Struggle for the melting continent: who will get the Arctic?

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

The changing climate has provoked a struggle for the "top of the world" - the Arctic. Because of the revival of the Cold War, old agreements like the Russian-Norwegian 2010 are cracking, and the new ones with the participation of Russia are declared illegal in advance by the United States.

Billions of dollars are being invested in Yamal gas - this is the taste of the Arctic race, writes the American publication Politico.

In the 19th century, the great European powers divided the world according to age-old rules of sovereignty: whoever planted his flag first owned the resources - if he could protect them.

It would seem that that era has long since sunk into oblivion. But today, when the polar ice in the Arctic is melting at an unprecedented rate, the world's leading players look at this region as a no-man's land, which is available to anyone.

The changing environment - and the maritime landscape - has sparked a battle for new economic opportunity and strategic dominance at the top of the world. “This region has become an arena of rivalry and power struggles,” US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a speech in Finland in May.

And a month earlier, Russian President Vladimir Putin said at a conference in St. Petersburg that the Arctic accounts for more than 10% of all investments in Russia.

The Politiko edition tells about the most important areas of the fight for the Arctic and how it all can end.

Struggle for trade routes

The price of the issue. Man has traded throughout the Arctic for centuries, transporting goods such as furs and meat across ice and snow. Today, due to warming, many of the old trade routes have disappeared, but new long-distance shipping routes have appeared in their place.

For modern exporters who transport goods in large quantities from Asia to the West, this provides new and very favorable opportunities.

Forecasts indicate that by 2040 the Arctic Ocean will be completely free of ice in the summer. Currently, two new shipping routes are already being created: the Northern Sea Route, which runs along the Arctic coast of Russia, and the Northwest Passage, which runs through the northern Canadian islands.

Thanks to these routes, the distance between Europe and Asia will be reduced by 40%. And since 90% of world trade is carried out by sea, even a small increase in the use of these routes will have a significant impact on the global economy.

What will come of it. Experts disagree about the potential for trade using these new routes. Yes, they are shorter, but these routes are covered with ice nine months of the year. It also lacks basic services such as search and rescue on most routes.

So far, less than 100 merchant ships pass through the Northern Sea Route a year, while the Suez Canal in Egypt is used by almost 20,000 ships. This was told by an analyst from the Washington Arctic Institute, Malte Humpert.

However, the number of ships in the Arctic is increasing. The Chinese transport company COSCO plans to use the Northern Sea Route more often to deliver goods to Europe. She will most likely start with several dozen voyages a year, and by the middle of the next decade, the number of COSCO flights may increase to 200-300, says Humpert.

With the development of the Northern Sea Route along the Russian coast, new trade and transshipment hubs will appear, and this will breathe new life into the northern provinces, which in the Soviet era were developed in an emergency mode, and then abandoned for many decades. Meanwhile, a consortium led by the German company Bremen Ports wants to create a new transshipment hub in northeastern Iceland in the Finnafjord.

New routes could also create new tensions among the major players who seek to control them. The United States has criticized the claims of Canada and Russia on these sea routes, calling them "illegal" and "illegitimate."

Fight for domination

The price of the issue. During the Cold War, the Arctic was the front line of the struggle between NATO and the Soviet Union, and there were many military bases and expensive military equipment.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, hostility subsided and many facilities were dismantled or abandoned. In 2010, Russia and Norway resolved their long-standing dispute over the maritime border.

Now relations between the West and Russia have cooled again, and the parties are gradually returning to the positions of the Cold War, while the ice barrier that separated them is gradually melting.

What will come of it. Analysts believe that the chances of a full-scale conflict in the Arctic are very slim. However, the geopolitical rivalry in this region between old enemies and new competitors is unlikely to allow them to coexist peacefully.

Russia is building a chain of new bases in northern coastal villages and on several islands, including Kotelny Island in the East Siberian Sea. In the Arctic latitudes, military exercises of NATO and Russian troops are increasingly being held. The parties are also expanding and modernizing their icebreaker fleets, which are very important for building up their military presence in the waters of the Arctic Ocean.

It's not just Cold War opponents who are strengthening their military capabilities in the Arctic. The US Department of Defense also notes an increase in Chinese activity. Beijing is sending icebreaker ships there and conducting civilian research in the northern latitudes. The US military department emphasizes that these actions may become a prologue to the build-up of China's military presence in the Arctic Ocean.

“China is trying to play a more important role in the Arctic, but at the same time violates international norms and rules. There is a danger that his predatory economic activities will be repeated in the Arctic,”says a US government report, which was published in June.

Struggle for resources

The price of the issue. In connection with the melting of glaciers in the Arctic, more and more land suitable for use appears. And because of the retreat of sea ice, the resources of the Arctic Ocean are becoming more accessible. This applies to fish and natural gas. In addition, it is now becoming easier to bring land stocks to market.

The resources available for development include “13% of the world's undiscovered oil reserves, 30% of unexplored gas deposits, rich deposits of uranium and rare earth minerals, as well as gold, diamonds and abundant fisheries,” said Pompeo.

In 2008, the US Geological Survey released a report that said the Arctic could contain 90 billion barrels of oil, 19 trillion cubic meters of gas and 44 billion barrels of gas condensate. Thus, the total resource cost of this region could well be in the trillions of dollars.

