The unfolding contest could have major repercussions for who controls key resources – and for the climate. But the natural resources below those waters could be vast and are up for grabs. (A fourth country, Norway, made a more modest case for redrawn boundaries some years ago.)Ĭountries will still be able to travel freely through what will remain international waters. All three countries claim their continental shelves stretch into an underwater mountain range called the Lomonosov Ridge. How the boundaries end up being delineated, to use the diplomatic terminology, depends on how far the continental shelf extends beyond each country’s coast. Now three of them – Russia, Canada and Denmark, on behalf of its autonomous dependent territory Greenland – are redrawing maps and arguing for more expansive sovereign rights to what’s beneath the ocean: a huge swath of the Arctic seabed, stretching across the North Pole. Although no one “owns” the North Pole, countries with land ringing the Central Arctic Ocean already have rights extending some way beyond their coastlines, under international law. Who controls the top of the planet depends on where you draw the lines. And things are becoming fraught at a time when both the warming of the Arctic and the race for its resources – possibly millions of barrels of oil and rich mineral deposits – are picking up.

What’s clear is that the low-conflict status quo is in jeopardy, putting at risk the scientific cooperation that’s flourished since the end of the Cold War. But how that would actually happen in the current political climate “is still something that’s being considered,” he said. Russia remains a member of the council, and so will “in principle” be involved in any decisions or activities, said Thomas Winkler, Arctic Ambassador for the Kingdom of Denmark. Its meetings have been suspended since last year, and no one is quite sure what will happen after May 11, when Russia is due to hand over the rotating chair to Norway. The Arctic Council – the main body for cooperation among the eight nations that share guardianship – is in limbo. Stewardship of the Arctic is suddenly in question as a result of the isolation of Russia, the largest Arctic state, over its war on Ukraine. But climate change has precipitated an unusual level of activity in the remote polar region as colliding strategic interests and melting ice stand to reshape it profoundly. The high Arctic is an internationally neutral zone that has long kept away from geopolitics.

Christ in limbo meaning