http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2008/05/arctic-superpow.html

Will the Arctic be a 21st Century Sarajevo, triggering a major war over energy resources? Canada, Denmark, Norway, Russia and the United States are at odds over 1.2 million square kilometers (460,000 square miles) of Arctic seabed which could possibly hold 25% of the world’s oil and gas.

Climate change, which is rendering the region increasingly accessible, has upped the ante, making the need for an international resolution of the conflicting claims in the area more pressing. Maritime security and protection of the fragile Arctic ecosystem will also be hot items on the agenda at the May 28 meeting.

The melting of Arctic sea ice and the Greenland Ice Sheet, currently at their lowest levels ever recorded, is happening so fast experts were now questioning whether the situation was close to the tipping point.

The battle lines of future conflict between nations are emerging along the fault lines of the polar ice caps of our planet. An international race for oil, fish, diamonds and shipping routes, is being accelerated by the impact of global warming.

Representatives of the five countries bordering the Arctic will meet at Ilulissat in western Greenland this week to discuss the impact of climate change on the polar region—and how to divide up its as-yet untapped rich resources.

“We must solve our problems peacefully and through accords in line with international law,” said Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller, who with the head of the local Greenland government Hans Enoksen, will host the meeting.

The meeting will also be attended by Moeller, Enoksen, Canadian Minister of Natural Resources Gary Lunn, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his Norwegian counterpart Jonas Gahr Stoere. The United States will be represented by deputy foreign policy chief John Negroponte.

The rivalry between the five Arctic neighbors has heated up as melting polar ice makes the region more accessible. Scientists saying the Northwest Passage could open up to year-round shipping by 2050.

Denmark and Canada have a longstanding disagreement over who owns the tiny, uninhabited, ice-covered Hans island, which straddles Nares Strait between Greenland and Canada’s Ellesmere Island.

Canada and the United States are at odds over the sovereignty of the Northwest Passage that links the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans.

Last year, Russian explorers claimed to have planted their national flag at the bottom of the ocean, at a depth of more than 4,000 meters, after an expedition aimed at underlining Moscow’s aspirations to Arctic territory.

That leaves 1.2 million square kilometers of unclaimed territory in an area believed to hold vast petroleum riches.

The UN convention on the Law of the Sea gives countries that are signatories to the treaty the possibility of challenging claims of seabed sovereignty if they want to assert their claims beyond the 200-nautical-mile zone. They have 10 years to do so after ratifying the convention.

All the countries bordering the Arctic have ratified the convention except, of course, the United States, but Moeller said he did not expect the final status of the icy region to be determined until 2022.

In January of 2007 at the opposite end of the planet, a team of Canadian explorers traveled for 47 days from the tip of Antarctica to reach the most remote point of its geographic interior -the “Pole of Inaccessibility” trekking through 250 kilometers – mostly by kiting, using giant kite-sails to pull attached skiers along snowy trails.

When they reached the Pole, they were greeted by a surprising sight – a statue of Vladimir Lenin sticking out two meters above the snow. Lenin’s statue was placed there by Russian explorers in 1958. The discovery of Lenin’s statue might be a foreshadowing of some distant future discovery at the North Pole.

“It is highly probable that Russia’s continental shelf resources may enlarge by 1.2 million square kilometers outside the 200-mile economic zone in the Arctic Ocean. That area may contain 9-10 billion tons of energy resources,” said Natural Resources Ministry’s Institute of World Ocean Geology and Mineral Resources Director Prof. Valery Kamensky.

The new Russian scientific outpost in the Arctic region, North Pole 35, will operate for two years. It is impossible to develop northern areas of Russia, forecast weather and climate changes on this planet and develop hydrocarbons on the continental shelf without a comprehensive study of the Earth ice cap.

“It will take over a year to process the scientific data,” Kamensky said. “The information will come from 35 geological stations, seismic-acoustic monitoring of the 690-kilometer-long Lomonosov Ridge, filming done from an Ilyushin Il-18 aircraft, and deep-water photographs and filming

The UN Convention on the Law of the Sea sets the external boundary of a country by the 12-mile zone, while the economic border is limited to 200 miles. Russia will have to prove that its shelf continues the Siberian continental platform in order to enlarge its territory in the Arctic Ocean. The proof may be received by 2009.

The latest report by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says the ice cap is warming faster than the rest of the planet and ice is receding. It’s a catastrophic scenario for the Arctic ecosystem, for polar bears and other wildlife, and for indiginous populations like the Inuit and the Sami whose ancient cultures depend on frozen waters.

The U.S. Geological Survey estimates the Arctic has as much as 25 per cent of the world’s undiscovered oil and gas. Moscow reportedly sees the potential of minerals in its slice of the Arctic sector approaching $2 trillion. Major petroleum companies are now focusing research and exploration on the far north. Russia is developing the vast Shkotman natural gas field off its Arctic coast.

The melting ice cap could open the North Pole region to easy navigation for five months a year, according to the latest Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, revolutionizing shipping the way the Suez Canal did in the 20th Century. Up until recently, reports said it would take 100 years for the ice to melt, but new studies say it could happen in 10-15 years, and the United States, Canada, Russia, Denmark and Norway have been rushing to stake their claims in the Arctic.

In 2004, Russian President Vladimir Putin called the sovereignty issue “a serious, competitive battle” that “will unfold more and more fiercely.”

If history is a guide, the polar regions may prove to be the catalyst for the next Cold War and a sequel to the original Hunt for the Red October.