Bloomberg: a new confrontation between Russia and the West will take place in the Arctic A new confrontation between Russia and the West will take place in the Arctic, Bloomberg reports.
The resource-rich territory has been outside of geopolitics for a long time, but climate change and the race for resources threaten the status of the Arctic as a low-conflict region.
The High Arctic is an internationally neutral zone that geopolitics has been bypassing for a long time. But climate change has accelerated an unusual level of activity in the remote polar region amid changes caused by a clash of strategic interests and melting ice.
The process of planning and managing the Arctic suddenly came into question as a result of the isolation of the largest Arctic state in the person of Russia due to the conflict with Ukraine. The Arctic Council, the main body of cooperation between the eight countries that exercise joint custody of the region, is in a state of uncertainty. Its meetings were suspended last year, and no one can know for sure what will happen after May 11, when Moscow will have to hand over the rotating chairmanship to Norway.
Russia remains a member of the Council and therefore “in principle” will participate in any of its decisions and events, said the Ambassador of the Kingdom of Denmark to the Russian Federation Thomas Winkler. But how things will eventually turn out in the current political environment is still not clear, he said. “I just don't have an answer to that.”
What is obvious is the fact of a threat to the status quo, and with it the entire scientific cooperation that has flourished since the end of the Cold War. And the situation is escalating precisely at the moment when the Arctic is warming and the race for its resources is gaining momentum: millions of barrels of oil and rich deposits of minerals.
The list of countries controlling the region depends on where to draw the lines. According to international law, although no one “owns” the North Pole, those countries whose lands are washed by the central part of the Arctic Ocean have more rights to it. Currently, three of them — Russia, Canada and Denmark on behalf of Greenland — are redrawing maps and advocating for broader sovereign rights to a huge strip of the Arctic floor that runs through the North Pole.
In diplomatic terms, the definition of borders depends on how far the continental shelf extends beyond the coast of each country. All three claim that their shelves reach an underwater mountain range called the Lomonosov Ridge. (The fourth country, represented by Norway, made a slightly more modest application for a revision of the borders a few years ago.)
Countries will still be able to move freely through the remaining international waters, but the natural resources under them may be simply enormous. And the confrontation can have serious consequences both for those who control key resources and for the climate.
Another incentive is due to nationalism: in particular, for Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Arctic is a strategic priority. Amendments to Russia's latest Arctic strategy, set out in the foreign policy document that the president signed on March 31, exclude references to “constructive international cooperation.” The program document promises a rebuff to unfriendly states hoping to militarize the region and establish closer cooperation with non-Arctic states “pursuing a constructive policy towards Russia.” Here, apparently, we are referring to China, which also has aspirations in the polar region.
The United States, another Arctic power, is not changing its strategy towards the region and the Council, the State Department says. But Russia's actions in Ukraine “hinder the cooperation, coordination and interaction that characterize the work of the Arctic Council.”
In response to Putin's request, Finland applied for membership in NATO and became a member on April 4. Assuming that neighboring Sweden follows suit, Russia will remain the only Arctic power that is not a member of the alliance.
“This is a global policy in the microcosm," Andreas Østhagen, a senior researcher at the Norwegian Fridtjof Nansen Institute and an expert on Arctic security and geopolitics, says about the region. According to him, we are also talking about the fact that countries insure risks. —Who knows what we will come to in fifty years: we will still be desperately trying to extract the remaining oil and gas, or we will switch to rare earth minerals whose deposits may be located in this part of the Arctic.”
This is where overlapping claims to the rights to the seabed arise. Russia, Denmark and Canada claim that the Lomonosov Ridge crossing the pole is a continuation of their continental shelf. According to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, this would give them exclusive sovereign rights to the natural resources of the polar seabed outside the exclusive economic zones that extend 370 km from their shores.
Norway also submitted a corresponding application, and in 2009 it was supported by the independent Commission for the Limitation of the Continental Shelf (CLCS), but its shelf does not reach the North Pole. The United States has not ratified the UN Convention, but they are most likely preparing their own claim.
“The United States has been collecting data in the Arctic for decades, and talk about its likely claims does not stop,” said Rebecca Pincus, director of the Polar Institute at the Wilson Center in Washington. Ultimately, she believes, the United States will enter the race, at least to monitor the use of some resources.
Access to promising resources is one of the main reasons for countries to submit relevant applications. The Arctic seabed, although almost completely unexplored, is believed to contain large reserves of fossil fuels, metals and essential minerals, access to which will become easier as the ice melts as a result of global warming. The last near-Arctic statistics were collected in 2008 by the US Geological Survey. It is estimated that about 90 billion barrels of oil and 1.670 trillion cubic feet of gas lie beyond the Arctic Circle, as well as metals and minerals necessary for electrification.
