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The most important thing for people to know about the governance of the Arctic is that we have a chance now to act to maintain the integrity of the system or to lose it. To lose it means that we will dismember the vital systems that make the Arctic work. It's not just a cost to the people who live there. It's a cost to all people everywhere.

I can see now a vision emerging how Canada is going to profit in the future from our Arctic resources without destroying the environment on which it is all based.

The fact that the Arctic, more than any other populated region of the world, requires the collaboration of so many disciplines and points of view to be understood at all, is a benefit rather than a burden.

As technology keeps improving, the price of oil keeps rising, and the ice keeps melting, Arctic energy is bound to be an increasingly bigger part of the global mix.

The Arctic is going to be an area of intense interest. Russia has the longest coastline in the world with the Arctic.

We need to save the Arctic not because of the polar bears, and not because it is the most beautiful place in the world, but because our very survival depends upon it.

Opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge stands to not only increase the United States' oil reserves by nearly 50 percent, but it will create thousands of good U.S. jobs.

The fact is the U.S. has enormous resource potential available to it.

There are many outsiders that actively try to halt every natural resource development project in Alaska. Many of these same people have never even been to Alaska, yet they claim to know what's best for us.

Experience tells us that a good foundation is critical for success in the Arctic and elsewhere. ExxonMobil's Sakhalin-1 project with Rosneft is an example where we have put this experience to work.