Abstract
This paper addresses various political issues involving the Arctic area in recent years. The first part is focused on the economic and political opportunities in the Arctic and the consequences related to an increasing interest of World’s superpowers. The second part, instead, investigates the negative repercussions of the exploitation of this geographic area on the local people that are related to the environmental damages and to the increasing presence of foreign interests that put in danger the lifestyle of Arctic people. In the last part, future consequences on the Arctic people are emphasized.
A cura di
Marco Rizzi - Junior Researcher Mondo Internazionale G.E.O. Cultura e Società
Giulia Consonni - Junior Researcher Mondo Internazionale G.E.O. Cultura & Società
Nicholas Sartori - Senior Researcher Mondo Internazionale G.E.O. Cultura & Società
Introduction
The growing interest for the Arctic area shown by several States is an economic and geopolitical aspect that can change the world in the next few years.
The ice melting can open new commercial routes that can give faster commercial connections; but it is not only an economic and geopolitical matter. Indeed, due to climate change, today in the Arctic area the ice presence has decreased and several local populations are in danger. These populations find themselves between a rock and a hard place. On one hand Arctic people face climate change; on the other hand they must protect themselves from the interference of foreign or “local” States in their way of subsistence and living.
As explained below, the Arctic is not only a matter of Great Power Competition but also includes people that are striving for their survival. These facts are interconnected and can give a deeper understanding of what is happening in this area nowadays.
The opening of the routes and the competition for the Arctic
In recent years, climate change has become a major international issue, as its effects on the global environment are already evident. Glaciers have shrunk, ice is melting prematurely, habitats are changing. Scientists seem quite certain that global temperatures will continue to rise in the coming decades due, in large part, to greenhouse gasses produced by human activity. The report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) highlights some impacts that could be limited with a lower temperature increase. With a temperature increase of 1.5°C, sea level will continue to rise and is expected to be between 26 and 77 cm above the 1986-2005 baseline by 2100, about 10 cm below what would be expected for a 2°C warming. This would mean that up to 10 million fewer people would be exposed to associated impacts such as seawater intrusion, flooding and infrastructure damage in low-lying coastal areas and on small islands (Lee, 2014) . Exceeding the 1.5°C target established under the 2015 Paris Agreement risks destabilizing the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, which could result in a sea level rise of more than 1 meter for hundreds or thousands of years, endangering the life of the populations living at the high latitudes: melting Arctic ice is causing extreme weather that is affecting animal and plant life patterns and millions of people in North America, Europe and Asia (Overland et al. 2018).
As a consequence, the retreat of sea ice is opening up new shipping routes and access to natural resources that have previously been out of reach. It is reasonable to believe that there are vast amounts of undiscovered oil and gas, as well as rare earths, materials that are very difficult to find in their pure state and which are essential for the development of technologies and are therefore highly valued today. For now, most of these assets have been found in the territorial waters and exclusive economic zones of Arctic coastal nations. But, if current predictions come true, by 2050, the sea around the North Pole will be ice-free for several months of the year, which could create disputes over access to the area that could easily create diplomatic problems, driving geopolitical changes in the Arctic Ocean, increasing competition between states and perhaps even leading to conflict (Andrews et al. 2018; Melia et al. 2016). As the effects of climate change become more widespread and alarming, the UN has called on nations to step up plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. According to the latest available data, China and the United States together emit more than 40% of the world's CO2 Therefore, for any global effort to succeed in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, it is necessary to include significant contributions from both countries (Zhang et al. 2019).
The Arctic is then considered the main showcase for climate change, as the region is today the most striking illustration of the impact of climate change on international relations and on societies, and is becoming, through the potential of the Arctic Sea routes, an accelerator of globalization (Nikulin, 2019; Greaves, 2019). Furthermore, the Arctic is becoming a new geopolitical battleground for the world's superpowers, mainly because its control offers access to important mineral and fossil resources that have not yet been exploited (Nikulin, 2019; Zhang et al. 2019). In fact, the strategic dimension of the region is not new: already during the Cold War, the area was at the center of the game between Russia and the United States: the Arctic is the only region to link the three main world economic blocs of America, Europe, and Asia. Therefore, the Arctic is in many ways considered a laboratory for the challenges of the 21st century. While Sino-American rivalries continue in the South China Sea, another theater of confrontation, this time with a predominantly soft approach, has opened in the Arctic for several years (Greaves, 2019).
