay, and there were four there that were really interesting, and she started to dig into those four compounds in the venom. And the end story is that those compounds are now in a clinical trial for leukemia therapy, which would have an amazing effect on all of us who live in, you know, suburbia in inner cities, but we have children who are prone to contracting leukemia.

Now, she didn't set out to go to Antarctica to find a cancer cure. Her curiosity led her to examining nudibranchs, sea slugs, and that pathway opened up and she said, “I'm going to investigate that.” The amazing thing about it is we don't need to go to Antarctica and harvest these very charismatic little sea slugs – now that we know the code, we can synthesise that in a lab, if it's a successful trial. So that is a terrific example of the science that's being done, the curiosity that is at play, and the impact that that has on the lives of all of us.

Rebecca Archer 

Just fascinating! And I mean, speaking of research, are there any special government led or independent research initiatives or projects for Antarctic science, that help communities prepare for climate change risks? I would imagine that that's a huge part of the research and the examinations that are happening there.

Andrew Kelly

Here in Australia, we have an amazing Antarctic program, which is comprised of the Australian Antarctic Division under the Federal Government, and through the Department of Climate Change and Environment. And then, tremendous independent programs by the top universities in Australia. Each of these collaborate together to do that work, to understand those systems that are at risk or being influenced by human activity.

And it's that research which allows us to refine something that we hear a lot about – the climate models. We are relying on models of a very complex system, namely Earth, to understand from a calculation point of view, how these systems operate in the first instance and whether or not they have been influenced. And so, a key model by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is around sea level rise. The variances that we're dealing with for a body of water as large as that which covers the earth, means that it's very hard for us to tighten those models to get an accurate sea level rise without going and doing this research, getting more data because at the moment, the sea level rise that we're facing over the next 50 to 100 years is somewhere between 30 centimetres and two and a half metres. Now that's very difficult for governments and nations to plan for, and so, this research is actually very cheap to go and do this work and come back with data that can go into that model, those models, and refine those expectations to a tighter tolerance.

Rebecca Archer 

So, I believe in December 2021, Australia's new Icebreaker RSV Nuyina embarked upon her maiden voyage. Now, I wonder if you can give me a bit of information about how this voyage is supporting the careers and the research of Antarctic researchers?

Andrew Kelly

RSV Nuyina is the most advanced research vessel on water. Australia is extremely fortunate to have this investment in its Antarctic program – three billion dollars over the next 30 years. As the capacity of this ship at 160 metres long, 25,000 tonnes, the ability to carry 120 passengers – research passengers – and a crew of 32. It increases the capacity to take people to Antarctica, which is always constrained. There are always more people that want to go – researchers and scientists do this work. And RSV Nuyina represents an expansion of that capacity.

It also allows us to do work that we've never been able to do – to be able to do a census of krill and understand krill populations. Nuyina has what's known as a wet well, which absorbs two tonnes of water in every second, and then places that water into aquaria along with the creatures that live in it so that we can examine, for instance, krill and marine organisms without destroying them, capturing them with other containers or nets. So, they go into these aquaria in pristine condition and then sent back into the sea.

This type of capability allows our PhD students to have this experience at sea doing this work, which previously we haven't been able to do. So Nuyina represents not only capacity to take people to Antarctica, but also the ability to bring particularly early career researchers onboard, take them on these expeditions, and give them that that very valuable experience in the field.

Rebecca Archer 

And how has the momentum around The Antarctica 2023 Expedition by The Last Great First team had a positive impact on the Antarctic Science Foundation?

Andrew Kelly

It's been tremendous to work with The Antarctica 2023 Team. Gareth, Richard, Andrea and Mark are so passionate about what they're doing with this traverse of Antarctica. And for us and for our researchers and being into the climate models that we were talking about just before, Gareth and Richard will be taking equipment across Antarctica to measure temperatures, barometric pressures, all manner of climate data in areas where we don't have automatic weather stations.

