Hot issues in the Arctic
By Carolin Hilpert for ISN
The US Geological Survey presented the first publicly available assessment of the Arctic Circle's petroleum resources on 23 July, revealing an estimated 90 billion barrels of undiscovered, but technically recoverable, oil north of the Circle.
If the report is accurate, the find would account for roughly 13 percent of undiscovered oil in the world - enough to meet worldwide supply for the next three years (at current consumption rates). In addition, the area also contains 30 percent of the world's undiscovered natural gas.
For several years, the Arctic littoral states - Denmark, Canada, Norway, Russia and the US - have conducted research on or put forward claims to the Arctic's resources. The significance of the report is that, for the first time, it puts actual figures on the littoral states' expectations regarding oil and gas in the Arctic. This was impossible in the past due to the amount of ice in the Arctic. With the ice rapidly melting due to global warming, previously inaccessible areas are now open.
Waiting for the thaw
Arctic sea ice is important for the Earth's climate as its white surface reflects most of the sunlight, thereby exerting a cooling effect.
In 2005, NASA calculated a loss in Artic sea ice twice the size of Texas. In September 2007, the record-setting melting rate made the Northwest Passage the most navigable it has been since 1972.
Another attraction of the Arctic ice stems from its riches. Oil and gas companies have long expressed an interest in the area's untapped resources. With world oil prices skyrocketing and demand increasing, businesses and policymakers alike are turning their eyes northward. Melting ice caps mean that these resources are becoming increasingly accessible.
But when will the Arctic be ice-free?
According to Dr Georg Heygster from the Institute of Environmental Physics at the University of Bremen, scientists previously discussed if the North Pole would be ice free at the end of this century. "Now the discussion, within the framework of the EU project external pageDAMOCLES [an ice monitoring system] is, 'Will the Arctic be ice free in summer in 20 or 40 years?'" he told ISN Security Watch.
But predictions are not easy to make.
"An important caveat is that the Arctic sea ice in the Arctic is highly variable," Walt Meier, a research scientist at the University of Colorado National Snow and Ice Data Center, said.
"It's quite possible we could have a very warm year that yields ice-free conditions one summer, but then some cooler conditions in following years that keep ice around through the summer," he told ISN Security Watch. "So, once summer ice is gone in one year doesn't mean it's gone for good."
The US Geological Survey report did not consider economic factors or accessibility to the oil and gas. Nevertheless, drilling in the Arctic, where the oil may lay thousands of feet below the surface, is not as easy or cheap as in the deserts of Saudi Arabia. Extraction is only feasible if worldwide oil prices remain high. Apart from the low temperatures, there are other factors that will complicate extraction.
"First, there is no doubt that the central Arctic will remain ice covered except [during a] few summer months, so the specific difficulties imposed by the sea ice will remain over most months of the year," Heygster said.
"Second, the Arctic sea ice is continuously drifting […] a station on the sea ice will be moving relatively to the sea floor. As a consequence, all activities which require instrumentation at a fixed position, like drilling, would have to be performed completely underwater with no direct contact to the atmosphere, or, as an alternative, from a ship which actively melts away all the sea ice approaching its position. This would require huge amounts of energy."
Unless oil prices remain high, gains from extracting the North Pole's resources may not be worth the costs.
Another issue to consider is the question of who actually owns the Arctic.
UNCLOS: Setting legal boundaries
In July 2007, a spectacular Russian expedition placed a titanium flag of the Russian Federation below the seabed of the Arctic, sparking fears of an "Arctic race." The quest to secure natural resources has long fomented territorial claims. In fact, already in 1926, the Soviet government claimed that Arctic territory belonged to the Soviet Union. However, no other country recognized the Russian delineation.
The legal regime that applies to the Arctic is outlined in the UN Convention on the Law of the Seas (UNCLOS). The Convention regulates states' behavior on the high seas, their rights and responsibilities and the management of natural resources.
Accordingly, each country bordering the Arctic (and more generally, all other coastal states) enjoys the exclusive economic rights zone of 200 nautical miles beyond their coastlines. The North Pole itself is not subject to any national jurisdiction or sovereignty.
Articles 76 and 77 of UNCLOS say that a state can lay economic claims to more than its 200 nautical miles zone and exercise "sovereign rights for the purpose of exploring it and exploiting its natural resources" if it can prove that the ocean floor is a "the natural prolongation of its land territory."
If a coastal state wishes to forward such a claim, it has 10 years upon the entry into force of the Convention to do so. Norway was the first country in 1996 to ratify the Convention; Russia, Canada and Denmark followed. So far, only the US has not signed on to the Convention as it is awaiting ratification by the US Senate.
Race or crawl?
Even with the prospects of claims to the area and its oil and gas, fears of a "race" to the Arctic are greatly exaggerated.
According to Ron Macnab, member of the Canadian Polar Commission, international law is capable of handling the peaceful process of territorial claims to the Arctic.
"Indeed, in the Arctic as in the rest of the world, the delimitation of the outer continental shelf is an orderly process subject to rules enshrined in [UNCLOS], and to date it has been carried out in a fairly disciplined manner," Macnab told ISN Security Watch.
In fact, last May, political representatives from the five coastal states of the Arctic Ocean met in Ilulissat, Greenland, to address these concerns. The participants expressed their continued commitment to the legal framework of the law of the seas and insisted that overlapping claims would be addressed in an orderly manner and with the relevant legal provisions.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who attended the meeting, downplayed the meaning of the Russian flag planted on the North Pole and compared it to the US flag on the moon, an action that did not signal territorial claims.
But Russia is testing the viability of UNCLOS. In December 2001, Russia submitted a claim to the Arctic that was neither rejected nor accepted by the responsible body, the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf. The Commission did however ask Russia to prove if the Lomonosov Ridge, an underwater ridge of continental crust in the Arctic, was a continuation of the Russian section of the Eurasian landmass, which is in line with Articles 76 and 77 of UNCLOS.
In November 2006, Norway submitted a claim equal to the Russian version. The Commission plans to meet next year to address the Russian claim.