China has long been involved in Arctic affairs and has become an important player in the region in recent years. To some extent, the Arctic States and China pursue different themes in their Arctic discourses: in contrast to the Arctic States' focus on national sovereignty, China emphasizes that the Arctic is one of the global commons. China has never disputed the sovereign rights of Arctic States over their exclusive economic zones but emphasizes the global dimensions of Arctic-related issues to be not only regional, but also interregional issues related to climate change and shipping. China considers itself as a "near-Arctic" country located in the peripheral region, close to but outside the Arctic region (Brady, 2019). The Arctic region has a great influence on China's environment, and agricultural production, as well as economic and social development. China has recognised the region as a high priority, both from a resource extraction and security perspective. In the mid-2000s, it began investing in the region and taking steps to protect its interests. China has become a committed Arctic actor in a short period of time and, in 2004, established its first scientific research station on the Arctic Svalbard Island (Norway). In 2009, China established its Polar Research Institute and currently has another research station in northern Iceland. (Grieger, 2018).
The Arctic region of Greenland has become a focal point of Beijing's Arctic diplomacy. As the island's ice sheet and surrounding sea ice melt due to rising temperatures, Greenland's emerging economic potential is attracting the attention of many countries. China has implemented an economic diplomacy in Greenland that includes strengthening cooperation in the areas of fisheries, mining, and tourism, as well as entering the sectors of infrastructure planning and scientific cooperation. Chinese companies seek to invest in Greenland's emerging mineral wealth, increasingly accessible due to climate change, such as the extraction of rare earth elements, uranium, and zinc (Grieger, 2018; Brady, 2019). There is also growing demand in China for adventure and ecotourism in the Arctic, which is increasingly popular as an alternative destination, and Chinese companies are being considered for the expansion of three airports in Greenland that will handle the increase in tourist numbers. In addition, China has been singled out by Nuuk as one of many sources of foreign capital and investment, along with other non-European economies such as Canada. All in alGreenland is a crucial test for China's Arctic policy as it deepens its relations amid intense international attention questioning how the great power can connect to the High North from spaces far from its territory (Brady, 2019; Jacobson, 2010) .
China's footprint is also seen in the provision of funding and technology in Russian ventures in the Arctic that prioritize the exploitation of mineral and energy resources. For China, these initiatives bring strategic value to exploratory investment in Arctic companies and diversification of its energy imports. It is also involved in the development of the Northern Sea Route, a multitude of passages along the Russian Arctic seen as a future sea passage connecting northern European and Russian resource development projects with Asian markets (Lim, 2018; Brady, 2019). Iceland is another target for China's Arctic policy. Since the collapse of the Icelandic economy in 2008, China has injected substantial capital investment into the country, with the anticipation that Iceland will be a key logistics hub for future Arctic activity. The dynamics of these new relationships are simple: Arctic development requires large amounts of capital, and China is in a leading position to facilitate this investment and subsequently dictate the pace and nature of development in the region. Chinese investment also extends to Canada where it has similarly focused on resource development, including mining, oil and gas, as well as opening new shipping routes in the Arctic, especially the Northwest Passage (Pelaudeix, 2018; Lim, 2018). On the other hand, China has expanded its One Belt, One Road initiative with a project called the Polar Silk Road that includes investments in ports, railways, undersea cables and energy exploration in several Arctic nations. For Asian exporters the route offers a much faster and therefore cheaper passage to Western markets and allows them to avoid piracy around the Horn of Africa and congestion in the Strait of Malacca (Lim, 2018; Melia et al. 2016).
Overall, it appears that China's Arctic strategy projects a positive outlook for international cooperation and development in the Arctic, while mitigating Arctic states' own fears that China's political activities will lead to an unmanaged, chaotic and environmentally degrading race to develop the region. Beijing's strategy effectively rests on three central pillars, each building on and reinforcing the other: respect, cooperation and win-win scenarios.
