Greenland Summit To Discuss Carve-Up Of Arctic

[lovuian]

http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/48506/story.htm

COPENHAGEN - Officials from five Arctic coastal countries will meet in Greenland this week to discuss how to carve up the Arctic Ocean, which could hold up to one-quarter of the world's undiscovered oil and gas reserves.


Canada, Denmark, Norway, Russia and the United States are squabbling over much of the Arctic seabed and Denmark has called them together for talks in its self-governing province to avert a free-for-all for the region's resources.

Russia angered the other Arctic countries last year by planting a flag on the seabed under the North Pole in a headline-grabbing gesture that some criticised as a stunt.

Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moller and the premier of Greenland's government, Hans Enoksen, will meet the Norwegian and Russian foreign ministers Jonas Gahr Stoere and Sergei Lavrov, US Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte and Canada's Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn at the two-day conference opening on Wednesday in the town of Ilulissat.

The issue has gained urgency because scientists believe rising temperatures could leave most of the Arctic ice-free in summer months in a few decades' time.
more...

Under the 1982 UN Law of the Sea Convention, coastal states own the seabed beyond existing 200 nautical mile (370 km) zones if it is part of a continental shelf of shallower waters.

These are interesting times US may get another state out of this

[pegleg]

1. We will be the North American Union soon.