Arctic Meltdown

The Economic and Security Implications of Global Warming

Scott G. Borgerson

From Foreign Affairs, March/April 2008

Summary:  Thanks to global warming, the Arctic icecap is rapidly melting, opening up access to massive natural resources and creating shipping shortcuts that could save billions of dollars a year. But there are currently no clear rules governing this economically and strategically vital region. Unless Washington leads the way toward a multilateral diplomatic solution, the Arctic could descend into armed conflict.

SCOTT G. BORGERSON is International Affairs Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a former Lieutenant Commander in the U.S. Coast Guard.

Despite the melting icecap's potential to transform global shipping and energy markets, Arctic issues are largely ignored at senior levels in the U.S. State Department and the U.S. National Security Council. The most recent executive statement on the Arctic dates to 1994 and does not mention the retreating ice. But the Arctic's strategic location and immense resource wealth make it an important national interest. Although the melting Arctic holds great promise, it also poses grave dangers. The combination of new shipping routes, trillions of dollars in possible oil and gas resources, and a poorly defined picture of state ownership makes for a toxic brew.

The situation is especially dangerous because there are currently no overarching political or legal structures that can provide for the orderly development of the region or mediate political disagreements over Arctic resources or sea-lanes. The Arctic has always been frozen; as ice turns to water, it is not clear which rules should apply. The rapid melt is also rekindling numerous interstate rivalries and attracting energy-hungry newcomers, such as China, to the region. The Arctic powers are fast approaching diplomatic gridlock, and that could eventually lead to the sort of armed brinkmanship that plagues other territories, such as the desolate but resource-rich Spratly Islands, where multiple states claim sovereignty but no clear picture of ownership exists.

There are few legal frameworks that offer guidance. The Arctic Council does exist to address environmental issues, but it has remained silent on the most pressing challenges facing the region because the United States purposefully emasculated it at birth, in 1996, by prohibiting it from addressing security concerns. Many observers argue that UNCLOS is the correct tool to manage the thawing Arctic. The convention provides mechanisms for states to settle boundary disputes and submit claims for additional resources beyond their exclusive economic zones. Furthermore, UNCLOS sets aside the resources in the high seas as the common heritage of humankind, it allows states bordering ice-covered waters to enforce more stringent environmental regulations, and it defines which seaways are the sovereign possessions of states and which international passages are open to unfettered navigation.

However, UNCLOS cannot be seamlessly applied to the Arctic. The region's unique geographic circumstances do not allow for a neat application of this legal framework. The Arctic is home to a number of vexing problems that, taken in their entirety, make it a special case. These unresolved challenges include carving up the world's longest uncharted and most geologically complex continental shelf among five states with competing claims, resolving differences between Canada and the rest of the world over how to legally define the Northwest Passage, demarcating maritime borders between the United States and Canada in the Beaufort Sea and between Norway and Russia in the Barents Sea, and regulating vessels shielded behind flags of convenience (which obscure the true origin and ownership of the vessels) as they travel across numerous national jurisdictions. Finally, increased oil and gas exploration and the trans-Arctic shipping that comes with it will pose serious environmental risks. Oil tankers present a particularly grave environmental threat, as illustrated by three recent oil spills in the much safer waters of the San Francisco Bay, the Black Sea, and the Yellow Sea.

There are also a handful of unresolved issues at play in the Arctic that are not covered under UNCLOS. Between 1958 and 1992, Russia dumped 18 nuclear reactors into the Arctic Ocean, several of them still fully loaded with nuclear fuel. This hazard still needs to be cleaned up. Furthermore, the Arctic region is home to one million indigenous people, who deserve to have a say in the region's future, especially as regards their professed right to continue hunting bowhead whales, their safety alongside what will become bustling shipping lanes, and their rightful share of the economic benefits that Arctic development will bring. With the prospect of newfound energy wealth, there is also growing talk of Greenland petitioning Denmark for political independence. Finally, there has been an explosion in polar tourism, often involving ships unsuited for navigation in the region. Last year, 140 cruise ships carried 4,000 intrepid travelers for holidays off Greenland's icy coast, a dangerous journey in largely uncharted waters.

Although it is tempting to look to the past for solutions to the Arctic conundrum, no perfect analogy exists. The 1959 Antarctic Treaty, which froze all territorial claims and set aside the continent for scientific research, provides some lessons, but it concerns a continent rather than an ocean. Moreover, Antarctica is far removed from major trade routes, and negotiations unfolded in the entirely different context of the Cold War. As a body of water that links several large economies, the Mediterranean Sea is somewhat similar to the Arctic Ocean, but its littoral states have always had clearer historical claims, and it has never been covered with ice, at least not in human history. There is simply no comparable historical example of a saltwater space with such ambiguous ownership, such a dramatically mutating seascape, and such extraordinary economic promise.

The region's remarkable untapped resource wealth and unrealized potential to become a fast lane between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans makes it a key emerging pressure point in international affairs. At this critical juncture, decisions about how to manage this rapidly changing region will likely be made within a diplomatic and legal vacuum unless the United States steps forward to lead the international community toward a multilateral solution.

NORTHERN EXPOSURE

Until such a solution is found, the Arctic countries are likely to unilaterally grab as much territory as possible and exert sovereign control over opening sea-lanes wherever they can. In this legal no man's land, Arctic states are pursuing their narrowly defined national interests by laying down sonar nets and arming icebreakers to guard their claims. Russia has led the charge with its flag-planting antics this past summer. Moscow has been arguing that a submarine elevation called the Lomonosov Ridge is a natural extension of the Eurasian landmass and that therefore approximately half of the Arctic Ocean is its rightful inheritance. The UN commission that is reviewing the claim sent Russia back to gather additional geological proof, leading Artur Chilingarov, a celebrated Soviet-era explorer and now a close confidant of Russian President Vladimir Putin, to declare, "The Arctic is ours and we should manifest our presence" while leading a mission to the North Pole last summer.