一場新的冷戰正在使北極升溫

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A new Cold War is heating up the Arctic

21ST OCTOBER 2022

BY: BLOOMBERG

The North Pole is melting faster than ever, but the chill in the air at this year’s global gathering of Arctic experts had more to do with the widening repercussions of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The planetary consequences of that war have, by now, reached far beyond the disruption of climate efforts in Europe, where gas shortages have prompted governments to recommission coal plants. The conflict has also intensified a race among great powers for ascendancy in the Arctic, adding to pressure on a fragile system that’s critical to mitigating global warming.

Not since the Cold War has there been such focus on the frigid expanse that caps the Earth. More than half the Arctic coastline belongs to Russia, which is increasingly isolated from its northern neighbors. That’s turned the region into a growing security concern for the US, which has a foothold through Alaska.

As a result, this year’s Arctic Circle Assembly at times took on the air of a geopolitical summit rather than a gathering of climate and development experts.

While Russia was noticeably absent from the event held last week in Reykjavik’s iconic glass-scaled Harpa Concert Hall, an unprecedented 2 000 attendees spilled into corridors and wedged themselves into doorways. Military uniforms popped out among the dark suits of politicians, executives and scientists. And the conference drew a record number of US officials armed with the first update to America’s Arctic strategy in a decade.

War in Europe has already derailed other efforts at regional cooperation. Meetings of the Arctic Council, an intergovernmental forum promoting cooperation on biodiversity, climate and pollution, have been suspended since the war began in February.

While climate remains a pillar of US policy, Derek Chollet, Counselor at the US State Department, told me — security takes precedence. Of greatest concern to the US would be any move by Russia to restrict freedom of navigation, build military forces or test certain high-tech weapons in the Arctic, but it is also worried about China’s growing interest in the region.

“As we've seen elsewhere where China has chosen to be a regional player, that's often in a zero-sum way," Chollet said. “I don't think it's in any of our interests to see the Arctic become another example of this.”

Russia set up a Northern Command in 2014, opening multiple new and former Soviet military sites in the Arctic. It’s also developing new nuclear submarines for Arctic operations, including Arcturus, which can deploy underwater drones and hypersonic missiles. The shortest route to North America from Russia is still over the top of our planet and the new missiles will require near-instantaneous reaction time, military experts say.

The US hasn’t been idle either. It’s working with Arctic ally Canada to revitalise a Cold War era joint aerospace defense command. And once Sweden and Finland’s accession to NATO is complete — prompted by the invasion of Ukraine — Russia will be the only Arctic state outside that key defense alliance, also forged during the Cold War as a bulwark against Soviet expansion in Europe. All that adds to an overwhelming sense that the world is returning to an era of great powers competing for resources and security, rather than collaborating over climate.

“Unfortunately,” Canada’s Governor General Mary Simon told conference attendees, the war in Ukraine has “impacted global cooperation, halting a number of collaborative projects in the Arctic.”

If geopolitics is sidelining efforts to slow the melt, climate change is simultaneously undermining what, until recently, was the Arctic’s best defense: its inaccessibility. The region’s ice reflects the sun’s heat and its permafrost acts as a huge carbon vault, helping to cool the planet — but how do you protect an Arctic that's being cracked open as it thaws?

The North Pole’s lost about 40% of its ice since the 1980s and is now warming roughly four times as fast as the rest of the world. That’s opening it up to marine traffic and economic development which, in turn, is expected to amplify the effects of global warming.

Temperatures over the central Arctic Ocean this summer were 1 to 4 degrees Celsius higher than the 20 year average up to 2020, according to the Colorado-based National Snow & Ice Data Center.

Mark Serreze, the organization’s director, said it was the first time he can remember that both the major routes through Canada's Northwest Passage and Russia’s Northern Sea Route were “essentially ice free” all summer. For years, Russia has benefitted from the Northern Sea Route, a key section of the Northeast Passage that connects the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans across the Arctic. Stretching through Russia’s Exclusive Economic Zone, the route is frequently ice-free in summer and Russian ice-breakers can make it accessible in winter to friendly nations. A voyage from Japan to Europe can take just 10 days through this Arctic Circle route – compared to more than 20 via the Suez Canal and more than 30 to sail around the Cape of Good Hope.

The route’s competitor, the fabled Northwest Passage, took Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen three years to navigate at the turn of the 20th century. That was long before it became ice-free for the first time in the summer of 2007, but it still remains trickier to traverse. With US-led sanctions against Russia triggering a collapse in international transit along the Northern Sea Route this year, however, the Northwest Passage could become more attractive to shipping, especially as temperatures rise.

The third option is, so far, hypothetical. Should the North Pole ever melt entirely — and all indications are that it will, probably before mid-century — the Trans Arctic shipping route would allow ships to travel straight over the top, through international waters, avoiding sticky interactions along anybody’s coast. A decade or more before that, it could become ice-free in summer.