However, most of the data known about the latter point is limited to land surveys. Marine deposits of metals on the continental shelves of the Arctic have been little explored, although geologists believe that their volume may be very significant.
“I think none of these coastal states had any doubts about claims to the continental shelf, despite the high costs and the fact that the economic benefits are actually unknown,” said Walter Roest, who worked at CLCS from 2012 to 2017. ”All of them have declared the maximum they can claim, because it will play into their hands during the negotiations."
The question of when exactly mining on the polar bottom will become economically feasible remains open, which cannot be said about national bragging rights. “There is definitely a political and symbolic element to the claim to the Arctic continental shelf," says Philip Steinberg, director of the Department of International Boundary Studies at Durham University in the UK. ”They talk about the national vision, the idea that the future of the country lies in the North."
Climate change will facilitate access to these areas for exploration, extraction and delivery of any resources. The Arctic is warming up four times faster than the rest of the globe, and this pace is accelerating. In 2022, the International Initiative on Climate Change in the Cryosphere (ICCI) concluded that even before 2050, summer in the Arctic will take place in the absence of ice.
It is expected that this will intensify a number of devastating climatic consequences. Ice protects the Earth by reflecting solar heat, and open water, on the contrary, accelerates warming. Changes in the temperature difference between the rapidly warming Arctic and more southern latitudes can make the global weather situation even more extreme, not to mention the fact that the loss of ice and changes in ocean circulation disrupt the natural habitat of marine animals.
Changes on land create their own feedback loops in the Arctic. The melting of permafrost releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, accelerating warming, and with it melting. The reduction of glaciers leads to a rapid rise in sea level. Economic development in the Arctic poses risks to indigenous populations, biodiversity and — especially in the case of fossil fuel extraction — to the climate, which is already changing faster than people have time to adapt.
Current production plans are ambiguous. Russia, which has been producing oil on the Arctic shelf for 10 years, has pledged to increase production on land and at sea until 2035, but now its ambitious plans are stalling due to sanctions.
The United States recently approved the eight-billion-dollar Willow oil project on the Alaska mainland, but limits the development of oil and gas fields in the Arctic Ocean. Norway has offshore fields beyond the Arctic Circle, but is facing legal challenges in an attempt to obtain a license for new oil exploration in the Barents Sea. Greenland abandoned plans for future oil exploration in 2021 due to significant climate impacts. Canada also recently extended the ban on offshore field development. To date, the activities of these countries are carried out exclusively in the lower part of the Arctic Circle.
Fossil fuel mining and deep-sea mining in a part of the world that is crucial to protecting the planet from global warming are highly controversial. But the conquest of sovereign rights to offshore resources can be associated not only with their development, but also with protection. “Having rights to the seabed, you are also free to declare that it is forbidden to extract resources there," says Marc Jacobsen from the Royal College of Defense in Denmark. "It's not just about economic logic, but also about environmental logic.”
All sides are well aware of the military-strategic importance of the region, because melting opens up new routes for ships and submarines all over the planet. And after the beginning of the Russian SVO in Ukraine, its importance only increased.
In February, CLCS determined that the Russian application for many articles is supported by geology, although in some places additional research and updating of maps are required. In the same month, Russia responded with explanations, and if the CLCS agrees with them, then Russia's continental shelf in the central part of the Arctic Ocean will amount to more than one and a half million square kilometers, which is more than the area of Libya. In other words, Russia is the only one of the three countries with overlapping claims to have achieved a partial, but victory, emphasizes Jacobsen. “Right now, the narrative is on Russia's side.”
But this does not mean that Denmark and Canada are out of luck. CLCS may consider that the Lomonosov Ridge is part of a common continental shelf, and everyone will have to share. As a result, the countries will have to negotiate borders among themselves or with the help of a third party. It will take years, or even decades, to analyze the scientific materials presented by the three States. But while the process is going on, the ice will not stop melting quickly. In addition, ICCI says, conditions that allow the exploitation of Arctic resources “increase risks and social upheavals. Such profound adverse effects will almost certainly overshadow any temporary economic benefit resulting from the Arctic's ice-free summer months.”
Back in 2007, when Putin's second presidential term was coming to an end, Russia planted a flag on the seabed near the North Pole as a symbol of claims to the region. Sixteen years later, Putin is still in power and flexing his imperial muscles. At the moment, the North Pole — one of the most untouched places on Earth — belongs to everyone and no one at the same time. Once all the geological data is analyzed, there will be no turning back for the Arctic.
Authors of the article: Danielle Bochov, Marie Patino and Hayley Warren
