Russia’s Next Standoff With the West Lies in the Resource-Rich Arctic
The high Arctic is an internationally neutral zone that has long kept away from geopolitics. But climate change has precipitated an unusual level of activity in the remote polar region as colliding strategic interests and melting ice stand to reshape it profoundly.
Stewardship of the Arctic is suddenly in question as a result of the isolation of Russia, the largest Arctic state, over its war on Ukraine. The Arctic Council — the main body for cooperation among the eight nations that share guardianship — is in limbo. Its meetings have been suspended since last year, and no one is quite sure what will happen after May 11, when Russia is due to hand over the rotating chair to Norway.
Russia remains a member of the council, and so will “in principle” be involved in any decisions or activities, said Thomas Winkler, Arctic Ambassador for the Kingdom of Denmark. But how that would actually happen in the current political climate “is still something that’s being considered,” he said. “I simply don’t have an answer.”
What’s clear is that the low-conflict status quo is in jeopardy, putting at risk the scientific cooperation that’s flourished since the end of the Cold War. And things are becoming fraught at a time when both the warming of the Arctic and the race for its resources — possibly millions of barrels of oil and rich mineral deposits — are picking up.
Who controls the top of the planet depends on where you draw the lines. Although no one “owns” the North Pole, countries with land ringing the Central Arctic Ocean already have rights extending some way beyond their coastlines, under international law. Now three of them — Russia, Canada and Denmark, on behalf of its autonomous dependent territory Greenland — are redrawing maps and arguing for more expansive sovereign rights to what’s beneath the ocean: a huge swath of the Arctic seabed, stretching across the North Pole.
How the boundaries end up being delineated, to use the diplomatic terminology, depends on how far the continental shelf extends beyond each country’s coast. All three countries claim their continental shelves stretch into an underwater mountain range called the Lomonosov Ridge. (A fourth country, Norway, made a more modest case for redrawn boundaries some years ago.)
Countries will still be able to travel freely through what will remain international waters. But the natural resources below those waters could be vast and are up for grabs. The unfolding contest could have major repercussions for who controls key resources — and for the climate.
The Lomonosov Ridge stretches from Canada and Greenland toward Siberia — or vice versa, depending on your perspective. Three nations claim it is an extension of their continental shelves.
The Lomonosov Ridge stretches from Canada and Greenland toward Siberia – or vice versa, depending on your perspective
RUSSIA EEZ
The US Coast Guard’s polar icebreaker Healy has been gathering data in the region
Miles below
sea level
–0.3
Lomonosov Ridge
North Pole
–2.8
CANADA EEZ
In 2007, Russian explorers planted their country’s flag on the seabed 2.6 miles below the North Pole
DENMARK EEZ
The Lomonosov Ridge stretches from Canada and Greenland toward Siberia – or vice versa, depending on your perspective
RUSSIA EEZ
The US Coast Guard’s polar icebreaker Healy has been gathering data in the region
Miles below
sea level
–0.3
Lomonosov Ridge
North Pole
–2.8
In 2007, Russian explorers planted their country’s flag on the seabed 2.6 miles below the North Pole
CANADA EEZ
DENMARK EEZ
The Lomonosov Ridge stretches from Canada and Greenland toward Siberia – or vice versa, depending on your perspective
RUSSIA EEZ
In 2007, Russian explorers planted their country’s flag on the seabed 2.6 miles below the North Pole
The US Coast Guard’s polar icebreaker Healy has been gathering data in the region
Miles below
sea level
North Pole
Lomonosov Ridge
–0.3
–2.8
CANADA EEZ
DENMARK EEZ
Nationalism provides another incentive: The Arctic is a strategic priority in particular for Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Changes in Russia’s latest Arctic strategy, as outlined in a foreign policy document signed by Putin on March 31, remove references to “constructive international cooperation.” The policy document pledges to push back against unfriendly states hoping to militarize the region and to establish closer cooperative ties with non-Arctic states “pursuing a constructive policy towards Russia,” a possible reference to China, which also has aspirations in the polar region.