But there would be severe tradeoffs in a world with a watery Arctic. The disappearance of the Greenland ice sheet, the world’s second-largest body of ice, would cause sea levels to rise 6 meters, threatening islands and coastlines thousands of miles away. Swathes of the Middle East, Africa and Asia would become too hot to live in. And whatever financial gains are made could be erased by more extreme storms, floods, fires and droughts around the world.

So far, that dire prospect is not putting anyone off. China, which has no Arctic coastline, is already betting on the end of ice. Its Belt and Road Initiative includes plans for a Polar Silk Road connecting East Asia, Western Europe and North America. The emergence of a trans-Arctic shipping route is key to that strategy and would create an alternative to its maritime route through the South China Sea, Strait of Malacca and Suez Canal. It's working on the world's biggest ice-breaker to support that ambition.

Opening up the Arctic would also ease access to planet-warming fossil fuels. About 90-billion barrels of oil and 1 670-trillion cubic feet of gas lie inside the Arctic Circle, according to the United States Geological Survey, along with metals and minerals needed for electrification.

Under the Law of the Sea, most Arctic nations have claims to some of its resources, but whether to restrict planet-harming development is up to individual governments. Greenland last year banned new licenses for oil and gas drilling and Iceland plans to prohibit exploration, while oil majors, wary of the reputational damage associated with drilling pristine wilderness, have signaled they’ll stay away. Scandinavian nations are hoping to harness the region’s wind and hydro power. In contrast, Russia — already by far the largest Arctic energy producer — is looking to expand oil and gas production.

“Geopolitics in the Arctic is changing,” Alar Karis, president of Estonia, which has applied for observer status on the since shuttered Arctic Council, told the conference. “Therefore, we must not only think of climate and the environment when we talk about the region, but also diplomacy and deterrence.”

Translation

北極的融化速度比以往任何時候都快，但在今年全球北極專家聚會上帶寒意的氣氛與俄羅斯入侵烏克蘭的影響的擴大有關。

到目前為止，這場戰爭的全球後果已經遠遠超出破壞了歐洲對氣候的努力，那裡的天然氣短缺促使各國政府重新啟用燃煤電廠。這場衝突還加劇了大國之間爭奪北極地區優勢的競爭，增加了對緩解全球變暖至關重要的脆弱系統的壓力。

自冷戰以來，人們從未如此關注覆蓋地球的寒冷大片開廣闊空間。北極海岸線的一半以上屬於俄羅斯，俄羅斯與北方鄰國越來越孤立。這使該地區成為美國日益嚴重的安全問題，美國在阿拉斯加擁有立足點。

因此，今年的北極圈大會有時更像是一場地緣政治峰會，而不是氣候與發展專家的聚會。

雖然俄羅斯明顯缺席了上週在雷克雅未克標誌性的玻璃玻璃鱗片的哈帕音樂廳舉行的活動，但前所未有的 2,000 名與會者插身走於廊並擠進了門口。穿軍裝人仕出現在政治家、高管和科學家的深色西裝中。這次會議吸引了創紀錄數量的美國官員，他們在十年內首次更新了美國的北極戰略。

歐洲的戰爭已經破壞了區域合作的努力。自 2 月戰爭開始以來，促進生物多樣性、氣候和污染合作的政府間論壇 Arctic Council 的會議已暫停。

雖然氣候仍然是美國政策的支柱，但美國國務院參贊 Derek Chollet 告訴我 - 安全優先。美國最擔心的是俄羅斯限制航行自由、在北極建設軍隊或測試某些高科技武器的任何舉動，但他也擔心中國對該地區日益增長的興趣。

Chollet說: “正如我們在其他地方看到的那樣，中國選擇成為區域競爭者，這通常是零和方式”; “我不認為見到北極成為另一個例子是會符合我們的任何利益。”

俄羅斯於 2014 年成立了北方司令部，在北極開設了多個新的和前蘇聯軍事基地。它還在為北極行動開發新的核潛艇，包括可以部署水下無人機和高超音速導彈的 Arcturus。軍事專家說，從俄羅斯到北美的最短路線仍然在我們星球的頂端，新導彈將需要近乎即時的反應時間。

美國也沒有閒著。它正在與北極盟友加拿大合作，以振興冷戰時期的聯合航空航天防禦司令部。一旦瑞典和芬蘭完成加入北約 - 在烏克蘭入侵的推動下 - 俄羅斯將成為該關鍵防禦聯盟之外的唯一北極國家，該聯盟也是在冷戰期間作為抵禦蘇聯在歐洲擴張的堡壘而建立的。所有這一切都增加了一種壓倒性的感覺，即世界正在回到大國爭奪資源和安全的時代，而不是在氣候問題上進行合作。

