theoretical capability to handle much of what we expect from climate change, but their actual political capacity is another matter. They have been designed and run largely to address minor and non-controversial matters. For example, the Arctic Council’s charter expressly excludes fisheries and military affairs. And their shortcomings with regard to cumulative effects will only become more apparent as climate change contributes more and more to the alteration of Arctic ecosystems.34
Before we look forward, a quick review of recent decades will help identify trends. In 2000, Arctic climate change was gaining attention, shipping was modest, fisheries were limited to historical areas such as the Barents and Bering seas, oil and gas development was going up and down in different areas, as was mining. China’s growing interest in the Arctic was not yet apparent to most observers. The Arctic Council held its second meeting in what was then Barrow, now Utqiaġvik, Alaska. Neither the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (published in 2005) nor the Arctic Marine Shipping Assessment (2009) had been started, though Arctic contaminants had drawn attention to a global problem that would lead to the signing of the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants the following year. Some of today’s Arctic institutions were new or not yet started, though cooperation was the dominant mode of international interaction within the region.
By 2020, Arctic climate change has been widely recognized globally. Indeed, it is generally spoken about as an emergency— even though there still appears to be more grandiose talk than actual grand-scale action. Shipping has increased and the IMO’s Polar Code entered into force in 2017. Fisheries have expanded to some degree, but precautionary measures have also been taken in the high seas of the Arctic Ocean and some nearby national waters. Cruise ships have sailed the Northwest Passage. Development in the Russian Arctic is increasing steadily –with Kremlin support and Chinese and other foreign investment. The situation is more mixed in other countries, as companies’ exploration costs for resources extraction are high and their activities are much less likely to be state-sponsored. The Arctic Council has attracted more observer countries and has completed many assessments and projects. The Arctic Circle has created a meeting point for businesses and others. China has declared itself a “near Arctic state,” issued its Arctic Strategy in 2018, signed the Central Arctic Ocean Fisheries Agreement, and invested in many Arctic projects. In some ways, institutions are stronger through longevity and through attracting more participants, increasing their legitimacy and their reach beyond Arctic states. For conservation, the Arctic record remains mixed, but there are good signs in some respects.
Future Horizons
Looking forward with some speculation, we can see divergent paths. One path might be imagined in the following way: by 2040, sea ice may have disappeared one summer. Perhaps shipping has increased in volume and in length of season, possibly including year-round voyages by ice-strengthened vessels. The Central Arctic Ocean Fisheries Agreement will have run its initial 16-year term—perhaps to be renewed, perhaps to be replaced by a regional fisheries management organization as exploitation begins. There are likely more mines and perhaps more oil and gas fields, depending on the state of renewable energy worldwide.35 Perhaps India has joined China as a rising force in Arctic affairs as in global affairs. With luck, today’s institutions concerned with the Arctic may have been strained but have not broken, thanks in part to the efforts of countless people to create ties across borders, develop a vision for the Arctic, and promote continued cooperation and mutual understanding. Conservation continues to be a challenge, but ecosystems and species have a chance at adapting to the ever-transforming climate. Indigenous peoples continue to sustain their own identities and ways of life and to pass on cultural traditions and values from one generation to the next.36 We look to 2060 with cautious optimism.
Without that luck, without that commitment to sharing an abundant Arctic, without the hard work of people in and alongside Arctic institutions, the second potential path to 2040 will be a very different story. Climate change will have affected nearly all aspects of life in the Arctic, exacerbated by poor management decisions driven by short-term, localized thinking. Shipping will be regulated to some degree by the IMO and its Polar Code, but enforcement is lax and accidents all too common. Arctic resources are available to the highest bidder, with little concern for environmental and cultural effects. Fish stocks have been plundered and yield a fraction of the catch they once supported. What’s more, fish and other marine life might be contaminated by microplastics with serious implications for human health.37 Today’s institutions have buckled and many no longer exist. Countries espouse cooperation even as they ignore the needs of their neighbors. Ecosystems are now shaped by human influence and conservation is a matter of preserving remnants of what once was. We look to 2060 and wonder what will be left.
The difference between these scenarios for 2040 is the reason that institutions matter, that the work of those involved in Arctic institutions matters, and that those of us who wish for something close to the first path laid out above must continue to fight for an Arctic characterized by abundance, cooperation, and an ever greater awareness of our responsibility to make decisions that are sound for the long-term, in a changing environment, across the full range of human activities. Today’s choices will determine what the Arctic is like in two decades’ time and beyond.38 The path our society is on may avoid major disasters,39 but by the same token, it involves an endless series of compromises made near and far, which together continue to degrade the Arctic. Finding a new path will not be easy in the face of inertia and active opposition from businesses and governments alike – all of which are more or less keen to exploit natural resources, to keep the economy buzzing, and to ensure their countries are at the forefront of industrial and technological progress. Yet, if in the process the environment is irrevocably damaged and degraded, living with the results of poor choices is likely to be even harder and costlier in human and economic terms.
Notes
1 1. https://arctic-council.org/en/about/.
2 2. https://www.northernforum.org/en/the-northern-forum/about-us.
3 3. http://www.arcticcircle.org/about/about/.
4 4. https://iasc.info/iasc/about-iasc.
5 5. Cf. Oran R. Young, “The Internationalization of the Circumpolar North: Charting a Course for the 21st Century,” http://www.thearctic.is/articles/topics/internationaization/enska/kafli_0200.htm.
6 6. Fridtjof Nansen, Farthest North (New York: Harper, 1907).
7 7. Maritime Executive, “IMO authorizes new Bering Sea routing,” May 26, 2018, https://www.maritime-executive.com/article/imo-authorizes-new-bering-sea-routing.
8 8. See the chapter by Suzanne Lalonde in this volume about the Canada-U.S. dispute over the status of the Northwest Passage.
9 9. See the chapter by Lassi Heininen in this volume about Arctic cooperation and the “Arctic paradox” of warming leading to more petroleum development leading to more warming.
10 10. Nele Matz-Lück, “Planting the Flag in Arctic Waters: Russia’s Claim to the North Pole,” Göttingen Journal of International Law 1, 2 (2009), pp. 235–55, doi: 10.3249/1868-1581-1-2-matz-lueck; Klaus Doods, “Flag Planting and Finger Pointing: The Law of the Sea, the Arctic and the Political Geographies of the Outer Continental Shelf,” Political Geography 29, 2 (February 2010), pp. 63–73, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2010.02.004. See also Nicole Bayat Grajewski, “Russia’s Great Power Assertion: Status-Seeking in the Arctic,” St Antony’s International Review 13: 1, The Politics of Uncertainty (May 2017), pp. 141–163, https://www.jstor.org/stable/26229126.
11 11. IMO, International Code for Ships Operating in Polar Waters (Polar Code), http://www.imo.org/en/MediaCentre/HotTopics/polar/Documents/POLAR%20CODE%20TEXT%20AS%20ADOPTED.pdf.
