Independent UK: Last-ditch bid to avert Arctic free-for-all

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Last-ditch bid to avert Arctic free-for-all

By Daniel Howden, Deputy Foreign Editor
Wednesday, 28 May 2008



Denmark will today launch an effort to calm the scramble for the Arctic, bringing together the five coastal nations competing for what are believed to be the largest unclaimed reserves of oil and gas left on the planet.

The gathering in Greenland begins in the shadow of a new "oil shock" as soaring prices force governments to reassess their energy policies and heat up already feverish interest in who owns the seabed beneath the Arctic Ocean. The issue has already been pushed to the fore as rising temperatures melt ever larger sections of the polar ice sheet and scientists warn that climate change could result in sea ice cover disappearing altogether within a generation.

The Danes hope the meeting will see all parties agree to a UN-brokered solution rather than a free-for-all over possible oil riches and commercially valuable sea routes such as the recently thawed North West Passage.

So far the race for the Arctic has been limited to posturing, with Russia deploying an experimental submarine to plant a flag on the seabed close to the magnetic pole, while Denmark has pinned its colours to the frozen Hans Island and Canada has conducted military exercises further into the frozen north than ever before. Both Norway and the US are thought to be considering their own challenge for sovereignty under the UN Law of the Seas convention, meant to govern territorial claims over the continental shelf.

The argument over who owns the Arctic has come down to a technical squabble over which country is best connected to one of several undersea mountain ranges that extend towards the North Pole. Under the 1982 UN convention, coastal states own the seabed beyond existing 200 nautical mile zones if it is part of a continental shelf of shallower waters. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/green-living/lastditch-bid-to-avert-arctic-freeforall-835200.html