sent by Simon McGuinness

The Independent - Jan 5, 2005
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/environment/story.jsp?story=597718

Race for the Arctic

An international 'cold war' has begun over who owns the rapidly
unfreezing wastes of the far north and what is thought to be its
treasure of natural resources.

by Daniel Howden and Ben Holst

Deep inside the Arctic Circle, hundreds of miles beyond the frontier of
human habitation, a solitary red flag with a white cross flies in the
freezing winds, its pole hammered into the unyielding rock of Hans
Island. Next to it lies a plaque that tells the world the Vikings have
returned.

The tiny island, a hostile wedge of rock poised between the north-west
corner of Greenland and Canada's Ellesmere Island, where winter
temperatures plummet to 40C below, is normally home to a seal colony and
the occasional polar bear.

Now it finds itself on the front line of the race to claim the North
Pole, a modern scramble for the Arctic that has pitted tiny Denmark
against its Nato ally Canada, with Russia and the United States lurking
in the wings. At stake, in what could be the last great territorial
land-grab, is the promise of untold mineral riches that has prompted an
increasing number of governments to throw tens of millions of pounds at
scientific and military missions in a bid to get ahead.

These days the Vikings do not come in long-ships. The Danish navy sent
HDMS Vaedderen, a 3,500-ton frigate with a reinforced hull, into the
disputed channel that forms the maritime border between Canada and
Greenland, the world's largest island and a semi-independent Danish
territory, and more importantly, only 500 miles south of the North Pole.

And the elite Sirius Patrol, a contingent of specially trained Arctic
soldiers, sleds and dogs, completed a hazardous patrol to the north-east
shore of Greenland. The success of the Vaedderen and Sirius missions in
proving their ability to operate so far north has given Denmark the
confidence to stake its claim to the North Pole.

Trine Dahl Jensen, a geologist, is heading the team of scientists tasked
with proving that Denmark's northern frontier is a lot further north
than anyone expected. And she is more aware than most that the Danes'
argument is complex and expensive to prove.

What they must resolve, Ms Dahl-Jensen says, is where Greenland's
continental socket ends and where the ocean floor begins. Under the
North Pole, the 2,000km-long Lomonosov Ridge of mountains runs from
north of Greenland to north of Siberia. If hi-tech measurements prove
Greenland's socket is attached to the ridge, they are in business. "We
must be able to argue that it is a natural extension of Greenland," she
says.

In the lobby of her offices at the Geological Survey of Greenland and
Denmark (GEUS), there is a mechanical reminder of what they are working
towards. A giant Foucault's pendulum is patiently tracking the rotation
of the Earth around its South and North Pole axis. So far, no nation has
actually secured territorial rights to either but the dawning of 2005
means the clock is ticking. That is the deadline for the Danish
parliament to ratify the United Nations Convention on the Law of the
Sea. The 1986 treaty affords coastal countries an economic zone
extending 370km from their shores. If the socket is part of Greenland,
then the North Pole could be part of Denmark.

"In 100 or 150 years, the ice may have melted significantly, making the
area available for ships," Ms Dahl Jensen says. "This may seem far away,
but in 10 years we will lose the right to make any territorial claims
whatsoever."

The scientific work has to be completed within 10 years from the date
that Denmark ratifies the UN convention. Ms Dahl-Jensen and her team
have been given #14m in government grants for a project said by the
Danish ministry of science to have "historic dimensions". The windfall
budget is a dream come true. "In any other situation, we would never
have received this kind of funding," she says.

At her desk in an overheated, cupboard-sized office lined with polar
maps on both walls, the Danish scientist with her blonde hair and broad
forehead looks a true descendant of her Viking forebears. Contrary to
expectations, the main challenge her group faced this spring, on their
first expeditions into the Polar Basin, was weather warmer than usual.
"We need cold conditions, preferably between 30 to 40 degrees below,"
the geologist says. "We can't land [helicopters] on the ice, if there is
too much water on it."

After landing and setting up camp, the team uses sonar equipment and
audio waves produced by controlled explosions and air cannons to map out
the sea bed. Some of the equipment is already in place along the
northern shores of Greenland.

But there is a greater imperative behind the latest round of grandiose
territorial claims than the workings of international law. The Inuit,
who have lived for centuries in and around the Arctic Circle were among
the first to notice it and they do not even have words for what they
were seeing. Many indigenous languages have no vocabulary for the
legions of animals, insects and plants that have advanced north as
global warming melts the polar ice and invites forest to creep over the
thawed tundra. "We can't even describe what we are seeing," says Sheila
Watt-Cloutier, chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference which claims to
represent more than 150,000 people across Canada, Alaska, Greenland and
Russia.

