Arctic 2030: What are the consequences of climate change?

Abstract

Although scientists disagree about the rate at which Arctic ice is melting, climate change will greatly alter the northern latitudes in coming decades if greenhouse gas emissions are not curtailed. Many of the expected changes will be negative; already, permafrost is melting in Siberia, and apartments and factories are sinking into quagmires. The melting of Arctic ice, however, will also open sea-lanes to shipping and allow access to enormous oil and gas reserves beneath the Arctic Ocean. The prospect of increased Arctic commerce brings with it competition among countries and companies for control of the area’s riches, and international competition always carries the possibility of conflict. Three authors, all experts in national security and the Arctic, explore the military, diplomatic, environmental, and economic outlook for the Arctic in 2030: from Russia, Yury Morozov (2012); from Canada, Rob Huebert (2012); and from the United States, George Backus.

Discussions on access to and security in the Arctic routinely revolve around the date when the Arctic Ocean will become ice-free as a result of climate change. ¹ The latest report from the Naval Studies Board indicates a possible ice-free date of 2030 (Naval Studies Board, 2011). Computer modeling for the last assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (Meehl et al., 2007) indicated that an ice-free Arctic could occur by 2040 (Holland et al., 2006), while the newest results, which the panel will present in its 2013 report, suggest a later time of 2070 (Vavrus et al., 2011). Regardless of when the Arctic becomes accessible, many analysts believe there is little chance that sovereignty issues among the Arctic nations (Russia, Norway, Denmark, Canada, and the United States) will lead directly to conflict (Naval Studies Board, 2011; Wezeman, 2012). In fact, most current security concerns associated with the pre-2030 Arctic are directed toward search-and-rescue efforts, for which the US Coast Guard has primary responsibility. ²

Such a view of the Arctic might imply that there are no pressing national security issues—or, more specifically, no US national defense issues requiring a sense of urgency for preparedness—in the near-term Arctic. ³ This perspective assumes that the future is a smoothly progressing variation of present-day economic and physical conditions. Nevertheless, it would not be in the nation’s best interests to believe that US defense operations will remain minimal as climatic conditions open access routes to and through the Arctic. The computer models mentioned above continue to dramatically underestimate the pace and type of changes that are expected to affect the Arctic’s physical conditions (Stroeve and Barrett, 2011; Stroeve et al., 2007), even as they predict increases in the volatility and unpredictability of interannual weather (Holland et al., 2008; Jahn et al., 2011). But it is not so much the Arctic’s physical conditions that need be a concern to military planning; rather, the military needs to plan for and adapt to the human response to changing physical conditions in the Arctic.

Oil, mining, and shipping companies are already observing the rapidly melting Arctic and perceiving benefits for “first movers.” For example, Shell Oil plans to initiate Arctic drilling in the summer of 2012. Several other multinational mineral and energy companies have also recently acquired leases in the Arctic. These entrepreneurs will develop new technologies and reduce costs and risks as they gain experience (Blunden, 2012; Backus et al., 2011). Resource-exploitation success in the Arctic could amplify expectations of greater success and intensify competitive economic pressures. In a reinforcing cycle, companies pursue additional projects that lead to the establishment of support industries and expanded, largely offshore infrastructure that could, in turn, further increase shipping activity. A major setback in the form of an environmental accident, intensification of Arctic storms, or escalating costs could temporarily reverse the cycle.

To put it another way, more than climatic conditions, national economic priorities and commercial interests will govern the amount of activity in the Arctic. Commercial advances will likely outpace both diplomatic efforts to resolve sovereignty rights and military preparedness investments in the Arctic. The ramifications—positive and negative—of increased Arctic commercial activity could be global.

In a counterintuitive twist, countries without borders on the Arctic have the most to lose or gain from the economically accessible Arctic that climate change is now creating. Many Asian countries will experience a competitive disadvantage if they do not have as much access to the Arctic Ocean as they currently have to Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Ocean trade routes. Some proposals extend the sovereignty of each Arctic nation to the North Pole, but most other proposals contain irregular bands of overlapping claims that still leave part of the Arctic Ocean as international waters (International Boundaries Research Unit, 2011). However, access to those waters requires passage through sovereign territories where Arctic nations claim the right to regulate usage (Becker, 2010). The negotiation of Arctic-sovereignty rights for Arctic nations and Arctic-sharing rights for non-Arctic nations may therefore be lengthy and contentious, because, in many ways, economic security is national security.

