Robin McKie - Arctic nations square up as clamour for resources grows
The Arctic is heating
up in meteorological, political and environmental terms as nations fall over
themselves to exploit the region.
Apart from Denmark’s
rebuff of Russia’s Arctic overtures, Canadian explorers announced last week
they had discovered
the wreck of HMS Terror, one of the two ships belonging to British explorer
Sir John Franklin’s doomed attempt to sail the Northwest Passage between the
Atlantic and the Pacific. (The other expedition ship, Erebus, was discovered
two years ago.) These two vessels have enormous symbolic importance because
Canada believes they support its claim to own the passage, which other nations,
such as the US, argue is international waters.
Then there were the
recent moves by China
to invest in mines in Greenland, where declining ice cover is exposing vast
outcrops of ores, including minerals crucial to mobile phone manufacture.
Similarly, drilling companies are eyeing seabed reserves of natural gas and oil
while travel companies are preparing to send huge cruise liners into the
region. The first of these trips, by the
Crystal Serenity, has just been completed.
Enormous forces, political and commercial,
are bearing down on the region although all have a common root – as was also
highlighted last week. Summer sea ice, which once covered 7.5 million sq km
around the north pole, this year dropped to 4.13m sq km, its
second lowest figure on record, it was announced.The rate of annual change
– brought about by soaring fossil fuel emissions and rises in global
temperatures – is now equivalent to a loss greater than the size of Scotland.
Most scientists now
expect that, at current emission rates, the Arctic will be reliably free of sea
ice in the summer by the middle of the century. By “free” they mean there will
be less than 1m sq km of sea ice left in the Arctic, most of it packed into
remote bays and channels while the central Arctic Ocean over the north pole
will be completely open. And by “reliably”, scientists mean there will have
been five consecutive years with less than 1m sq km of ice by the year 2050.
The first single ice-free year will come much earlier than this, however.
“The Arctic is opening
up, and all sorts of flashpoints lie ahead,” said Klaus Dodds, professor of
geopolitics at Royal Holloway, University of London. “If the central Arctic
Ocean is freed of ice for several months a year, who will control the fishing
and the dumping of waste there? The Russians have also made it clear they want
to drill for oil and gas.” This point was also
stressed by Professor Chris Rapley, of University College London. “An
increasingly ice-free Arctic is a geopolitical game changer,” he said.
Already there are
profound changes, with invasive species pouring into the warming Arctic and
threatening existing populations, according to Melanie Lancaster of WWF’s
Arctic programme. “Specialised Arctic species such as polar bears [are already]
showing signs of stress. Conservation action is urgently needed.”
However, the Arctic,
its wildlife and its four million inhabitants face a major handicap: the
region’s lack of centralised protection and control. The Antarctic Treaty bans
all mining, oil drilling or the presence of the military and strictly monitors
all environmental hazards around the south pole. By contrast, although no
nation owns the north pole, the Arctic nations – Russia, Canada, the United
States, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Iceland and Denmark – have very different
ideas about how to run the world’s most northerly regions.
China recently
assigned itself the status of being “a near-Arctic state”. It views the opening
Arctic seas as an opportunity to maintain its access to the world’s most
important resources. Some of the Earth’s major stocks of fish are migrating
north as the planet heats up while the Arctic’s mineral resources are being
exposed by retreating ice. “The Chinese have made
no secret that they have their eyes on the Arctic’s fish and minerals,” said
Dodds.
This raises the
question of what the Inuit and other Arctic people think about resources being
exploited by others. “They are not against resource development but they do
like to be consulted and involved,” said Dodds. “They do not want to be
cheated. However, there are often disagreements within communities about the
choices they have to make. Will a mining development ruin a village’s tourist
potential, for example?”
Byers was cautious. “I
have enormous sympathy for the local peoples in the Arctic but they are few in
number and have limited resources. They are trying to insert themselves into
the decision-making of some of the most powerful companies and countries in the
world,” he said. Relations with
indigenous people are one of the flashpoints that may trigger serious disputes
in the region. There is already bitterness among the Inuit about their
treatment in the past and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada is
currently investigating the serious
abuse that thousands of children received in residential schools last
century. That resentment could colour future attempts to develop the region... Read more:
