Who Owns the North Pole (part 74)

“Our government is … expanding our economic and scientific opportunities by defining Canada’s last frontier,” said Environment Minister Leona Aglukkaq in a Canadian government statement. “This is important to Canadians, especially those in the North, as this is their future and prosperity at stake.”

Russia's growing military presence in the Arctic is a concern and Canada should not get complacent about it, Canada’s  Prime Minister Stephen Harper said.  Russia is busy rebuilding former Soviet-era military bases in its north, and has a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines and icebreakers patrolling its waters. Russian planes have also tested the boundaries of Canadian airspace, Harper said. "I just think we should not be complacent, because we have seen over the period that President Putin has been in power just a gradual growing in aggressiveness of his government toward neighbours and the gradual military assertiveness of that country, and I just think it's something we should never be too at ease about."

In the coming days, the prime minister will take part in a series of military manoeuvres in the Northwest Passage meant to assert Canada's Arctic sovereignty.  Harper is scheduled to observe the Canadian Armed Forces’ annual military exercises near Baffin Island. Operation Nanook, now in its seventh year, is meant to demonstrate Canada’s ability to respond to threats and emergencies in its northern waters — including working with Denmark, the United States and territorial governments.

The Canadian Forces will develop a network of sites throughout the Arctic in order to stockpile equipment if needed and move troops and gear quickly into the region in case of emergency, according to documents obtained by Postmedia News. The military hopes to have the sites in place by 2018. “A series of Northern Operations Hubs will be created with the view to facilitate initial rapid deployment and up to 30 days sustained operations in the North,” wrote Lt.-Gen. Stuart Beare in outlining his plan. Beare is head of the Canadian Joint Operations Command, responsible for military operations both at home and abroad.

Earlier this month, the Canadian government announced that the CCGS Louis S. St. Laurent and CCGS Terry Fox were heading north to conduct scientific surveys in support of a claim to the North Pole. Like all waters more than 200 nautical miles (370 kilometres) from shore, the ocean at the North Pole is international. The only sovereign rights that could possible exist concern seabed resources. Yet according to Mr. Harper, claiming the North Pole is central to defending Canada’s Arctic sovereignty.

Although Canada has rights over extensive areas of seabed elsewhere in the Arctic Ocean, it has no basis for a claim at the North Pole. This is because international law uses the “equidistance” principle to delimit maritime boundaries. According to this principle, boundaries between adjacent coastal states are drawn along a line, every point of which is an equal distance from the respective shores.

In 2012, Canada and Denmark used the equidistance principle to delimit a boundary 200 nautical miles into the Lincoln Sea, north of Canada’s Ellesmere Island and Denmark’s Greenland.Although the boundary does not extend beyond 200 nautical miles, the principle of equidistance will serve as the basis for an eventual agreement separating rights beyond this point. Like it or not, the North Pole falls on the Danish side of the equidistance line – it will never be Canadian.  Harper knows that Canada’s claim will fail. But he also knows that the failure will emerge only after he leaves office. In the meantime, the North Pole presents him with an opportunity to rehabilitate his image as a champion of Canada’s Arctic sovereignty.

 A separate issue concerns the extent of Canada’s rights along the Lomonosov Ridge. This underwater mountain range runs from Ellesmere Island and Greenland toward Russia’s New Siberian Islands. The Lomonosov Ridge passes near but not over the North Pole, which remains off to the Danish side of the Arctic Ocean. According to international law, Canada, Denmark, and Russia may assert rights over this submarine structure if they are able to scientifically demonstrate that the formation is a “natural prolongation” of their land mass. Canadian and Danish scientists believe the Lomonosov Ridge is a prolongation of both Ellesmere Island and Greenland, while Russian scientists believe the Lomonosov Ridge is a prolongation of Asia. Scientists on both sides may well be right, since North America and Asia were once a single continent. Consequently, Canada, Denmark, and Russia could all have legitimate claims over the Lomonosov Ridge.

From here and here

Who Owns the North Pole Part 4

Socialist Courier is keenly following the story of which nation state will ultimately own or control the North Pole and have reported here , here and here about it . Time magazine has now shown an interest in the new developments that are following climate change and global warming in the Arctic Circle region .

Late last month, Moscow signaled its intentions to annex the entire North Pole, an area twice the size of France with Belgium and Switzerland thrown in — except all of it under water. The ice-frozen North Pole is currently a no man's land supervised by a U.N. Commission. The five Polar countries — Russia, the U.S., Canada, Norway and Denmark — each control only a 200-mile economic zone along their coasts. And none of these economic zones reach the North Pole. Under the current U.N. Maritime convention, one country's zone can be extended only if it can prove that the continental shelf into which it wishes to expand is a natural extension of its own territory, by showing that it shares a similar geological structure.
So, the Russians claimed a great scientific discovery late last month. An expedition of 50 scientists that spent 45 days aboard the Rossia nuclear ice-breaker found that an underwater ridge (the Lomonosov ridge) directly links Russia's Arctic coast to the North Pole. This, they insist, surely guarantees Russia's rights over a vast Polar territory that also happens to contain some 10 billion tons of oil and natural gas deposits.
Russia's first attempt to expand beyond its Arctic zone was rebuffed by the U.N. Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf, but Moscow hopes that its "latest scientific findings" will produce a different outcome when the Commission next meets, in 2009.
Moscow is also looking to restore control over a 47,000 sq. km (18,000 sq. mile) piece of the Bering Sea separating Alaska from Russian Chukotka. The territory was ceded to the U.S. in 1990 under the U.S.-Soviet Maritime Boundary Agreement signed by Secretary of State James Baker and Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze. While the deal may have helped ease Cold War tensions, anti-reform Soviet hard-liners always opposed giving up a piece of territory rich in sea life and hydrocarbon deposits, and they and their nationalist successors prevented the agreement's ratification. Today, the Agreement still operates on a provisional basis, pending its ratification by the Russian parliament.
But what had once been a battle cry of the nationalist opposition has now become the official line. In recent weeks, Kremlin-controlled media have berated the Agreement as a treasonous act by Shervardnadze (who later became the pro-NATO President of Georgia). Now, leading pro-Kremlin members of the Russian legislature are publicly demanding that the Agreement be reviewed, with the aim of recovering the country's riches.

In May, U.S. Senator Richard Lugar told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that Russia claiming the hydrocarbon-rich area would be to the detriment of U.S. interests.

Meanwhile here we read dispute Canadian claims to the North West Passage .

Whereas Prime Minister Harper asserts "Canada has a choice when it comes to defending our sovereignty over the Arctic. We either use it or lose it. And make no mistake, this government intends to use it ...It is no exaggeration to say that the need to assert our sovereignty and protect our territorial integrity in the North on our terms have never been more urgent...The ongoing discovery of the north's resource riches coupled with the potential impact of climate change has made the region a growing area of interest and concern," Harper said. "

America meantime describes the Northwest Passage as "neutral waters."

"It's an international channel for passage," U.S. Embassy spokesman Foster said .

As global warming melts the passage -- which now is only navigable during a slim window in the summer -- the waters are exposing unexplored resources such as oil, fishing stocks and minerals, and becoming an attractive shipping route. Commercial ships can shave off some 2,480 miles (3,990 kilometers) from Europe to Asia compared with current routes through the Panama Canal.

Canada also wants to assert its claim over Hans Island, which is at the eastern entrance to the Northwest Passage. The half-square-mile (0.8-kilometer) rock is wedged between Canada's Ellesmere Island and Danish-ruled Greenland .
In 1984, Denmark's minister for Greenland affairs, Tom Hoeyem, caused a stir when he flew in on a chartered helicopter, raised a Danish flag on the island.The dispute flared again two years ago when former Canadian Defense Minister Bill Graham set foot on the rock while Canadian troops hoisted the Maple Leaf flag.

Let us not be mistaken , many former allies have become rivals when natural resources become a bone of contention

Who Owns the North Pole - Part 68

Canadian officials confirmed Monday that the nation is preparing to include the North Pole as part of its Arctic Ocean seabed claim in the multi-country push to prove jurisdiction over further territory in the resource-rich area.

Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird and Arctic Council chair Leona Aglukkaq officially announced Monday Canada’s claim to the extended continental shelf in the Arctic. It was reported by The Globe and Mail last week that Prime Minister Stephen Harper requested a government board charged with assessing Canada’s claims beyond its territorial waterways, per United Nations rules, to seek a more expansive stake of Arctic area to include the North Pole.

"We have asked our officials and scientists to do additional work and necessary work to ensure that a submission for the full extent of the continental shelf in the Arctic includes Canada's claim to the North Pole," Baird said during a press conference at the House of Commons.

The North Pole is 817 kilometers north of Canada’s - and the world’s - northernmost settlement, Alert, Nunavut. The town is home to a Canadian Forces station and Environment Canada station.

"Fundamentally, we are drawing the last lines of Canada. We are defending our sovereignty," Aglukkaq said, according to CBC News.

Canada has spent nearly US$200 million on the scientific-discovery process of the area, including dozens of icebreaker and helicopter trips for teams of scientists. An unmanned submarine was used to collect data below the frigid Arctic water.  About 90 billion barrels of oil and 1,670 trillion cubic feet of natural gas lie in the largely untapped 18-million-square-mile Arctic region, according to the US Geological Survey, making up about 10 percent of the world's petroleum resources. The dominant portion of these resources are hidden beneath the ice that is shared between five nations bordering the Arctic: Canada, Denmark, Norway, the Russian Federation and the US.

Both Russia and Canada say the resource-abundant Lomonosov Ridge, below the ocean and close to the geographic North Pole, is a natural extension of their continental shelves.
“As for the Arctic, there are not only large economic interests for the country – a huge amount of mineral resources, oil and gas,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said last week, underlining his nation’s interests in the region. “But there lies a very important part of our defense capabilities.”

Who owns the North Pole , Part 7

Not to be left out for this scramble for control of the Arctic regions , Danish researchers plan to set sail for the North Pole on Sunday to collect geological data, on a mission similar to the recent Russian one .

The month-long Danish expedition will study the Lomonosov Ridge. Russia believes the underwater feature is linked to its territory. Denmark , however , will investigate the ridge to see if it is geologically connected to Greenland which is a Danish territory.
The team plans to collect bathymetric, gravity and seismic data to map the seabed under the ice, according to a Danish science and technology ministry statement on the expedition.

"The preliminary investigations done so far are very promising," Denmark's minister of science, technology and innovation said "There are things suggesting that Denmark could be given the North Pole."

We will be collecting data for a possible (sovereignty) demand," expedition leader Marcussen said.

In Ottawa, the Danish ambassador to Canada, Poul Kristensen stated "it's no secret that Denmark, on behalf of Greenland" has interests in the Arctic and "of course, potentially, we can make claims."

Now the Danes - still at odds with Canada over the ownership of tiny Hans Island in the boundary waters between Ellesmere Island and Danish-controlled Greenland - are again pressing their claims to the potentially lucrative seafloor area around the North Pole.
Kristensen said Friday that "we are speaking of values in the billions" when it comes to potential Arctic oil, "and therefore the area, of course, is of interest to us."

Prime Minister Harper announced Canada will install a new army training center and a deep water port. Canada will build two new military facilities in the Arctic in a move to assert sovereignty over the contested region . Resolute Bay will be home to a new army training center for cold-weather fighting . The new deep sea port will be built for navy and civilian purposes on the north end of Baffin Island, in the abandoned old zinc-mining village of Nanisivik. Harper also announced the 4,100-member Canadian Rangers patrol will be increased by another 900 members. He stood alongside Defense Minister Gordon O'Connor and a group of Rangers — a rifle-toting, Inuit volunteer force.

"Protecting national sovereignty, the integrity of our borders, is the first and foremost responsibility of a national government, a responsibility which has too often been neglected," Harper said,


The North Pole seabed is not currently regarded as part of any single country's territory and is governed instead by complex international agreements. But for how much longer , we wonder . We also note that all this scientific investigation is not to further scienctific knowledge in geography and geology but to further business and commercial interests . Science becomes mercenary . Instead of acting in the interests of humanity , it represents the pecuniary interests of nation states .

Who Owns the North Pole - Part 30

The Danish government is planning to officially announce that it is to lay claim to the North Pole, according to a draft Danish-Faroese-Greenland strategy. The draft says that “The Kingdom is expected to lay claim to the continental shelf in five areas around the Faroe Islands and Greenland, including the North Pole itself”.

Several ministers have previously suggested that Denmark could lay claim to the North Pole, but if the draft is adopted, it will be the first time that Denmark’s official policy is to claim the Pole and puts Denmark on a collision course with other Arctic claimants. Territorial claims over vast stretches of the energy-rich Arctic are serious business.

Conservationists aren’t pleased with the territorial ambitions, however, saying countries bordering the Arctic Ocean should focus on the region’s fragile environment and not its demarcation and development.“This is a land grab which is about getting access to resources,” said Mads Christensen, executive director for Greenpeace Nordic. “No one is advocating for a pathway where we look at it as a global good.”

Who owns the North Pole - Part 52

A Russian Orthodox bishop has lowered a "holy memorial capsule" into the sea at the North Pole in an attempt to "consecrate" the Arctic and reassert Moscow's claims to the territory.

The service was held by Bishop Iakov on the ice alongside the nuclear icebreaker Rossiya during a polar expedition titled "Arctic-2012", organised by the country's Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute.

The metal capsule carried the blessings of the church's leader, bearing the inscription: "With the blessing of Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia, the consecration of the North Pole marks 1150 years of Russian Statehood." Bishop Iakov, who is thought to be the first Russian priest to visit the pole, emphasised that the consecration symbolised efforts "to restore Russia's position and confirm its achievements in the Arctic".

 A conservative Moscow think-tank suggested in July that the Arctic Ocean should be renamed the "Russian Ocean" and this week it was announced that MiG-31 supersonic interceptor aircraft will be based in the region by the end of the year.

 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/9571743/Russia-consecrates-North-Pole-to-reassert-ownership.html

Who owns the North Pole Part 41- No-one says Greenpeace

Greenpeace director John Sauven he plans to save the North Pole from big oil by building a legal wall, an international prohibition, which will prevent the countries surrounding the Arctic from claiming the top of the world for themselves, in order to exploit the mineral riches which lie under its seabed.

The melting of the Arctic ice, as the global climate warms, is opening up the great frozen wilderness, the world's most untouched ecosystem; indeed, this week a new record minimum for the ice is likely to be reached, surpassing even the record low of September 2007, which was such a plunge downwards it astonished polar scientists. It means that climate change is having its most unmistakable effect so far on the fabric of the Earth. Yet it also means that gluttonous eyes are being cast on the Arctic for what it holds, not least its 160bn barrels of oil, both by the "supermajor" oil companies such as Shell and Exxon Mobil, and the countries by which the Arctic Ocean is surrounded – Canada, Russia, the US, Norway and Denmark (via Greenland). They are looking to extend their territorial waters and consequent sovereignty of the seabed out to 90 degrees North.

"And what we want do," says John Sauven, who is executive director of Greenpeace UK, "is say that this area, which is currently not national territory, this area of sea ice around the North Pole, should be a 'global commons', collectively owned by humanity under the auspices of the United Nations. It has huge symbolic importance as a pristine ecosystem. Yet the oil companies and the surrounding nations are saying, this might be at the ends of the earth, but we're just going to go in and carve it up. The Arctic sums up the complete and utter madness, the bankruptcy of their strategy. They will go to these extreme lengths to dig up the last bit of fossil fuels because they cannot be bothered to deal with energy efficiency and find alternatives, and they're prepared to suffer all the consequences, the impacts on wildlife and the fact that you can't do anything about them. It's insanity."

So now Greenpeace is planning a global campaign to make the North Pole off-limits. Internalionalised. No development. No oil drilling. No territorial claims.

"The Arctic is an iconic part of the global commons, rather like the Amazon for the rainforest," Mr Sauven says. "Is it just to be a grab by these huge corporations to extract the resources, which will have a calamitous impact on the world?"

Who owns the North Pole (Part 90)

The United Nations is currently assessing Russian, Danish and Canadian claims to own sizeable chunks of the Arctic seabed. One thing is clear. The Arctic is heating up in meteorological, political and environmental terms as nations fall over themselves to exploit the region.

“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. “…The Arctic nations are jostling for advantage, and the economic and ecological consequences of new trade routes opening up have yet to unfold. The changes that have occurred have been greater and faster than predicted….”

There are 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. 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.

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.

“Loss of sea ice has local to global effects, from animals and ecosystems to encouraging further warming by exposing ocean water,” said Twila Moon, at Bristol University. “We should all be shocked by the dramatic changes happening in the Arctic.”

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.

Of all the Arctic nations, Russia has been the most determined to exploit the region as it warms, however. “You can see that determination in the way it responded to the Arctic 30 incident,” said Duncan Depledge, Director, All-Party Parliamentary Group for Polar Regions Secretariat. In 2013, Greenpeace activists attempted to scale the Prirazlomnaya drilling platform as part of a protest against Arctic oil production. Russians arrested them at gunpoint and charged the activists initially with piracy and later with hooliganism and only released them after two months of detention. “That is an indication of how seriously they take the Arctic,” added Depledge. This point was backed by Dodds: “The Russians are hell bent on showing the world they mean business here.”

Could that determination lead to an outbreak of hostilities? Byers suggests not. “The Arctic is a very expensive region in which to operate and Russia is not a wealthy country. The cost of militarising the Arctic would be prohibitive. They might want to police it so that they can control outfits like Greenpeace but I don’t see them having a war with another Arctic nation.”

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.

“Arctic environmental protection is currently determined by individual nations, by politicians who often meet far from its borders: in Moscow, Copenhagen and Washington,” said Professor Michael Byers of the University of British Columbia. “They have very different levels of commitment to protecting the environment – with Russia at the bottom and the Nordic nations at the top.” Relations with indigenous people are one of the flashpoints that may trigger serious disputes in the region. Byers said. “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.” 

Who Owns the North Pole Part 72

Canada has launched a scientific mission to map the seabed surrounding the North Pole, aimed at claiming the area.

The Canadian government said in a statement issued on Friday that two ice-breakers will be sent to the Arctic waters to gather scientific information to support a plan to extend Canadian territory up to the North Pole.

“Our government is committing the resources necessary to ensure that Canada secures international recognition of the full extent of its continental shelf, including the North Pole,” said Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird.

The mission comes after Ottawa filed a UN application in December 2013, seeking to vastly expand its Atlantic sea boundary. If Canada’s claim over the territory is accepted by the UN body, its share of the potentially oil/gas-rich region would grow dramatically. The US Geological Survey estimated previously that the area could hold 13 percent of the world’s undiscovered oil and up to 30 percent of its hidden natural gas reserves.

Who Owns the North Pole Part 5

Apologies for those readers of Socialist Courier who have no interest in the "Battle" to own the North Pole but since our last post we once again note recent developments .

Russia is sending a mini-submarine to explore the ocean floor below the North Pole and find evidence to support its claims to Arctic territory. Two parliamentarians are part of a team . The expedition's "flagship", the Akademik Fyodorov, will follow the trail of the ice-breaking ship Rossiya as it travels from Murmansk to the North Pole.

Melting ice in the Arctic has raised hopes of accessing energy reserves. Russia's claim to a vast swathe of territory in the Arctic, thought to contain oil, gas and mineral reserves, has been challenged by other powers .

"The Arctic is ours and we should demonstrate our presence," Mr Chilingarov , veteran explorer and now politician , told Russian TV.

Who owns the North Pole - Human Flag-poles

Socialist Courier continues its North Pole saga by reporting moves highlighting the growing tensions among countries with Arctic borders as global warming makes rich mineral and energy deposits increasingly accessible and opens its ice-covered seas to shipping. Russia, Canada, the U.S., and Denmark all have claims before a U.N. commission to extend their undersea boundaries into ice-blocked areas

"Let me be clear, the number one priority of our northern strategy is the promotion and protection of Canadian sovereignty in the north," said Prime Minister Stephen Harper, calling it "non-negotiable."

Canada claims a large swath of the Arctic including the Northwest Passage, which could become an important shipping link between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans as climate change melts away the northern ice cap. It claims that the Northwest Passage is a domestic waterway.Russia continues to compete for the North Pole and the Northern Sea Route -- a passage that stretches from Asia to Europe across northern Russia.

Peter MacKay, Minister of National Defence, has wrapped up his participation in Operation NANOOK 10, the centrepiece of three major sovereignty operations conducted every year by the Canadian Forces (CF) in Canada's North explaining that "Exercising Canada's Arctic sovereignty is a key element of the Canada First Defence Strategy, and operations such as NANOOK enable the Canadian Forces and our whole-of-government partners to better deal with challenges in the North. Operation NANOOK 10 enhances the Canadian Forces' interoperability with other government departments and agencies and builds our collective capacity to respond, in a timely and effective manner, to safety and security threats or emergencies."

Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon told reporters Canada's claim to be an Arctic power is based on its having historically had people living in the Far North, as well as its more recent economic development, environmental efforts and military patrols.

Between 1953 and 1956, 87 Inuit members of 19 families were plucked from homes and familiar lives around Inukjuak, on the northeast shore of Hudson Bay, and plunked down 2,000 km farther north, in empty places now known as Resolute Bay and Grise Fiord. Behind some official nonsense spouted at the time in praise of hardy self-reliance lurked Ottawa's real motive: demonstrating Arctic sovereignty by populating the terrain.“The Government of Canada recognizes that these communities have contributed to a strong Canadian presence in the High Arctic,” Federal Indian Affairs Minister John Duncan said

These people were forced to move from a land where they lived off game such as caribou, and were dumped unceremoniously in an area without housing and any kind of food supply where there was so little food that some of them died, and where they had to make it through the winters in igloos and muskox-hide tents. The Inuit knew little of the land where they were resettled. They had to adapt to the constant darkness of the winter months and temperatures 20 degrees colder than the community they left. Nor were they aware that they would be separated into two communities once they arrived in the High Arctic

Duncan delivered an official apology. Those words were empty, as all such apologies are. Saying "we're sorry" on behalf of people now dead to people who are no longer around to hear, amounts to no more than sanctimonious and politically-correct cant. Nothing will undo the psychological trauma done to those people and the ripple effect it has had down the years through their descendants

Who owns the North Pole ?

An article about one of the lesser discussed effects of the global warming .

It could open the North Pole region to easy navigation for five months a year, according to the latest Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, an intergovernmental group. That could cut sailing time from Germany to Alaska by 60 percent, going through Russia's Arctic instead of the Panama Canal.

Or the Northwest Passage could open through the channels of Canada's Arctic islands and shorten the voyage from Europe to the Far East.

And provide easier routes to Arctic areas that the U.S.Geological Survey estimates holds as much as 25 percent of the world's undiscovered oil and gas and Russia reportedly claims its slice of the Arctic sector possesses a potential in minerals approaching $2 trillion.

And the geo-political effect - a scramble for sovereignty over these suddenly priceless seas.

" We all realize that because of global warming it will suddenly be an area that will become more accessible" said Peter Taksoe-Jensen, head of the Danish Foreign Ministry's legal department.

Norway and Russia have issues in the Barents Sea; the U.S. and Russia in Beaufort Sea; the U.S. and Canada over rights to the Northwest Passage; and even Alaska and Canada's Yukon province over their offshore boundary. Canada, Russia and Denmark are seeking to claim waters all the way up to the North Pole, saying the seabed is part of their continental shelf under the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Norway wants to extend its claims on the same basis, although not all the way to the pole.

Canada and Denmark have both staked their claim to Hans Island , half-square-mile of barren uninhabited rock, just one-seventh the size of New York's Central Park, wedged between Canada's Ellesmere Island and Danish-ruled Greenland , at the entrance to the Northwest Passage , with flags and warships.

Canada says the Northwest Passage is its territory, a claim the United States hotly disputes, insisting the waters are neutral. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has pledged to put military icebreakers in the frigid waters "to assert our sovereignty and take action to protect our territorial integrity."

Russia contests Norway's claims to fish-rich waters around the Arctic Svalbard Islands, and has even sent warships there to underscore its discontent with the Norwegian Coast Guard boarding Russian trawlers there. "Even though they say it is about fish, it is really about oil,"

In 2004, Russian President Vladimir Putin called the sovereignty issue "a serious, competitive battle" that "will unfold more and more fiercely."

Capitalism - cut-throat competition

Who owns the North Pole?

It has been a long time since the Socialist Courier blog last added to our once regular thread on the North Pole but the potential for conflict in that region has not disappeared.

As the ice melts and shipping lanes open up, geopolitical tensions are growing and old cold war bases are being reopened. The climate crisis is intensifying a new military buildup in the Arctic, diplomats and analysts said this week, as regional powers attempt to secure northern borders. The current tensions are a result of a world warmed by industrial emissions. The Arctic is heating up twice as fast as the rest of the planet, shrinking sea ice and exposing more water and territory to exploitation and access. By 2035, the Arctic is forecast to be free of ice during summer, which will allow ships to sail across the north pole. 

Tromsø, in Norway, was once a tiny trading post. Today, it’s a gateway to the mineral-rich north. 
“Now we have a historically strange situation with political and economic activity in the Arctic. So many people are knocking on our door, including business and state representatives from China, Pakistan, Singapore and Morocco,” the mayor, Kristin Røymo, told the Guardian. “There is also a very obvious increased naval presence.”