The effort of the Arctic Council to codify cooperation among the Arctic nations minimizes the chances of armed hostilities among them. Nonetheless, there is a need for military preparedness to ensure all rights are honored and national interests protected. Defense planning for the Arctic has no modern precedent. It has been a million years since the Arctic was ice-free, and civilizations have not dealt with access to a new ocean since the sixteenth century.

In the sixteenth century, national confrontation stemmed from rapid commercial expansion, but then it was the nations that actually directed economic activity. In the Arctic’s future, multinational corporations will dominate the expansion process. Because countries depend on multinational corporations to maintain their economies, however, national interests are still linked to the success of multinational firms.

As economic activity in the Arctic expands, companies from many countries will test new business options, assuming transit passage or other rights of operation in what remain ambiguously international waters (Moe and Jensen, 2010). The United States has not signed the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea and is therefore limited in legitimizing claims of Arctic sovereignty. Both Canada and Russia interpret the Law of the Sea in a manner that allows them to have regulatory power over transit through their sovereign waters, while most non-Arctic nations consider the right of transit and innocent passage through the Arctic Ocean a core element of international law. Individual Arctic nations may or may not approve provisional or speculative activities within the areas they consider under their sovereignty.

The protection of companies operating in the Arctic creates national security concerns both for the country of origin and for the country that might consider the activities of the firms a foreign encroachment on sovereignty. Because many multinational corporations have more influence and resources than many nations (Backus and Strickland, 2008), unilateral actions by multinational corporations would raise tangled jurisdictional issues for governmental parties. As increased shipping and mineral and energy production become part of critical supply chains, the national security issues of protecting corporate assets will grow.

Climate change in the Arctic has significant knock-on effects for climate in the tropics and subtropics. In light of such changes, many African and South American countries may feel economically threatened and geopolitically abandoned by a shift in the center of trade toward extreme northern latitudes. The response may be to migrate north to fill licit and illicit economic niches. Organized crime involving drugs and human trafficking is already a concern (Rutten, 2010). Additionally, the ecological threat from commercial activity may be potent enough to incite eco-terrorism, and radical terrorists could identify the Arctic as a new venue (Canadian Press, 2010). Non-escalating situations could easily occur when there are unresolved territorial claims, such as the confrontations in the South China Sea between the Philippines and China. Threats from militant terrorism would be more difficult to manage. The timing and probability of attacks occurring in the Arctic are so uncertain as to be merely speculative, but there is precedence in the 2010 attacks on Nigerian oil platforms. There would seem to be little reason to believe the Arctic is immune to the global war on terrorism.

Because no entity, other than perhaps the Russian government, has the military bases and means to accommodate area-wide protection and enforcement needs, the United States will necessarily have to maintain strong cooperative arrangements with nations and corporations for the coordinated, safe, and secure use of Arctic resources. Although the Arctic nations themselves may strive for cooperation, entanglement with corporations and other foreign entities will assuredly produce tensions that are outside the domain of the US Coast Guard.

Right now, the US military position in the Arctic is problematic. Both the Northern Command and the European Command have responsibility for what, in a cooperative multinational environment, is a single area (Carafano et al., 2011; Carmen et al., 2010). Some analysts argue that NATO should play the coordinating role in the Arctic (Conley, 2012), but such a path would create new tensions among the national players, and it does not resolve the specific position of the United States in the Arctic (Wezeman, 2012).

The United States asserts that it has power projection and strategic deterrence capabilities in the Arctic because of its submarine, missile, and airborne assets (Defense Department, 2011). But security events in the Arctic may be largely associated with expensive commercial assets populated by civilians and monitored or escorted by foreign government representatives. Fighter jets and torpedoes have no role to play in such confrontations. A naval presence is required, with personnel who can board and secure the facility, as necessary. In general, the US Defense Department lacks the naval resources to maintain sea control for these situations. If non-Arctic countries set a precedent—even simply through prospecting surveys or shipping activity—their case for limiting the unresolved sovereignty rights of the Arctic nations is strengthened. Corporations necessarily engage in such activities, and it is natural for commercial ventures to test the boundaries of their franchises. But in a more negative sense, there is also the fear that access to a relatively unmonitored Arctic may offer an alternative location for companies to dispose of toxic waste.