The US, another Arctic power, remains committed to the region and to the council, a State Department spokesperson said in a statement. But Russia’s actions in conducting a war against Ukraine “inhibit the cooperation, coordination and interaction that characterize the work of the Arctic Council,” the person said.
Finland applied to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in response to Putin’s aggression and was admitted on April 4. Assuming fellow Nordic nation Sweden eventually accedes too, Russia will then be the only Arctic power that’s not a member of the alliance.
“It’s global politics in a microcosm,” Andreas Østhagen, senior researcher at Norway’s Fridtjof Nansen Institute and an expert on Arctic security and geopolitics, said of the region.
It’s also, he says, about countries hedging their bets.
“Fifty years from now, who knows whether we are still desperately trying to extract the last remaining oil and gas resources, or we’re in desperate need of more rare earth minerals — and these might be located in this part of the Arctic.”
That’s where the overlapping claims to rights over the seabed come in.
Russia, Denmark and Canada each claim that the Lomonosov Ridge, which traverses the pole, is an extension of the continental shelf continuing from its coastline into the Central Arctic Ocean. Under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, this would confer exclusive sovereign rights to natural resources on and below the polar sea floor, beyond the exclusive economic zones that stretch up to 200 nautical miles (230 miles) off their coasts.
As well as those countries, Norway has made a submission — backed in 2009 by the independent body tasked with reviewing the science, known as the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS) — but it stops well short of the North Pole.
The US, meanwhile, hasn’t ratified the UN Convention but may be preparing its own claim anyway.
“The US has been gathering data for decades in the Arctic and we keep hearing how a claim may be coming out,” said Rebecca Pincus, director of the Polar Institute at the Wilson Center, a Washington think tank. Ultimately, the US will jump into the fray, she believes, if only to be able to control how at least some of the resources are used.
Gaining access to potentially lucrative resources is one of the main reasons countries have been making submissions. Still largely unexplored, the Arctic seabed is nonetheless thought to contain large stores of fossil fuels, metals and critical minerals that will become easier to access as global warming melts the sea ice above. The most recent circum-Arctic assessment by the US Geological Survey was conducted in 2008. It estimated that about 90 billion barrels of undiscovered oil and 1,670 trillion cubic feet of gas lie inside the Arctic Circle, along with critical metals and minerals needed for electrification.
Oil and Gas Potential
Estimated oil, in billions of barrels
0.5
2
5
0
30
US
CANADA
Overlapping
national claims
RUSSIA
GREENLAND
NORWAY
Estimated oil, in billions of barrels
0.5
2
5
0
30
US
CANADA
Overlapping
national claims
RUSSIA
GREENLAND
NORWAY
Estimated oil, in billions of barrels
0.5
2
5
0
30
US
CANADA
Overlapping
national claims
RUSSIA
GREENLAND
NORWAY
Still, most of what is known about the latter is confined to land studies. The offshore metal deposits of the Arctic’s continental shelves are still largely unexplored, though the geology suggests they could be significant.
“I think there was no doubt in the minds of any of these coastal states that they would file a claim with the continental shelf, despite high costs and despite the fact that the economic benefits are really unknown,” said Walter Roest, who served on the CLCS from 2012 to 2017. “They have all claimed pretty much the maximum they can claim, with an objective to be strong when they have to negotiate.”
Exactly when it will become economically feasible to mine the polar seabed is an open question, but the national bragging rights are not. “There is definitely a political and a symbolic element to Arctic continental shelf claims,” says Philip Steinberg, director of the International Boundaries Research Unit at the UK’s Durham University. “They speak to a national vision, an idea that a nation’s future is in the North.”
