The hidden geo-politics around the melting ice caps of the Arctic

A few days ago, a PhD student from the University of California (Irvine), Zach Labe, tweeted a data set that showed something quite alarming, and perhaps even strange. The data from the Danish Meteorological Institute showed a drastic spike in the temperature at one of the coldest places on the planet, and the upswing was something that one last saw in the 2004 climate doomsday movie The Day After Tomorrow. 

Extreme warm Arctic-cold Siberia dipole. Another slow down currently in #seaice growth in response to temp anomalies >36°F pic.twitter.com/v1nGB3GLBw — Zack Labe (@ZLabe) November 15, 2016

According to Labe’s data, at the Arctic region above 80 degrees North Latitude (80NL), the temperature was recorded at an insane 20 degrees Celsius above normal. Temperatures recorded at 80NL were around -5 degrees Celsius while during this period, when the polar nights have set in and the sun does not rise, the temperatures are expected to be around -25 degrees Celsius. Experts have blamed global warming for the freakish patterns like critically fast melting of the sea ice in the Arctic Circle. As data suggests, the Arctic now is warming faster than the planet’s equatorial regions. 

The trends in the Arctic Circle today are perhaps the strongest indicators of the unfolding story of climate change, specifically as the UN Climate Change Conference (COP22) having just concluded in Marrakech, Morocco. However, a completely ice-free Arctic, which as per estimates is not too far away in the future, is also going to heat up geo-political tiffs in the region, which is predominantly the backyard of an increasingly erratic and unpredictable Russia under the guard of President Vladimir Putin.

An ice-free Arctic also means that the region will become navigable, and cut transport times for ships significantly. In 2007, Russian explorer and confidante of Putin, Artur Chilingarov, planted a Russian flag on the North Pole seabed in a ‘stake of claim’ hinting that the Lomonosov ridge, on which the North Pole lies, is connected to the Russian continental shelf. “The Arctic is Russian,” Chilingarov had told the press after his mission in the Mir-1 submarine. Canada labeled all this as a ‘meaningless stunt’. 

Currently, Russia, Canada, US, Denmark (via Greenland) and Norway all have made territorial claims in the Arctic, often overlapping with each other, beyond the 200 nautical mile limit which is allowed under the ambit of the United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). Under UNCLOS, if the geological shelf (such as Russia’s claims over Lomonosov ridge) extends far out into the sea, a nation can claim mineral resources beyond that zone. 

This is where, at least in theory, the conflict of interest arises. According to US Geological Survey data from 2008, the Arctic is home to 240 billion barrels of oil and oil-equivalent natural gas, or, 10% of the planet’s existing conventional hydrocarbon resources. While this has meant a lot to countries like Russia, whose economy largely balances on oil and gas, the US on the contrary under the Obama administration has banned any new drilling for oil in the US part of Arctic territory for at least five years on the back of the fragility of the Arctic ecosystem and environmental concerns. Beyond minerals, the Arctic is also home to Moscow’s Northern Fleet, its biggest naval fleet responsible for protecting Russian interests in the Arctic and Atlantic oceans based in Severomorsk, near the Arctic town of Murmansk bordering Finland. This means dealing with Europe, the US and Canada and as the temperatures have risen between Washington and Moscow over issues such as Ukraine and Syria, Russian fighter jets and bombers are often found challenging their NATO counterparts around European airspace. Recently, Russia’s only aircraft carrier, Admiral Kuznetsov, passed through the English channel between Britain and France on its way to Syria causing unease in the Western world. 

A fully ice-free Arctic circle could add more friction between Russia and the West as the question of who controls the navigational routes for trade and the military comes into play. While territorially, Russia has the biggest influence over the region by far, minerals oil and the still quite unresolved. Moscow had applied to the UN in 2002 about its claims on the Lomonosov ridge, but it was dismissed after a lengthy review process based on scientific data. In February 2016, Moscow submitted its claims once again. 

Despite these territorial frictions, the Arctic states have largely been cordial over the processes and gone according to the United Nations’ and UNCLOS mandates. In fact, the processes of solving these territorial claims could be used as models around other similar theatres as well, where conflicts are resolved through mutual discussions, deliberations and scientific data. 

However, things might now change somewhat as the world’s most powerful man, the in-coming President-elect of America Donald Trump, is a climate change denier and has blamed it as a hoax made up by China. So much so, that after his win, Beijing clarified to him that climate change was in fact a pressing and real issue, and not a hoax. 

The Arctic is the ground zero of the climate change debate. The outgoing US Secretary of State had said that the “solution to climate change is energy policy”, and energy policy till a large extent is intertwined with a state’s foreign policy. Now it remains to be seen how these alarming climate trends in the Arctic are going to be received by the new, erratic and in-denial power players of America.