In assessing US security needs in the Arctic, the question to ask is not “What are the security risks when the Arctic opens?” but rather “How will security risks evolve as the geopolitical and economic expansion play out?” The physical speed with which the Arctic changes will determine the gap between reality and expectations. For example, the more Russia, China, or South Korea experience significant benefit from Arctic activities—to the point where they expect and depend on the growth from those activities—the more likely that a period where the Arctic again becomes environmentally inhospitable, or that the rules of sovereignty change to limit access, or that commercialization of the region will cause political strains from lost revenue or prestige.

Abrupt changes in expectations and in a nation’s ability to cope with changing circumstances appear to be factors that can trigger conflict (Agency for International Development, 2009). If the early international relations dynamics in the Arctic move fairly slowly, all parties could co-evolve toward balanced positions with relatively little conflict. Rapid dynamics could raise tensions. If all nations sustain approximately equal positive or negative repercussions from changes in Arctic regulations or climatic conditions, or they all believe they could limit the pace and extent of negative impacts through negotiation, routine diplomatic processes could mollify tensions. Climate change will, however, produce an ever-shifting playing field that heightens tensions among countries more concerned with relative rather than absolute advantage in the area.

Will events in the Arctic require US military responses before 2030? The consideration of uncertainty is part of climate and economic forecasting (Hendry and Ericsson, 2001; Meehl et al., 2007), and uncertainty is a mainstay of military planning: The adversary seldom announces battle plans prior to engagement. Military preparedness hinges not on best estimates, but on uncertainties that reflect risks the nation wants managed. From the vantage point of the present, the best estimate is that the Arctic of the near future will be free of military conflict. Risk, however, is the combination of probability (uncertainty) and consequence. Lower-probability, high-consequence events generally contribute more to risk than the best estimate. They are consequently much more relevant to national security planning than high-probability, routine-consequence conditions.

Perceived economic accessibility to the Arctic and commercial success in the Arctic change the conditional probabilities; they increase the odds that a sequence of events that leads to conflict will materialize. It would be foolhardy to disregard the risks that low-probability, high-consequence events imply. An unexpected confluence of vessels and aircraft being in the wrong place, when Arctic weather conditions prevent adequate communications, could lead to tense situations, unless national security forces have the ability to readily manage the situation.

Scenario-based planning considers specific sequences of events that highlight resource needs for particular hypothesized threats. These scenarios are limited to the ability of their framers to envision the future. The shifting interactions of the Arctic ensure that scenario-based planning will miss critical risks. Because of the high costs in managing security risks and the necessary trade-off of investments among other existing security risks, the decision to make Arctic risks a Defense Department priority requires (1) a quantified understanding of the uncertainty, (2) an assessment of potential consequences, and (3) a process for validated, risk-informed decision making.

Without a formal, quantified risk assessment, security planning for the Arctic remains purely conjectural. A risk assessment cannot predict the future, but it can delineate the precursor conditions that can govern the timing and characterization of which future security events are more or less likely. For example, at some threshold of economic development, such as when multiple oil-exploration projects couple with support industries, a de facto supply chain is created. This critical mass of infrastructure would promote routine international shipping and other activities, such as resource refining and manufacturing, at greatly reduced risk and cost.

Already, activities and conditions indicate the Defense Department mission space in the Arctic will be much different than is now anticipated. The US Government Accountability Office has accordingly and appropriately recommended formal risk assessments to ensure that the Homeland Security Department and the Defense Department recognize and acquire the resources needed to maintain security in what could be an eventful Arctic of the very near future (Government Accountability Office, 2012). The United States cannot plan to deal effectively with the risks a warming Arctic may pose unless it knows as much as possible about those risks, their probabilities, and the potential consequences if they are not forestalled or mitigated.