China, which has declared itself a “near-Arctic nation”, is among the countries exploring this area. Last year, it launched a second Snow Dragon ice breaker and released an Arctic white paper that explored the potential for infrastructure investments in a Polar Silk Road.

Russia is reopening and strengthening cold war bases on the Kola peninsula in the far north-west of the country. Norway is beefing up its military presence in the high Arctic. Last October, Nato staged Trident Juncture with 40,000 troops, its biggest military exercise in Norway in more than a decade. A month earlier Britain announced a new “Defence Arctic Strategy” and promised a 10-year deployment of 800 commandos to Norway and four RAF Typhoons to patrol Icelandic skies. The US is also sending hundreds more marines to the region on long-term rotations and has threatened to send naval vessels through Arctic shipping lanes for the first time.

“Right now, the reasons we are seeing more military activity is that countries are worried by the spectre of open water,” one of the speakers, Klaus Dodds, a professor of geopolitics at Royal Holloway, University of London, told the Guardian. “The unique Arctic security architecture has shape and form that come from natural extremities. If the Arctic becomes just another ocean, this breaks down. It’s elemental.”

According to Tore Furevik, a professor at the Geophysical Institute at the University of Bergen, “We’re heading for a new and uncertain Arctic with ramifications for nature and politics.” 

Norway's former defence minister Espen Barth Eide, compared the situation to the South China Sea, where China, the US and other nations compete, not by firing weapons, but by demonstrating capacity and presence. “To some extent that is happening now in the Arctic.”

The US navy secretary, Richard Spencer, complained last month,“The threat is back on. This is an area … we need to focus on,” he said. Spencer has called for a strategic Arctic port in Alaska and US naval vessels to conduct navigation operations later this year in northern shipping lanes so they have the capacity to conduct emergency operations if necessary. 

Lisa Murkowski, a US senator for Alaska, explained, “It’s important for the US to project military strength.”

Who Owns the North Pole - Part 80

Denmark challenges Russia and Canada over North Pole. Denmark has presented a claim to the UN, arguing that the area surrounding the North Pole is connected to the continental shelf of Greenland, a Danish autonomous territory. Foreign Minister Martin Lidegaard said it was a "historic and important milestone" for Denmark.

Lidegaard said data collected since 2002 backed Denmark's claim to an approximate area of 895,000 sq km (346,000 sq miles)- roughly 20 times the size of Denmark - beyond Greenland's nautical borders. Danish scientists were firm in their claim on Monday. "The Lomonosov ridge is the natural extension of the Greenland shelf," Christian Marcussen of the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland

Jon Rahbek-Clemmensen of Denmark's Syddansk University said the government in Copenhagen had staked its claim, partly to show the world that Denmark could not be pushed about, but also to prove a political point to the people of Greenland. "There's a strong push for independence in Greenland, and Denmark wants to show it's capable of taking its interest into account," he told the BBC. "By taking this step, Copenhagen is sending a signal to Greenland: 'Listen, we're on your team'."

In 2008, a US Geological Survey report estimated that as much as 22% of the world's undiscovered and recoverable resources lay north of the Arctic Circle - 90 billion barrels of undiscovered, technically recoverable oil, 1,670 trillion cubic feet of technically recoverable natural gas, and 44 billion barrels of technically recoverable natural gas liquids in 25 geologically defined areas thought to have potential for petroleum.

Who Owns the North Pole - Part 12

Committed to keeping our readers updated on the competition for the Arctic and North Pole regions that has become viable for economic exploitation due to global warming , Socialist Courier reads that a growing array of military leaders, Arctic experts and lawmakers say the United States is losing its ability to patrol Arctic waters . The Pentagon’s Pacific Command, Northern Command and Transportation Command strongly recommended in a letter that the Joint Chief of Staff endorse a push by the Coast Guard to increase the country’s ability to gain access to and control its Arctic waters. The letter from the three military commands to the Joint Chiefs last spring said reliable icebreakers were essential to controlling northern waters and to maintaining American research stations in Antarctica. But the Arctic was clearly the commands’ biggest concern, with the letter citing “climate change and increasing economic activity” as reasons for upgrading the icebreaker fleet.

Adm. Thad W. Allen, the commandant of the Coast Guard, who toured Alaska's Arctic shores two weeks ago with the homeland security secretary, Michael Chertoff, said that whatever mix of natural and human factors is causing the ice retreats, the Arctic is clearly opening to commerce — and potential conflict and hazards — like never before.