About the other Eastern superpower interested in the Arctic, Russia, ever since the collapse of the USSR, Moscow's first ambition has always been to regain the title of great power and to re-join the select group of states capable of writing the rules of the global system. Russia has over 24,000 kilometers of coastline beyond the Arctic Circle and its coasts cover the Barents, Kara, Laptev and East Siberian Seas. Moreover, there are more than 2 million Russians living in the Arctic areas and precisely because of these factors, Moscow intends to play a leading role in the Northern region (Konyshev et al. 2018). A primary objective, like for China, is certainly to secure as much access to natural resources as possible; in this regard, Moscow has recently claimed sovereignty over new waters and lands, notably by declaring the Lomonosov and Mendeleev ridges to be its natural submarine continuations. On the military side, in 2015 Russia entrusted two Arctic Brigades with the tasks of protecting the Arctic coastline, areas and infrastructure of the Arctic zone of the Russian Federation (AZRF) (Konyshev et al. 2014; Closson, 2017). However, the largest investment has been made in the Northern Fleet by creating and designing ultra-modern icebreakers capable of moving even in the most extreme and difficult-to-access areas (Greaves, 2019; Nikulin, 2019).
On the other side, concerning the United States action, since the end of the Second World War and particularly after the conclusion of the Cold War, Washington's strategy has always been to prevent the emergence of a new regional hegemony capable of contending for the primacy of first global power (Nikulin, 2019). The Arctic in this sense is not exempt from this vision. At the moment, the Americans, albeit unwillingly, are forced to keep a watchful eye on the geopolitical changes in the area: Alaska overlooks the Arctic Ocean and is therefore susceptible to possible foreign attacks. Moreover, the United States do not currently possess the comparative advantage in terms of icebreakers and other instruments in the region - unlike Russia - and seem willing to stall on possible large infrastructure investments. In the knowledge, however, that it bears the responsibility of being the world's leading power on its shoulders, it is strengthening its national security strategies (Lundestad et al. 2015). On the northern front, a deep-water port near the Bering Strait has been set up, F-35s and surveillance aircraft have been deployed at Adak Island in the Aleutians. Moreover, the contingent of marines in Norway was doubled and in an anti-Chinese function, and the American investments in Greenland are planned to increase both in civil and military infrastructure (Lackenbauer, 2020).
In the next paragraph, we will explore how the above mentioned environmental and geopolitical situation affects local populations and society.
The Human factor in the Arctic
The first presence of inhabitants in the Arctic region dates back to the Paleolithic. During the Ice Age, these men colonized both the Eurasian and North American Arctic areas. So, it is possible to affirm that the presence of native people there is ancestral.
Several different ethnic groups live in the Arctic region such as: Sami, Inuit, etc. and the first contact with the Europeans can be found back in the Middle Age. In the XVI century, a stronger presence of the European kingdoms was recorded in the Arctic area. Over the centuries the situation has changed a lot, especially during the XX century and with the introduction of some processes in the Arctic area such as: industrialization, implantation of military bases, immigration of “not arctic people”, etc. These phenomena continue to change - in a negative way - the lifestyle of the Arctic people such as Sami and Inuit. For example, nowadays, the demographic change occurring in the Arctic continues to affect Inuit life. Two main driving forces of demographic alteration can be found. First, political and economic policies, together with an ongoing exploration of the Arctic, strongly impact on the typical lifestyle of the indigenous. Second, climate change and environmental variation pose serious risks and have far-reaching implications on Inuit health (Encyclopedia Britannica, 2022).
Since the first arrival of Europeans on its land, the Arctic has been uninterruptedly subject to waves of colonialism and exploration. Generally speaking, these have introduced concepts alien to traditional Inuit life. For example, multilateral agreements carry with them the creation of formal borders that divide a territory considered a singular homeland by the Inuit population. Their freedom of movement, connected to hunting and fishing as well as performing cultural and traditional activities, represents an inherent feature of the Inuit lifestyle, not used to being subjected to boundaries created by external political jurisdictions. (Tsiouvalas and Enyew, 2023)
With regard to commercial extractions, these demand control over space and determine a definition of property rights over land and underground that belong to a typical traditional capitalistic way of thinking. The latter entails a remodeling of the relationship between humanity and nature: the capitalist mode of production includes an instrumental understanding of these non-human elements of the environment developed through ideas of value and valorization (Demuth, 2019). Again, this conception does not belong to the Inuit populations who understand themselves as a part of nature and a ‘steward of the non-human nature and of their homelands and home environments’. (Shadian, 2014)
Different actors perform policies based on different features, be the policy representing a multilateral agreement or a single-State plan. What they do have in common is their theoretical basis on ‘empty Arctic narratives’: from the point of view of the nation-State, subnational and non-national as well as non-state political organizations are invisible, non-existing. Indeed, the colonization of Westphalian States, like the US, Canada and Russia for instance, marked several dimensions of Inuit life, bringing about attempts at cultural assimilation and disarticulation of their social organization. In particular, economic development projects not only enable resource exploitation but provoke the displacement of Inuit indigenous populations inhabiting the territories where resource-based economic activity is meant to happen (Silva, 2022). Arctic security policies are grounded on colonial hierarchies and power relations putting the Western necessities and conceptualizations of security as primary. Consequently, they often ignore the indigenous’ human needs and the magnitude of climate change as an existential threat, and do not acknowledge food and societal insecurities. For example, the US and Canadian Arctic security policies prioritize economic national interests over the necessities of people, putting the Arctic populations at harm. The belief that Indigenous would benefit from the help of Western society and Western economic ideas is based on the assumption that these are more important than the needs of Indigenous youth to grow up with their culture and that indigenous should assimilate into Western culture (Gricius, 2022).