An eight-nation report in November revealed that the Arctic is warming
twice as fast as the rest of the planet and that the North Pole could be
ice-free in summertime by the end of the century. Around the Arctic,
salmon are moving up into more northerly waters, hornets are beginning
to buzz and barn owls are appearing in regions where indigenous people
have never seen a barn. The Arctic report said polar bears were
"unlikely to survive as a species" if the ice disappeared and they were
left to compete with their better-adapted brown and grizzly cousins.

What is for some an environmental catastrophe might be a great
commercial opportunity. Diamond finds in Canada's Nunavut have already
fired a mining rush and propelled the country into the ranks of a
top-three producer. Ottawa is counting on tapping what the government
suspects are major natural gas reserves in the Beaufort Sea, the frigid
zone bordering the Yukon and Alaska, where diplomatic swords were
crossed with the US when it tried unsuccessfully to auction off the area
to oil companies last year. The companies reportedly balked at the
prospect of finding their purchases challenged in an international
squabble.

What no one disagrees with is the riches that would come from the thaw
creating a north-west passage. The centuries old bane of Arctic
explorers could become a reality thanks to global warming, cutting
thousands of miles off the shipping routes between the Atlantic and
Pacific oceans, and delivering a windfall to any country able to tax its
users.

In August, Canada spent C$4.9m (#2.2m) in a show of force, sending
hundreds of troops, helicopters, a frigate and an ice-breaker on a
training exercise in search of mock satellite debris. Bad weather
grounded planes, two soldiers were lost for a night and a fire on an
ageing Sea King helicopter exposed the limits of the present force. This
year, the government has approved the launching of the Radarsat II to
provide high-resolution surveillance across the Arctic and monitor ships
on the surface.

Canada's Defence Minister, Bill Graham, was well aware global warming
has added a new urgency to claims in the Arctic. "[It has created] new
possibilities and new threats," he told The New York Times. "We need
more resources up there and we are going to look for ways to deploy
them. The sense is that now is the time." The government has allocated
C$70m for its own underwater mapping. One Canadian diplomat says: "To
stake a territorial claim, you must be able to demonstrate you can
actively patrol and enforce it, if necessary militarily."

Beneath the pack ice are the nuclear submarines of Russia, patrolling
the dark water. Moscow has already made a failed attempt to stake its
own claim to the Lomonosov Ridge, and thereby to the North Pole.

Faced with a common enemy, Canada and Denmark have begun to negotiate to
fund a joint programme, which will divide the hefty expenses. Kai
Sorensen, the deputy director of GEUS, says Denmark and Canada share a
common interest in arguing that the natural divide of the North Pole is
formed by the Lomonosov Ridge, which creates a natural median line
between Canada, Greenland and across the North Pole to Russian
territory.

Moscow has based claims on the so-called sector principle. A division
along the median line would give Denmark territorial rights to the North
Pole in accordance with the UN Convention of the Law of the Sea, but the
sector principle would divide the North Pole along sectors formed by
longitudes, thus splitting the Pole into several territories.

That has not stopped the Danes getting excited. "The North Pole is one
of the only virgin territories left on the globe," says Torquil Meedon,
a senior official at Denmark's ministry of science and technology.
"Climate changes indicate that ice in the Polar Sea may disappear within
50 to 100 years. That will open up the North-west Passage as a new and
valuable shipping route. It will also be open to fishing, and the oil
and gas reserves which may prove significant. Who knows how valuable the
rights to the North Pole could be 100 years from now?"

Denmark feels it has been left behind by its neighbours. Norway, once a
part of the Kingdom of Denmark, is now the world's number three
oil-exporting nation, but Danes have been bystanders. Once, the Viking
influence stretched from the Baltic across the North Sea and even, some
historians say, across the Atlantic.

Now the Danes are eyeing the chance of taking the lead in what they hope
could become the fossil fuel bonanza of the 21st century. But not all
those leading the scramble agree that victory will make the winner rich.
Ms Dahl-Jensen says there is no solid evidence to suggest the area of
200,000sq km will contain any wealth of natural resources.

Just as in long-gone eras, the race to claim new territory is, in large
part, about regaining long-lost status. "It is all surreal," says Ole
Kvaerno, director of the Institute of Strategy and Political Science at
the Royal Danish Defence College, who finds the sudden territorial
ambitions amusing."Strategically speaking, the North Pole is
unimportant. It's not at all like Greenland." The US-controlled Thule
air base has been a vital listening and patrol post between east and
west throughout the Cold War.

"It really strikes me that various nations have begun to make these
impossible territorial claims," he says. "What will be the next
territorial claim: space? If Denmark gains territorial rights according
to the UN convention, we would control the seabed and any resources
beneath. In this case, we would have to make regular flights in the area
to make sure nobody puts up unwanted oilrigs. It would be very
expensive, but not impossible."

With bragging rights to one of the last, great, unexplored territories
at stake not everyone is being rational. Mr Kvaernoe smiles wryly, and
shrugs. "The North Pole; it sounds pretty cool, doesn't it?"

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