And so, to have a longitudinal record over the 75/80 days that they'll be skiing unsupported across Antarctica means that we can take that data and put that into those models, and help us understand again, what's happening in areas of Antarctica, that people don't necessarily go to every year or even every few years. So that expedition has been really positive for the foundation, and we've been very happy to work with them.

Rebecca Archer 

And how can businesses or even individuals who hear this podcast do more or get more involved and be part of this incredible research?

Andrew Kelly

Firstly, I would suggest having a look at our website to see the extent of the projects and the work that's been done. And then to be curious, and certainly reach out and be in contact. Antarctica, as I said, is a is a canary in the coal mine and a touchstone for climate disruption and the changes that we need to make both individually and as a society. And once we understand, as we get a greater understanding of those changes, engaging with those researchers, with their work and encouraging them to do this amazingly dedicated work helps them tremendously.

I mean, we all love to have a supporter; we all love to have somebody in our corner and this is lonely work. So, the researchers that we have, that is supported by philanthropists large and small, always walk a few inches taller because they know that somebody is behind them, interested in their work. Whether that's ice shells, or krill or penguins or climate science or oceanography. So please be in contact, have a look at the website and reach out. We’d love to talk to you!

Rebecca Archer 

And just in general, do you think more funding is necessary to ensure further growth and I guess, value in pathways for research careers in Antarctic research?

Andrew Kelly

Absolutely! And not only for those careers, but we're going to rely very heavily on those careers over the next 10 and 20 years. There's some really difficult questions that we need to ask, and we will be relying on those early career researchers to do this work, find the answers that we can put into strategies which will be adopted across society. And so, I would argue that we are, that this is urgent. We really are requiring a war footing on research so that we can ask those questions and get those answers for the good of us all.

Rebecca Archer

And in terms of Corporate Australia, or I guess globally private sectors, we have obviously heard about the impacts of climate change. And I guess now more than ever, businesses should really be reporting on their environmental, social and governance impacts. If businesses are looking to expand their ESG impacts, what should they be doing?

Andrew Kelly

Simply, they should understand what their impact is. And if they're defraying their impact, they should understand really clearly what that investment or those fees or those costs are, and know whether or not they are directly making an impact. The public is very aware and becoming more so about the impact of sustainability and will be asking these questions.

So, any business that's in this space really does need to a) know their impact and understand that where they’re defraying environmental impact. Are they doing that? And is it actually hitting the road? Are those carbon credits, or the like, are they actually doing what they think they're doing? And, and so I'm a big advocate for research, because every dollar that you spend in research brings back a 10x, or a 20x return in a very, very short space of time, so that we can put that research back into strategy, back into ways that benefit all of us in our community, from cancer cures all the way through to climate mitigation strategies.

Rebecca Archer 

And just finally, Andrew, I wonder if you can tell us if there are any remarkable or key projects in the pipeline for the foundation into the future?

Andrew Kelly

There are. We're looking at next year, there's some significant work being done to understand how the ocean, the deep ocean, the surface and the atmosphere, interplay and what their roles are in the Total Climate Model. And so, it's a fairly ambitious project but this was work that's not been done before. And indeed, the researcher who's a various-themed climate scientist said to me recently, he's so excited about this project, because he's been waiting 30 years for the technology to come online to be able to do it. And that technology is basically because we've all got mobile phones in our pockets, and it's been developed so quickly that we now have these machines, the robotics, and the communications tech to do this work. So, with the technology comes the ability to better understand our world, our impact on our world, and then how we can care for it.

Rebecca Archer 

Andrew, you've been so very generous with your time. I'm extremely grateful. But before we go, I wonder if you can let us know how people can continue to follow your journey and maybe further support the work of the Foundation?

Andrew Kelly

lease, as I said, jump on our website. That's probably the first time you've ever used the domain “aq”, but that's Antarctica's domain, and have a look at our website and the work that we're doing. You can certainly make a contribution to our work there. Please follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. And you can see not only the work that we're doing, but some great photos of penguins and seals and whales as well.

Rebecca Archer 

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