Arctic fears grow as cooperation with Russia stalls

For almost three decades, the Arctic Council has been a successful example of post-Cold War cooperation.

Its eight members, including Russia and the United States, have worked together on climate change research and social development in this ecologically sensitive region.

Now, a year after council members stopped working with Russia following its invasion of Ukraine and as Norway prepares to assume Moscow’s presidency on May 11, experts wonder whether the viability of the polar body is at risk. if you can’t cooperate with the country that controls more than half of the Arctic coast.

An ineffective Arctic Council could have serious consequences for the environment of the region and its 4 million people, who are facing the effects of melting sea ice and the interest of non-Arctic countries in the region’s mineral resources, in mostly untapped.

The work of the council, made up of the eight Arctic states of Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden and the United States, has produced binding agreements in the past on environmental protection and preservation.

It is also a rare platform that gives a voice to the indigenous peoples of the region. It does not address security issues.

But with the end of cooperation with Moscow, about a third of the council’s 130 projects are on hold, new projects cannot go ahead and existing ones cannot be renewed. Western and Russian scientists no longer share findings on climate change, for example, and cooperation on possible search-and-rescue missions or oil spills has stalled.

“I am concerned that this is really hampering the ability of the Arctic Council to resolve these various issues,” US Senator Angus King of Maine told Reuters news agency.

A divided region?

The Arctic is warming about four times faster than the rest of the world.

As sea ice disappears, polar waters open up to shipping and other industries eager to exploit the region’s bounty of natural resources, including oil, gas, and metals such as gold, iron, and earth minerals. rare.

The discord between Russia and the other members of the Arctic Council means that an effective response to these changes is much less likely.

“Norway has a big challenge,” said John Holdren, co-director of the Arctic Initiative at Harvard’s Kennedy School and a former science adviser to US President Barack Obama. “This is how to salvage as much of the good work of the Arctic Council in Russia’s absence as possible.”

Russia argues that this work cannot continue without it.

The council is weakening, Russia’s Arctic ambassador Nikolay Korchunov told Reuters, saying he was not confident that it “can continue to be the main platform on Arctic issues.”

Adding to the concerns is the possibility that Russia will go its own way on matters affecting the region or even set up a rival council.

Recently, it has taken steps to expand Arctic cooperation with non-Arctic states. On April 24, Russia and China signed a memorandum establishing cooperation between the countries’ coast guards in the Arctic.

Days earlier, on April 14, Russia invited China, India, Brazil and South Africa, the BRICS countries, to conduct investigations at its settlement in Svalbard, an Arctic archipelago under Norwegian sovereignty where other countries can operate under a 1920 treaty.

“Russia is trying to build relationships with some non-Arctic countries, particularly China, and that’s a worrying development,” said David Balton, executive director of the White House Arctic Steering Committee.

Korchunov said that Moscow welcomes non-Arctic states in the region, as long as they do not come with a military agenda.

“Our focus on a purely peaceful partnership format also reflects the need to develop scientific and economic cooperation with non-Arctic countries,” he said.

“I don’t see an Arctic Council without Russia in the future”

Norway said it is “optimistic” that a smooth transition of Russia’s presidency can be achieved because it is in the interest of all Arctic states to maintain the Arctic Council.

“We need to safeguard the Arctic Council as the most important international forum for Arctic cooperation and make sure it survives,” Norwegian Deputy Foreign Minister Eivind Vad Petersson told Reuters.

That won’t be easy, given Oslo’s tense relations with Moscow. In April, Oslo expelled 15 Russian diplomats, saying they were spies. Moscow denied the accusations and Korchunov said the expulsions undermined the trust needed for cooperation.

Analysts said NATO member Norway, which shares an Arctic border with Russia, is still well positioned to handle the delicate balancing act with Moscow.

“Norway has been the most outspoken country when it comes to keeping the door ajar so that Russia can, when politically feasible, rejoin the Arctic Council,” said Svein Vigeland Rottem, a senior fellow in governance and security. of the Arctic at the Fridtjof Nansen Institute in Oslo.

Indeed, lawmaker Aaja Chemnitz Larsen said, the council will eventually need to re-engage with Russia, even if that time has not yet come.

“I don’t see an Arctic Council without Russia in the future,” said Larsen, a Greenland lawmaker in the Danish parliament and chair of the Arctic Parliamentarians, a body of parliamentarians from Arctic countries.

“We need to be prepared for a different time when the war (in Ukraine) will one day end,” he said.