Resistance to environmental destruction, the dehumanization of nature and the trials to cancel the Inuit culture takes place not only through manifestations in the Western world organized by Extinction Rebellion and similar organizations but also, of course, through local protests of the Inuit population. For instance, in the Mary River iron ore mine, where the Baffinland Iron Mines Corporation aims at doubling the amount of ore produced and building a new railway, protestors blocked the mine’s operations. They call themselves Nuluujaat Land Guardians and denounce that the expansion will irreversibly harm their lands and access to food as future generations may not be able to fish in clean waters or hunt on undisturbed land (Bennett, 2021).
It is important to highlight that Arctic social and environmental changes may be interconnected. Socioeconomic forces hit the Arctic societies in a way that produces problems and alterations overlapping with or eclipsing those created by environmental roots (Hamilton et al, 2018). Whereas past security strategies from national governments have rarely paid attention to the threat posed by climate change, contemporary policies start to acknowledge its role as an existential threat in the Arctic, even though they rarely recognize the impact that colonialism itself has in exacerbating environmental alteration and climate change (Gricius, 2022). For the arctic inhabitants, social and economic changes are not the only danger to their way of being and living. In fact, climate change is a very dangerous enemy for those populations. For example, the Inuits of the Canadian Arctic, are suffering from the melting of the multiyear ice. Their skills have evolved through time and now, they have to adapt in this new situation. Hunting, migrating and maintaining the traditional way of living is becoming harder due to the ice melting because environmental skills and culture are strictly connected.
The consequences of the environmental adaptation caused by climate change are forcing Inuits and other Arctic people to abandon their millennial traditions in favor of a new way of living. Consequently, Inuits have to make some hard efforts to keep their culture alive (Acacia Johnson, 2019).
Conclusions
In summary, due to concerns about climate change and its effects globally, stronger protective measures are being sought to slow it down and prevent the acceleration of the Arctic's destruction. However, there are plans to exploit new opportunities in shipping, mining, or drilling in the Arctic if the ice melting continues apace. The contrast between the two plans is stark, restricting further climate change or exploiting the benefits as they occur. Further exploitation of the region will inevitably reinforce the Arctic paradox, which captures the idea that the extraction of hydrocarbons and other natural resources in the region, and one of its consequences, the release of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere, will generate a vicious cycle that will increase temperatures and accelerate climate change, facilitate access to more oil and gas resources, which in turn will exacerbate the harmful regional and global effects of climate change, which will have as most straightforward victims, the local populations. The Arctic has so far remained quite safe from human industrial activity due to its long history of isolation from harsh climatic conditions and can therefore be considered one of the least polluted areas on the planet. However, due to rising temperatures and the steady disappearance of polar ice, human activity is increasingly intervening in ways that will leave its mark on this fragile ecosystem. All this endangers the already fragile environment of all the local populations that are paying the highest price of the big powers’ competition for the natural resources extraction, and shipping in the area. Furthermore, in the next future, the Arctic populations will probably see an increasing presence of foreign interests in their homeland. This process could be supported by the recent energy crisis that slowed the transition to “greener” energy resources and the opportunities for a faster and bigger commercial exchange. In conclusion, if today Arctic people are struggling to survive culturally, economically and socially in their homeland, the situation is likely to get worse in the next few years due to the dynamics explained above. The hypothesis of a disappearance or a great cultural loss in this area must be taken into account.
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