“不幸的是，” 加拿大總督 Mary Simon 告訴與會者，烏克蘭戰爭 “影響了全球合作，導致北極的一些合作項目停止。”

如果地緣政治正在邊緣化減緩融化的努力，那麼氣候變化同時也在破壞直到最近北極最好的防禦：它的不可接近性。該地區的冰層反射著太陽的熱量，其永久凍土層就像一個巨大的碳庫，有助於為地球降溫 - 但是你如何去保護正在解凍時裂開的北極呢？

自 1980 年代以來，北極失去了約 40% 的冰，現在變暖的速度大約是世界其他地區的四倍。這為海上交通和經濟發展打開了大門，而這反過來又會放大全球變暖的影響。

根據總部位於科羅拉多州的國家冰雪數據中心的數據，今年夏天北冰洋中部的氣溫比截至 2020 年的 20 年平均溫度高出攝氏 1 度到 4 度。

該組織的負責人 Mark Serreze 表示，這是他第一次記得通過加拿大西北航道和俄羅斯北海航道的主要航線整個夏天都是“基本上無冰”。多年來，俄羅斯一直受益於北海航道，這是連接太平洋和大西洋橫跨北極的東北航道的關鍵部分。這條路線穿過俄羅斯的專屬經濟區，夏季經常不結冰，俄羅斯的破冰船可以讓友好國家在冬季進入。通過這條北極圈航線，從日本到歐洲的航程僅需 10 天 - 相比之下，通過蘇伊士運河需要 20 多天，而繞過好望角則需要 30 多天。

這條路線的競爭對手，傳說中的西北航道，在20世纪初挪威探險家 Roald Amundsen 用了三年時間航行。在那很久之後的一次是在一個無冰的2007 年夏天，但它仍然是較難穿越。然而，隨著美國主導的對俄羅斯的製裁今年引發了北海航線沿線國際運輸的崩潰，西北航道可能對航運更具吸引力，尤其是在氣溫上升的情況下。

到目前為止，第三種選擇是假設性的。如果北極完全融化 - 所有跡像都表明它可能會在本世紀中葉之前融化 - 跨北極航線將允許船隻直接越過北極，穿過國際水域，避免与任何海岸國家的不願意互動。在此之前的十年或更長時間，它可能在夏天變得不結冰。

但在一個水汪汪的北極世界中，將會有嚴重的權衡取捨。世界第二大冰體格陵蘭冰蓋的消失將導致海平面上升 6 米，威脅到數千英里外的島嶼和海岸線。中東、非洲和亞洲的大片地區將變得太熱而無法居住。無論取得什麼經濟收益，都可能被世界各地更極端的風暴、洪水、火災和乾旱所抵消。

到目前為止，這種可怕的前景並沒有讓任何人望而卻步。沒有北極海岸線的中國已經押注於冰層的終結。其 “一帶一路” 倡議包括連接東亞、西歐和北美的極地絲綢之路計劃。跨北極航線的出現是該戰略的關鍵，並將為其通過南中國海、馬六甲海峽和蘇伊士運河的海上航線開闢一條替代路線。它正在建造世界上最大的破冰船來支持這一雄心壯志。

開放北極也將有助於獲得使地球變暖的化石燃料。根據美國地質調查局的數據，北極圈內約有 900 億桶石油和 1670 萬億立方英尺的天然氣，以及電氣化所需的金屬和礦物。

根據海洋法，大多數北極國家都對其部分資源擁有主權，但是否限制對地球有害的發展是取決於各國政府。格陵蘭島去年禁止了石油和天然氣鑽探的新許可證，冰島計劃禁止勘探，而石油巨頭擔心與鑽探未受破壞的原始荒野相關的聲譽損害，已表示他們將遠離。北歐半島國家希望利用該地區的風能和水力發電。相比之下，俄羅斯 - 已經是迄今為止最大的北極能源生產國 - 正在尋求擴大石油和天然氣生產。

愛沙尼亞總統 Alar Karis 在該已關閉的北極理事會申請觀察員地位，告訴議會說: “北極的地緣政治正在發生變化”; “因此，我們在談論該地區時不僅要考慮氣候和環境，還要考慮外交和妨礙物。”

              So, this year’s Arctic Circle Assembly may look like a geopolitical summit rather than a meeting on climate and Arctic development. As the geopolitics in the Arctic is changing, discussion may involve diplomacy and politics on top of climate and the environment.  China, which has no Arctic coastline, is already betting on the end of ice. Its Belt and Road Initiative includes plans for a Polar Silk Road connecting East Asia, Western Europe and North America. Meanwhile Russia is looking to expand its oil and gas production as the region is becoming more accessible.