Climate Change and Northern Sea Route

Arctic Council is made of eight members viz. Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden and United States. There are 12 observer members including China, India, Japan, South Korea etc. Rush for arctic is mainly for oil, gas, mineral reserves; commercial fishing opportunities; access to Northern Sea Route (NSR), concerns such as Global Warming etc. Apart from natural resources, the access to Northern Sea Route is one of the major reasons for rush to arctic in recent times.

Northern Sea Route

There are five important arctic shipping passages viz. Northeast Passage, Northwest Passage, Transpolar Sea Route; Northern Sea Route and Arctic Bridge. Of them, the Northern Sea Route is not yet fully opened due to ice and parts of it are ice free for only two months in the year. Almost same is story with other such passages. If these passages somehow open for a longer duration, they would dramatically reduce navigation time as seen in below graphics:
The climate models currently project that the sea ice in Arctic Basin would retreat further from Arctic and new shipping routes would open thus extending the shipping season in Northern Sea Routes by 2-4 months. This raises the prospects for marine transport through the Arctic, giving greater access to Arctic Resources such as fish, oil and gas. Opening up of Northern Sea Route and Northwest Passage would also increase the number of tourist cruises and passenger vessels in the arctic waters.

Implications for Geopolitics

The above discussion makes it clear that the rush for arctic is also rush for NSR and other routes. At present, most of supply of oil comes thru Suez Canal and this has helped Singapore become world’s biggest oil storage hub. The increased marine activity in arctic has potential to change these equations. Thus, every country which is interested in Arctic is having its own plans to exploit the increased marine activities. Among others, South Korea is also doing its master plan involving some strategies and projects related to NSR. China already has ability to navigate NSR and has bright chances of receiving oil from north. Some have suggested that India should leverage its relations with South Korea in this direction.