Meantime, a resurgent Russia has been busy expanding its fleet of large ocean-going icebreakers to around 14, launching a conventional icebreaker in May and last year, the world's largest icebreaker named 50 Years of Victory, the newest of its seven nuclear-powered, pole-hardy ships. At the same time, the Russians are developing the means to build offshore platforms that can move from field to field, can withstand the new ice conditions of the North and can condense gas on site to a liquefied state ready to be loaded on to carriers. Only the Russians are currently developing ways to ship both oil and gas from Arctic offshore platforms.
But surely the major North American companies must now be looking at the possibility of using a similar system. If they are built on the American side of the Arctic, Canada can expect the sovereignty crisis of 1969 and 1970 to be renewed. There have been no changes in either the American or Canadian position about the passage of tankers through the Northwest Passage. If the Americans develop a shipping capability and decide to send their vessels to the east, they would need to go through Canadian waters. They would probably not be any more willing to ask Canada's permission than they were in 1969.
On the other hand, if the extraction platforms are placed on the Canadian side — and the ice-capable tankers leave from Canadian locations — there will be no sovereignty problem, but Canada will still have a problem of control. Our ability to assert control in our northern waters is limited. Canada's Coast Guard's icebreaking fleet is small and aging; its navy has a very limited ability to go north. The current Canadian government has promised to build six to eight naval Arctic offshore patrol vessels and to replace the largest and oldest Coast Guard icebreakers.
"To be able to protect the Arctic archipelago properly, the waters have to be considered our internal waters. Nobody recognizes that. In order to enforce our position, we need tools to do that," said retired colonel Pierre Leblanc, former commander of the Canadian Forces' Northern Area.

There are already more than 400 oil and gas fields north of the Arctic Circle. Shell has quietly spent $2bn (£1bn) acquiring drilling leases off Alaska. ExxonMobil and BP have spent huge sums on exploration rights off Canada. The US government lifted a 17-year ban on offshore drilling to make the US less reliant on imports. The powers that border the Arctic – Canada, the United States, Russia, Norway and Denmark – have begun jostling for advantage. the United States Geological Survey – suggesting that the region contains about one-third of the world's undiscovered gas and about one-sixth of its undiscovered oil

Who Owns the North Pole - Part 68

Vladimir Putin vowed to step up Russia's military presence in the region in response to a claim by Canada to the north pole. The Russian president told his defence chiefs to concentrate on building up infrastructure and military units in the Arctic. He said the region was again key to Russia's national and strategic interests. Russia is returning to the Arctic and “intensifying the development of this promising region” so it needs to“have all the levers for the protection of its security and national interests,” Putin said at an expanded meeting of the Defense Ministry Board. Russia is reinstating its military base in the Novosibirsk Archipelago (New Siberian Islands), which had been abandoned by the military in 1993, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The islands “have key meaning for the control of the situation in the entire Arctic region,” Putin told the top military brass. This year, Russia has also started restoring its Arctic airfields including one called “Temp” on Kotelny Island near the city of Norilsk. It is also overhauling urban facilities in Tiksi, Naryan-Mar, and Anadyr. The country is set to continue the revival of other Russian northern airfields as well as docks on the New Siberian Islands and the Franz Josef Land archipelago, Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said. 

His comments were a response to Canada, a rival Arctic power. On Monday Canada's foreign minister, John Baird, said his government had asked scientists to work on a submission to the UN arguing that the outer limits of Canada's territory include the north pole, which has yet to be claimed by any country.  Baird said it would take several years for Canada to map the continental shelf and to complete its full UN submission. "We are determined to ensure that all Canadians benefit from the tremendous resources that are to be found in Canada's far north," he said.

Canada and Russia have been stepping up their military footprint in the oil- and gas-rich region. Putin has said Russia will restore Arctic bases that fell into disrepair after the collapse of the Soviet Union, including one on the New Siberian Islands. On Tuesday he said this base and others were crucial to protecting Russia's "security and national interests".

"It's often said that the Russians act with their Arctic policy in an aggressive, nationalistic and unilateral way. The same thing can be said about the Canadians," said Andrew Foxall, director of the Russian Studies Centre at the Henry Jackson Society. "Harper has said Canada is an Arctic nation. He frequently goes up into Canada's high Arctic. There are large-scale military exercises there."

Who owns the North Pole - Part 8

Continung our series of postings about the the competition to control the Artic and the North Pole ( last reported here ) , we can now declare that the North Pole belongs to the Russians - or so they have now claimed .

A Russian expedition has proved that a ridge of mountains below the Arctic Ocean is part of Russia's continental shelf . Russia's Natural Resources Ministry said early test results on the soil samples showed Russia is geologically linked to the Lomonosov Ridge.

"Results of an analysis of the Earth's crust show that the structure of the underwater Lomonosov mountain chain is similar to the world's other continental shelves, and the ridge is therefore part of Russia's land mass," a statement from the ministry said.

So now it is official , at least , for Russian interests .
Socialist Courier rather doubts that for Denmark , Norway , Canada and the USA , who all possess conflicting claims , will be seeing it Moscow's way .

Who owns the North Pole Part 57

The loss of sea ice in the Arctic will allow ships to navigate freely across the North Pole by the middle of the century and could lead to unprecedented geopolitical tensions between countries that have territorial claims in the region, scientists said. New routes will open up between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans which will allow shipping companies to abandon traditional courses through the Panama and Suez canals. Instead, they will be able to sail unhindered over the top of the world for much of the summer. “We're talking about a future in which open-water vessels will, at least during some years, be able to navigate unescorted through the Arctic , which at the moment is inconceivable,” said the study's co-author, Scott Stephenson of UCLA. “Nobody's ever talked about shipping over the top of the North Pole. This is an entirely unexpected possibility,”

However, long-standing tensions between the Arctic nations, even between traditional allies such as Canada and the US , will surface as nations vie for political and economic control of the new shipping lanes, said Laurance Smith, professor of geography at the University of California at Los Angeles,  co-author of the study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

http://www.countercurrents.org/cc050313A.htm

Who owns the North Pole - Part 36

Norway’s decision to move its military command centre 1,000km north from its former location last year highlights the rising strategic stakes in the Arctic amid predictions that global warming will unlock icebound resources and shipping routes.