For obvious reasons, these numbers are attracting the attention of the Nordic governments. Access to this fuel will help diversify energy supplies and strengthen national security by reducing dependence on imports from areas of tension.

What will come of it. Paradoxically, the oil and mining companies that have made the most significant contribution to climate change will benefit most from global warming. This is due to the fact that a new wave of development is rolling into the melting Far North.

The most striking example of this development is the gigantic natural gas liquefaction project implemented on the Russian Yamal Peninsula. The Yamal LNG company, which has implemented this project, liquefies and transports gas from the South Tambeyskoye field located in the Arctic Circle. The construction of the plant cost $ 27 billion. The buildings stand on 80,000 piles driven into the permafrost. Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev called the project "a significant milestone for the entire Russian gas industry."

There are other notable projects as well. Among them is a proposal by a Chinese and Australian company to extract uranium ore and other rare earth metals at the Kwanefjeld deposit in southern Greenland. China "wants to be at the forefront of the extractive industries on this island," said Marc Lanteigne of the University of Tromsø, Norway.

Melting ice creates new opportunities for fishing, as fishing vessels can move further north and stay there longer in warmer conditions, following the changing migration routes of some fish species, which also move north in search of colder water.

Such changes could be a godsend for Greenland, which receives about 90% of its export earnings from fishing. Today fishermen not only fish for cold-water shrimp, but also catch bluefin tuna and mackerel in these waters.

Fight for tourists

The price of the issue. Arctic ice is shrinking and the tourist cruise industry is looking for new, more distant routes. Last year, the Meravilla cruise ship with 6,000 passengers on board entered the tiny Norwegian polar port of Longyearbyen, standing at its full height above the ferry terminal, and tourists rushed to the small village.

By offering to watch the northern lights and mingle with the local people, cruise lines are selling new experiences that are valuable because of the precarious future of the Arctic and disappearing glaciers.

But as demand rises, some fear that the tourism industry is destructive and environmentally unsafe. There are warnings that cruise tourism can destroy small local communities and that it contributes to environmental pollution, which accelerates the process of climate change.

What will come of it. If cruise ships increasingly enter these frigid waters, it could be that companies will use vessels unprepared for these harsh conditions. “In the Arctic, we have to work in a completely different way than in other, let's say, more pleasant places,” said Thomas Ege, spokesman for the Norwegian tour operator Hurtigruten. This company has been operating in the northern regions for over 125 years.

Hurtigruten participates in a campaign to ban heavy fuel oil. This heavy and dirty fuel is widely used in shipping and, if spilled, is much more difficult to collect in Arctic waters compared to more expensive and lighter fuels.

“I don’t even want to think about the scale of what could happen if a huge ship with thousands of passengers on board was shipwrecked,” Ege said.

Passenger safety is another major concern. This became very clear last year when the Viking Sky cruise ship went out of power after sailing out of the Arctic Norwegian city of Tromso.

Severe rough seas prevented the use of lifeboats, and the disaster was averted with great difficulty thanks to six helicopters, which gradually evacuated. It could have ended very differently, says Peter Holst-Andersen, chairman of the Arctic Council working group. If the liner was much further north, "the result could be disastrous."

The fight to save the Arctic

The price of the issue. The surge in activity in the Arctic is fraught with great dangers to the vulnerable environment in the region. There is a risk of an oil spill, which is extremely difficult to collect in northern latitudes. In addition, ships are emitters of soot, which accumulates on the ice and accelerates its disappearance.

Climate change in the Arctic is happening faster than elsewhere. Melting ice sheets and glaciers in this region threaten more than just rising water levels around the world.

They deprive local people of their livelihoods and destroy the natural habitats of countless wildlife.

Avoiding the worst impacts of climate change is costly, including in the Arctic itself. This poses serious obstacles to efforts to save the region. Politicians who are skeptical about climate change also make their negative contribution.

When the US government released a report that climate change would cost the US hundreds of billions of dollars annually and cause a host of health problems that would also be costly, President Donald Trump said he did not believe it.

What will come of it. Environmentalists say no one heeds their warnings.

“States are not implementing measures to regulate shipping, although there is an urgent need for improved governance and coordination as climate change makes sea trade routes in the Arctic more accessible,” WWF said in its analysis of measures that Arctic states have taken for 2019. to protect the environment.

Activists are also concerned about overfishing in the Arctic. In 2034, the agreement on the ban on fishing in the central part of the Arctic Ocean, which was signed by nine countries, including the United States, Russia and China, as well as the EU, will expire.

It is possible that the time to save the Arctic has already been lost, according to the curators of the Stockholm Museum of the Northern Countries, who organized an exhibition about life in the Arctic inside a giant model of a cracked iceberg. Now we need to focus on preparing for what lies ahead.

The region is home to approximately four million people, and they are all well aware of the need to adapt. In the past, they have found opportunities to successfully live and thrive in the face of powerful shocks.

“History shows that the people of the Arctic are not afraid of change, because they have always lived in a changing environment,” says one of the organizers of the exhibition, Matti S. Sandin. "The Arctic has brought a lot of innovation."

It is not yet clear in what form these changes will come. But the ice continues to melt and global players are racing against time and against each other to try to exploit the Arctic. Therefore, the strategic importance of this region will only grow. And the outcome of the race will have far-reaching consequences not only for the Arctic, but also for regions far south of the Arctic Circle.