Disarmament and International Security Committee (DISEC)World ...

egun developing the Shtokman gas field in the
Barents Sea (373 miles offshore) with the help of two
energy firms: Norway’s Statoil-Hydro and France’s
total. 51 Russia has responded to environmental
concerns about resource extraction by committing to
help set up a public-private partnership, Emercon, to
monitor and respond quickly to risks arising from oil
and gas production. 52
Environmentalists are naturally worried about
Arctic drilling and resource exploitation. Greenpeace
International spokesman Mike Townsley said that
extracting oil and gas will only lead to more fossil
fuels being burned, which will trigger further global
warming and melting of ice caps. 53 Furthermore,
resource extraction inevitably leads to accidents
and spills. Examples abound—from the 1989 Exxon
Valdez to the 2006 Deepwater Horizon oil spills. Chris
Krenz, an Arctic Project Manager for the Oceana
environmental group says that “placing wells,
pipelines and vessels in the remote Arctic creates a
substantial risk of a catastrophic oil spill, and there is
no proven method to clean up an oil spill in the icy
conditions often found in the Arctic. 54
New Energy Leases
As of 2011, more than 400 oil and gas fields have
been discovered north of the Arctic Circle. 55 in
February 2008, the U.S. government’s Minerals
Management Service approved the extraction of
oil and gas from a portion of the Chukchi Sea off
Alaska’s northern coast. Between 2008 and 2012, the
government opened up four more sections of the
Chuckhi and Beaufort seas to extraction. Former U.S.
President George W. Bush stated “Congress should
permit exploration in currently restricted areas of
northern Alaska, which could produce roughly the
equivalent of two decades of imported oil from Saudi
Arabia. 56
In June 2008, Canada awarded a US$1.2 billion
lease to Britain’s British Petroleum (BP) to develop
oil and gas fields in the Beaufort Sea. 57 Greenland
has also awarded numerous exploration licenses this
year to u.S., Canadian, British, danish, and Swedish
companies, and in July 2008 StatoilHydro began
mapping the seabed of northeast Greenland.
Over-fishing
The development of huge factory fishing ships that
can stay at sea for months on end has led to severe
depletions of fish stocks. 58 Governments around the
Arctic region have responded by setting catch quotas
and limiting fishing rights of foreign vessels within a
country’s 200-mile boundaries. Norway has clamped
down on Russian vessels fishing in Norwegian waters.
At the same time, ships are moving further north as
the ice melts. 59
Shipping Lanes
Emerging shipping lanes that are a result of the melting ice caps.
In 2007, the Northwest Passage became completely
open for the first time due to the recession of Arctic
sea ice. This path could serve as a shortcut from the
Pacific to the Atlantic, possibly making it a more
convenient shortcut than the Strait of Magellan and
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