Russia, Respecting The Rule of Law/Arctic Council Chairmanship 2021-2023

"A cross-cutting priority of the Russian Chairmanship in the Arctic Council will be "Responsible Governance for Sustainable Arctic" through promoting collective approaches to the sustainable development of the Arctic, environmentally, socially and economically balanced, enhancing synergy and cooperation and coordination with other regional structures, as well as implementation of the Council's Strategic Plan, while respecting the rule of law."

"The Russian Chairmanship will continue supporting the establishment of the Arctic Council as the leading format for international Arctic cooperation, improving its work, increasing the effectiveness of its Working and Expert groups, the Secretariat, as well as developing mechanisms for financing the Council's activities, including its projects and programs, implementing decisions and recommendations, as well as encouraging the dialogue and interaction with the Observers to provide their meaningful and balanced engagement in the Council’s activities. It intends to further intensify collaboration of the Arctic Council with the Arctic Economic Council, the Arctic Coast Guard Forum, the University of the Arctic. Among the priorities of the Russian Chairmanship – promoting international scientific cooperation, in particular, exploring the possibility to conduct an Arctic Council scientific expedition to the Arctic Ocean."

His Excellency Lavrov Sergey Viktorovich   Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation

Sea ice in the Arctic  Roscongress

"The hopes for cooperation with Russia in the Arctic continue to cool. Days after a U.S. diplomat stated that cooperation with Russia in the Arctic was now virtually impossible, the Kremlin published amendments to its Arctic policy. President Putin signed the decree earlier this week on 21 February 2023. "

"The updated document places greater emphasis on Russian national interests in the region and removes specific mentions for cooperation within the Arctic Council."

"While the original policy, published in March 2020, called for the “strengthening of good neighborly relations with the Arctic states” in the fields of economic, scientific, cultural and cross-border cooperation the amended version removes the above section and instead calls for the “development of relations with foreign states on a bilateral basis, […] taking into account the national interests of the Russian Federation in the Arctic”."

High North News

President Putin discusses expansion of Russia’s territorial claims with the permanent members of the Security Council. (Source: Kremlin)

 

The eight Arctic states that comprise the Arctic Council are Finland, Norway, Iceland, Sweden, Russia, Denmark, Canada and the United States. All these states in collaboration and agreement have produced binding agreements focused on preservation and environmental protection. The council represents a rare platform that gives a voice to the region's Indigenous peoples. Security interests are not part of the Council's agenda,

 

The Arctic Council for close on three decades has been an example of successful post-Cold War cooperation. Its members have seen common purpose in cooperating on climate-change research and social development in recognition that this is an ecologically sensitive region of the world and currently undergoing vast environmental transformation linked to Climate Change. 

 

All that has changed. Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine other council members were estranged from Russia as a rebuke of its imposition of war on its neighbour, and stopped working with their Russian counterpart. Norway now prepares to assume the Council chairmanship from Moscow, on May 11. Leaving experts to ask whether the viability of the polar body itself is at risk reflecting its inability to cooperate with the very country that controls over half of the Arctic coastline.

 

There could be dire future implications for the region's environment and its four million inhabitants who face the effects of melting sea ice and the interest of non-Arctic countries in the region's untapped mineral resources in the face of an ineffective Arctic Council. With the end of cooperation with Moscow a third of the council's 130 projects cannot move forward, new projects cannot proceed, existing projects cannot be renewed.

 

Arctic Council Meeting

No longer do Western and Russian scientists share climate-change findings. Cooperation for possible search-and-rescue missions or oil spills has come to an end. "I am worried that this will really hobble the ability of the Arctic Council to work through these various issues", stated US. Senator Angus King. Polar waters are opening to shipping as sea ice vanishes. The Arctic is known to be warming four times faster than the rest of the world.

 

Industries are eager to exploit the region's endowment of natural resources that include oil, gas and metals like gold, iron and rare earths. An effective response to changes and the vital issues that loom are less likely given discord between Russia and the other members of the Arctic Council. "Norway has a big challenge. That's how to rescue as much as possible of the Arctic Council's good work in the absence of Russia", pointed out John Holdren, co-director of the Harvard Kennedy School's Arctic initiative.

 

For its part, Russia points out that the work cannot continue without its cooperation. Nikolay Korchunov, Russian Arctic Ambassador,  said he was not confident it "will be able to remain the main platform on Arctic issues, given that the council has become weak". There is the possibility that Russia may decide that issues affecting the region must be addressed with Russian interests only in mind. Or that it may establish a separate Russia-centric rival council.

 

China warmly welcomes Putin’s state visit in 2018. After the conversation between Xi Jinping and Putin, China and Russia reached a consensus on deepening bilateral cooperation and signed a series of cooperation agreements. Photo: Presidential Press and Information Office

Russia has recently taken steps to expand cooperation in the Arctic with non-Arctic states; signing a memorandum for example with China, establishing cooperation between the two countries' coast guards in the Arctic. China's interests in the Arctic revolve around shipping and investing in ore extraction, particularly rare earth minerals. Russian Arctic Ambassador Korchunov pointed out Moscow's welcome of non-Arctic states in the region. With the proviso they not arrive with a military agenda.

 

And this is yet another area where Russia has distinguished itself, long before its invasion of Ukraine occurred. It has rebuilt or refurbished old Soviet military bases on its Arctic shorelines and islands that form part of Russian territory. It is Russia under Vladimir Putin that has militarized the Arctic, a condition it wants no other country to emulate.