Climate change will make it easier to access these areas, for exploration and extraction, as well as to ship out any resources. The Arctic is warming up to four times as fast as the rest of the globe, and that pace is accelerating. In its 2022 State of the Cryosphere report, the International Cryosphere Climate Initiative (ICCI) concluded it is now inevitable that there will be ice-free summers in the Arctic before 2050.
Vanishing Sea Ice
1981
2022
1981
2022
1981
2022
That’s expected to amplify a host of devastating climate-related consequences. While ice shields the Earth by reflecting the sun’s heat, open water does the opposite, accelerating warming. Changes in the temperature gap between the faster-warming Arctic and lower latitudes may make global weather patterns even more extreme, while ice loss and changes in ocean circulation disrupt the habitats of marine animals.
Changes on land create their own feedback loops in the Arctic. Thawing permafrost releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, hastening warming, which accelerates thawing. Melting glaciers cause sea levels to rise faster and higher.
Economic development in the Arctic poses risks to Indigenous populations, to biodiversity and — especially in the case of fossil fuel development — to a climate already changing faster than humans can adapt.
Current plans for extraction are mixed. Russia, which has been producing offshore oil in the Arctic for a decade, has pledged in its Arctic Strategy to increase land and sea production out to 2035 — though its most ambitious plans are on hold due to sanctions.
While the US recently approved the $8 billion Willow oil project on the Alaskan mainland, it’s restricting offshore oil leasing in Arctic waters. Norway has offshore fields above the Arctic Circle but its attempt to license new oil exploration in the Barents Sea faces legal challenges. In 2021, Greenland scrapped plans for future oil exploration, saying the climate ramifications were too high. A Canadian ban on offshore development was recently extended. To date, these countries’ activity has been in the lower portion of the Arctic Circle only.
Fossil fuel extraction and deep-sea mining in a part of the world that’s critical to the planet’s climate defenses are highly controversial. But winning sovereign rights to offshore resources could be as much about protection as exploitation.
“If you have the right to the seabed you also have the right to say it’s not allowed to develop these resources,” said Marc Jacobsen, an assistant professor at the Royal Danish Defence College. “It’s not only about economic logic. It could also be about environmental logic.”
All parties are well aware of the region’s strategic military importance as melting opens up new routes for ships and submarines over the top of the planet. That has only gained in significance as a result of Moscow’s aggression.
The Race to Break the Ice
- Before 1980
- Between 1980 and 2010
- Since 2010
- Nuclear
In February, the CLCS determined that a significant portion of Russia’s submission is supported by the geology, though other parts require more mapping and research. Russia responded the same month with clarification. If the CLCS agrees with it, Russia’s continental shelf in the Central Arctic Ocean would seem to consist of 516,400 square nautical miles (684,000 square miles) — an area larger than Libya, according to analysis by Durham’s International Boundaries Research Unit.
This means Russia is the only one of the three countries with overlapping claims to have achieved at least partial victory, said Jacobsen. “Russia has the narrative in their favor right now,” he said.
But it doesn’t mean Denmark and Canada are out of luck. Ultimately the CLCS may determine that the Lomonosov Ridge is part of a shared continental shelf, meaning everyone will have to share. Countries may end up needing to negotiate boundaries among themselves, or through a third-party tribunal. Untangling the scientific submissions of the three countries will take years, or even decades. But while the process grinds along, the ice is melting — fast.
Conditions that allow the exploitation of Arctic resources “also amplify the risks and societal disruptions,” the ICCI said in its scientific report. “Such profound, adverse impacts almost certainly will eclipse any temporary economic benefits brought by an ice-free summer Arctic.”
Back in 2007, when Putin was nearing the completion of his second term as president, Russia planted a flag in the seabed floor at the North Pole as a means of staking a symbolic, if legally unsupported, claim to the top of the planet.
Sixteen years later, Putin is still in power and flexing his imperial muscle. For now, the North Pole — one of the most pristine places on Earth — belongs to everyone and no one. Once all the geological evidence is sifted through, there will be no going back for the Arctic.