Watching Government: Climate change in the Arctic

Climate change is making North American Arctic waters more accessible than many people realize, two speakers agreed at a Dec. 5 Johns Hopkins University School for Advanced International Studies (SAIS) discussion. Transits through the Northwest Passage above Canada, where ice that has melted previously has been a barrier, could have unanticipated consequences, they added.

More commercial ships will move in and out of the Arctic, where transits have been busiest along Russia's coast, said Charles F. Doran, who directs SAIS's Canadian Studies Center. There are at least 40 potential locations for major oil, gas, and mining activities in the Far North, he said. "It's enough potential two non-Arctic countries-China and Germany-are building ice-breakers."

There's also no escaping that conditions there are hostile to oil and gas activity, Doran said. "My view is that access will play a big role, and that once there's a commercial deepwater discovery, there will be a gold rush, even though it wouldn't be developed immediately, because resources could be so substantial," he said. "The incentives are even stronger on the Russian side."

Doran said he expects Arctic policies to be influenced by global warming concerns. "In the next several decades, enough of the polar ice cap will melt that coastal waters will rise," he said. "Storms which might have been normal will include surges that affect US coastal cities from New York to Houston more than Alaska."

Identity, opportunity, and equalization are the three main issues for North American Arctic communities, according to Adrienne Davidson, a Fulbright visit scholar at SAIS's Canadian Studies Center.

When the Crystal Serenity became the first cruise ship to traverse the Northwest Pass this past summer, many thought it would herald new tourism opportunities for previously isolated indigenous communities, she said. But the Marine Mammal Protection Act banned takes of whales and other mammals, effectively stifling souvenir development in US areas, Davidson said.

Major planning issues

"There's a great deal of distrust in the North of people's intentions farther south," Davidson noted. "There are some enormous planning issues up there we don't see elsewhere. Nearly everyone up there lives off the grid. Melting permafrost raises transportation questions. There's hardly any search and rescue capacity."

Doran said the multinational Arctic Council, which the US will chair until March, has dealt successfully on rescue, transit, and fishing issues. "I think it would be a mistake to put a security burden on it, even though Arctic security is an issue in which Canada and the US will need to become involved," he said. The two countries already have the North American Aerospace Demand, which might be better, Doran said.