 

The Future of Arctic Shipping Routes

"Inuit are an international people.We did not create the boundaries or borders that we live under."
"We have always travelled through the waters, travelled on the ice, following our food sources."
"[Inuit are aware of risks posed by increasing numbers of ships in Arctic waters, concerned they affect wildlife migration routes] It's our food insecurity or food sovereignty that's impacted."
"[Whatever the outcome, it's vital that Inuit take the lead] We are here, and we are not going anywhere."
Okalik Eegeesiak, former chair, Inuit Circumpolar Council, Iqaluit, Nunavut

 

"[The Arctic] isn't a shortcut, it's a place. Putting the right conservative and protection measures in is essential for us."
"There are other complications [beyond concerns over oil spills] given the remoteness: distance, the weather, the periods of 24-hour darkness, that regardless of how much ice is ever present are just simply never going to change." 
Dan Hubbell, Spokesperson, Ocean Conservancy

"[The decline of sea ice has made polar routes more attractive for shipping, but] even if these routes can shorten the time between major trading markets, the increased shipping traffic is a risk to the Arctic ecosystem."
Detlef Trefzger, CEO, Kuehne + Nagel International Ltd. (shipping)

"It's not that [shipping] should be a free-for-all cowboy Wild West, but there are different mechanisms that we should be focusing on."
"Canada should be a leader in the future of sustainable and green shipping that supports self-determination and self-determined and sustainable development."
Jackie Dawson, Canada Research Chair, Environment, Society and Policy, Scientific Director, ArcticNet

"[Southerners tend to see the Arctic as] one big homogeneous place [or a pristine environment where any development is bad, when in fact there are people who live there who understand the trade-offs."
"I think ... people in the south feel like they're entitled to and have a right, even a responsibility, to determine what kind of development can take place in the Arctic, and I think, ethically, probably they don't."
Heather Exner-Pirot, managing editor, Arctic Yearbook

Canada's North is seeing growing traffic on the newly-opened Arctic 'highway', with the increasing melt of sea ice providing opportunities for passage never historically seen. Research ships, government ice-breakers, private yachts too are now travelling north thanks to climate change, with once-impossible access opening up for greater periods of the year. For countries like the U.S. with its Arctic border and China, with its 'observer status' the long view is more convenient shipping; faster and less time-consuming and less costly than having ships pass through the Panama Canal.

The vision for the future is the complete transformation of potential transportation networks, as the North begins to assume a future of accessibility, losing its reputation of extreme remoteness. The total distance travelled by ships in the Arctic, according to one study, tripled between the years 1990 and 2015. The total distance logged in 2015 was slightly over 918,000 kilometres, roughly equivalent to the globe being circled 23 times, and that's impressive.

Eye on the Arctic

For the time being, travel remains unpredictable with areas icebound for much of the year. Despite which the renewed interest in the Arctic has initiated a debate relating to who should be travelling in the Arctic and for what purpose, as well as who would have the acknowledged and accepted authority to make those enquiries and reach workable decisions.

A small number of global companies reflecting retail giants like Gap and Puma made a pledge that they would not send their goods through the Arctic. Ocean Conservancy based in the U.S. linked with Nike in a launch of the Arctic Corporate Shipping Pledge to convince global companies to commit not to ship their goods through three Arctic routes, one of which is the Northwest Passage skirting the top of Northern Canada, once among the final frontiers of European exploration which a warming climate has made increasingly navigable.

The estimate is that a ship planning to skirt the Americas could one day save hundreds of nautical miles off the journey through the Northwest Passage, rather than the traditional route through the Panama Canal. The Conservancy's shipping emissions campaign manager speaks of the pledge focusing on larger vessels "ships that wouldn't necessarily even be stopping in ports along the way, but they would just be passing through", to have companies consider how their supply chain would affect the environment.

Most Arctic regions are void of the required infrastructure, personnel or equipment to cope with a spill of heavy fuel oil, as an example. Heavy fuel oil represents a marine fuel containing many pollutants. The shipping industry represents economic opportunity for Arctic Inuit communities, points out Ms.Eegeesiak who tend to support development given the opportunity to take part in decision making and to monitor their own waterways.

Okalik Eegeesiak Inuit commission on the future of the North  (Jane Sponagle/CBC)

Canada Research Chair Dr. Dawson whose ArcticNet studies climate change and modernization in the Canadian Arctic as part of a federal project to use local knowledge and improved mapping and navigational information to promote low-impact shipping corridors in the north, is fully in support of Mr. Eegeesiak's insistence that Arctic Inuit have a right to be involved, help make decisions and reap financial benefits that can accrue.

Inuit from Pond Inlet just off Baffin Bay in Nunavut have pointed out that the clam bed on the ocean floor outside their community is vital to them as a critical food source, so they require that boats not anchor there while the clams are in breeding season. When Greenpeace protested against drilling in the Alaskan offshore a few years back, a wish to protect the Arctic from potentially harmful development went mainstream.

Ms. Eegeesiak cannot look into the future and there is no certainty what the future of shipping in the Arctic will eventually turn out to be. She is adamant, however, that Arctic communities equipped with the resources to service ships and welcome them to their community and to take part in any economic benefits on offer would result in an agreeable conclusion for all concerned. Most of those communities lack docks to load and unload ships as yet, and would require federal assistance.

Drift ice camp in the Arctic Ocean seen from the deck of icebreaker Xue Long

Unfortunately, nowhere in this current discussion does the big unknown of China's plans for the Arctic come into play. China has invested in icebreakers and its Arctic fleet is superior to anything Canada has, to patrol and defend its Arctic sovereignty from unwanted intrusion. Russia has invested great sums in renovating its Arctic bases and construction of new Arctic vessels. Canada remains far behind in development of its fleet and its ports; an error of tardiness or disinterest.

Inuit hope to arrange restriction free travel across an international stretch of the Arctic ocean. (CBC)