“More than half of Norwegian waters are north of the Arctic Circle,” says Maj-Gen Rune Jakobsen, deputy chief of staff at the headquarters, gesturing at a map showing Norway’s maritime borders converging with those of Russia, Canada, the US and Greenland around the North Pole. “So it’s only natural that it gets a lot of our attention.”

Norway is not the only country turning its military’s attention to the frozen north. Russia’s defence ministry announced plans last week to create two army brigades to defend its polar territory, and Canada is sending more than 1,000 troops to the region in August for its biggest Arctic. After a quiet period at the end of the cold war, the Russian air force has become more active around Norway’s Arctic airspace. Norwegian officials claim Russia has even carried out mock bombing raids off the coast near Bodø.

The build-up is fuelling fears of conflict in a region estimated to hold up to a quarter of the world’s undiscovered oil and gas. Norway is counting on polar resources to prolong its oil boom as North Sea reserves decline. Statoil, the Norwegian state-controlled energy group, already has one Arctic project on-stream – the Snohvit gas field in the Barents Sea – and in April announced a big oil discovery 100km farther north. The country also stands to benefit from the opening of new shipping routes as polar ice recedes. Last summer, a mine in the far north of Norway delivered 41,000 tonnes of iron ore through Arctic waters to China, shaving 18 days off the time it would have taken via the Suez canal.

“If you put together resources, transport routes and people you have the mix you need for potential conflict,” says Jonas Gahr Støre, Norway’s foreign minister. “But it is up to the Arctic states to manage this responsibly and make sure that is not how it ends up.”

"If you want peace, prepare for war" is the age-old adage - Socialist Courier thinks that the idea of ensuring peace by military build-ups rather ominous and fool-hardy.

Who owns the North Pole part 78

There is a great deal at stake in the Arctic.

The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that the Arctic holds 13 percent of the world’s oil reserves and 30 percent of its natural gas. There are also significant coal and iron ore deposits. As the ice retreats, new fishing zones are opening up, and—most importantly—so are shipping routes that trim thousands of miles off voyages, saving enormous amounts of time and money. Expanding trade will stimulate shipbuilding, the opening of new ports, and economic growth, especially in East Asia.

NATO’s top military commander, Adm. James G. Stavridis of the United States Navy, warned in 2010 of an “icy slope toward a zone of competition, or worse, a zone of conflict” if the world’s leaders failed to ensure Arctic peace. Tensions in the region arise from two sources: squabbles among the border states (Norway, Russia, Canada, the United States, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, and Sweden) over who owns what, and efforts by non-polar countries (China, India, the European Union, and Japan) that want access.

The Russians lay claim to a vast section of the North Pole based on their interpretation of the 1982 Convention on the Law of the Sea, which allows countries to claim ownership if an area is part of a country’s continental shelf. Moscow argues that the huge Lomonosov Ridge, which divides the Arctic Ocean into two basins and runs under the Pole, originates in Russia. Canada and Denmark also claim the ridge as well.

One hundred and sixty-eight years ago this past July, two British warships—HMS Erebus and HMS Terror—sailed north into Baffin Bay, bound on a mission to navigate the fabled Northwest Passage between the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans. It would be the last that was seen of Sir John Franklin and his 128 crew members. Canada organized an expedition this past summer to find out what really happened to Franklin and his two ships. The search was a success—one of the ships was found in Victoria Straits—but the goal was political, not archaeological: Canada is using the find to lay claim to the Northwest Passage.

Denmark and Canada are meanwhile at loggerheads over Hans Island, located between Ellesmere Island and Danish-controlled Greenland. The occupation of the tiny rock by the Canadian military has generated a “Free Hans Island” campaign in Denmark.

Although it’s constrained by the fact that Washington has not signed the Law of the Seas Convention, the United States has locked horns with Canada over the Beaufort Sea.

The Pentagon released its first “Arctic Strategy” study last year. The U.S. maintains 27,000 military personnel in the region, not including regular patrols by nuclear submarines. The Russians and Canadians have ramped up their military presence in the region as well, and Norway has carried out yearly military exercises—“Arctic Cold Response”—involving up to 16,000 troops, many of them NATO units.

China may be a thousand miles from the nearest ice floe, but as the second largest economy in the world, it has no intention of being left out in the cold. This past summer the Chinese icebreaker Snow Dragon made the Northern Sea Passage run, and Beijing has elbowed its way into being a Permanent Observer on the Arctic Council. Formed in 1996, the council consists of the border states, plus the indigenous people that populate the vast frozen area. Japan and South Korea are also observers.

The Arctic may be cold, but the politics surrounding it are pretty hot. Aqqaluk Lynge, chair of the indigenous Inuit Circumpolar Council says, “We do not want a return to the Cold War.”

From here