Читать книгу The Arctic and World Order - Группа авторов - Страница 25

Thus far, I have described the baseline state of institutions and conservation in the Arctic. We do reasonably well in some sectors and some areas, we are fortunate that the direct human presence remains relatively modest, and we are highly susceptible to harm from a thousand small cuts. Now add the realities of climate change and the prospects for international conflict.

Arctic climate change²⁸ has brought unprecedented global attention to the region, as an exemplar of the risks faced by societies and ecosystems around the world, and as a region ripe for economic development. When the Arctic was a quiet backwater, sending a Soviet icebreaker to rescue whales off the coast of Alaska was an easy form of cooperation. When Arctic fisheries, oil and gas, shipping, and geopolitical strategy have come to prominence, small gestures carry far greater weight. When tensions are high, larger activities and events take on even greater significance.

If the Arctic sees a war over Arctic matters or as a proxy for other conflicts such as Crimea or the South China Sea, all bets are off.²⁹ We should of course work to prevent war from happening in the Arctic as elsewhere, but if we get to that point, conservation has long since gone out the window. Battles will not await the completion of an environmental impact assessment, and national security concerns will override anything else. The Arctic has been militarized before. The last shots of the U.S. Civil War took place off Alaska, as the Confederate warship Shenandoah attacked whaleships from northern U.S. ports, unaware that the South had already surrendered back in Virginia.³⁰ During the Cold War, Russia and the U.S. built military bases, radar stations, and more in the Arctic, and sent submarines far under the Arctic ice. Tensions in Arctic waters were high. One legacy of this activity is the number of abandoned and badly polluted installations, not to mention scuttled ships and radioactive waste.³¹ It is not clear what institutions would be able to constrain this kind of result once a battle starts. Let us put large-scale armed conflict aside.

Nations may also compete economically. Sanctions can reduce activity, and competition can increase it. Indeed, one vision for the Arctic is a region of massive resource exploitation, exporting raw materials to the world.³² One can see the appeal both for the country selling its minerals or oil or fish, and for the country having access to big new sources for its industries and consumers. Pressure may therefore come from distant markets as well as local boosters. There is no particular reason that one Arctic country should follow others in a race to develop, but the coasts of Alaska and Norway both already see increased ship traffic as a result of development along Russia’s Northern Sea Route. Finland and Norway still live with the legacy of pollution from mines, nuclear waste, and other contamination across their borders with Russia,³³ a major reason why Finland – with its 1991 Arctic Environmental Protection Strategy (AEPS) inititiave – started the international forum that became the Arctic Council. The ability of existing institutions to reduce trans-boundary effects is doubtful for most sectors, especially if the activities in question are seen as essential for national security or related ambitions.

Climate change poses a major threat to the Arctic as we know it. These changes are alarming in their own right and will also exacerbate the effects of other human activities. Less ice may well lead to more shipping and more resource development, increasing the burden on the institutions managing those sectors. Climate change will also make all the more difficult the challenge of addressing cumulative effects. Climate change could also provide a convenient scapegoat on which to blame industry and management failures. In short, existing institutions have the 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.