the scramble for the arctic
Donald Trump has spent much of his life in real estate and it transpires that, at 2.2 million sq km and being a whole 25% bigger than Alaska, he has good reason for wanting to buy Greenland.
Since 1979, the Arctic has lost more than 40% of its sea ice and it is estimated that its ocean will be ice-free by 2050, and possibly, due to the ‘ice-albedo feedback’, long before that. The white surface of ice reflects up to 80% of incoming sunlight but, when it melts, the much darker surface absorbs the heat from the sunlight, leading to further compounded warming and loss of ice. A truly vicious circle and this effect is thought to explain why the region is warming twice as fast as the world as a whole.
While environmentalists regard this as a terrible pre-cursor of what is to come, several governments, including that of the president-elect, see it as a golden opportunity. The country boasts 13% of the world’s undiscovered oil, 30% of its undiscovered gas, an abundance of uranium, rare earth minerals, gold, diamonds and countless untapped resources. Furthermore, from a geopolitical standpoint, reductions in sea ice are opening new all-year-round shipping lanes which are likely to be as impactful as the Suez and Panama Canals. The old seafarer’s whimsical dream of a route between the North Atlantic and the Pacific is a reality.
By claiming that Greenland is an extension of the Lomonosov Ridge, the country is technically owned by Denmark but this is now viewed somewhat sceptically by those wanting a slice and who owns exactly what is unclear. Under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, coastal states can claim an exclusive economic zone extending out 200 miles. However, states can also extend their territorial rights if their continental shelf extends farther than these 200 miles into the sea and this extension obvs includes all the major players, Canada, the US, Russia, Norway and Denmark. As a sign of intent, a Russian mini-sub planted a national flag on the seabed at the North Pole and, to further muddy the waters, China has unsurprisingly dubbed itself a ‘near-Arctic state’.
The US has a long history of buying territory: Louisiana from France for $15m, Alaska from Russia for just $7.2m and the Danish West Indies from Denmark herself for $25m but it has already rejected one US attempt to buy Greenland by President Truman for $100m in 1946. It’s now unthinkable that Denmark would sell the island and its 57,000 mainly native Inuit population for any amount.
Tensions could potentially be alleviated a little if something akin to the 1959 Antarctic treaty were agreed and signed. This declared Antarctica an international zone, banned military activity, and set it aside as a preserve for scientific research. Realistically, however, it appears that in the Arctic too much is at stake, in terms of resources and strategic advantage, for such a multi-national approach to be possible. With his second term about to begin expect more ownership pronouncements and anticipate the volatility of the region to increase in direct proportion to the amount of ice lost.
