New Arctic report predicts top “polar risks” for 2015

A new report by the U.K.-based consultants group Polarisk lists some of the “hot” issues for the polar regions in 2015.

Wondering what 2015 holds for the Arctic?

For one thing we can look to the United States — to see how its policymakers redefine the role that the Arctic Council and the U.S. — which assumes that organization’s chair in 2015 might play in the Arctic.

Overall in 2015, the Arctic will be a “geopolitical flashpoint.”

That’s according to the U.K.-based consultant group Polarisk, which recently picked up its “ice ball” to produce a report listing 10 projections of “polar risks” for 2015.

These include:

• Russia’s Arctic re-militarization:

With its Arctic re-militarization program, Russia’s military buildup will be primarily defensive and aimed at securing large Arctic areas that Russian and foreign investors want to tap into — 10 rescue centres established across the Russian Arctic to turn the region into an area “as friendly as possible to economic development.”

• “Battle” for the North Pole:

During the lead-up to the 2015 federal election, Prime Minister Stephen Harper is likely to use Denmark’s recent North Pole claim to reaffirm his stance on Arctic sovereignty. Under UNCLOS, nations with Arctic Ocean coastlines — like Canada, Russia, the U.S., Denmark and Norway — can claim offshore seabed territory beyond the 200-nautical-mile limit if they can prove underwater geology shows the seabed is actually an extension of their land base, the continental shelf.

• Global economic and financial markets:

A global slowdown could “greatly jeopardize” the goal of the new Greenland government to renew economic growth — “that, as well, will create further risks for the new young coalition, but may end up very favorable to those foreign investors and state-owned operators looking for a way to bounce back.”

• Misinformation on the Arctic:

“We’ve decided to label inexact and biased reporting as a ‘top polar risk’ because it has led to bad political and economic decision-making, already costing hundreds of millions of dollars to ill-informed investors, as well as leading to the publication of ill-informed yet official strategic assessments by several non-Arctic countries.”

• China:

The Asian giant will continue its investments in the Arctic — in Canada, Iceland and Greenland.

• Weaponization of the Canadian Arctic:

“As Stephen Harper’s tries to outdo everyone else when it comes to Canada’s Arctic sovereignty, there’s a risk that Harper [will] go so far during the campaign that Russians feel compelled to respond.”

And “the more Ottawa politicians misrepresent, misunderstand or caricature the Canadian Arctic, the harder it will be for them to attract committed investors to its wealthy northern lands.”

• Unsustainable developments:

“A simple negligence one day, somewhere in the Arctic, may lead the Arctic market to close down for years, with dire consequences for the peoples of the North. It is because many policymakers and investors still overlook this risk that we have decided to label ‘unsustainable developments’ as a top polar risk for 2015.”

• Arctic protests: Greenpeace will continue to go after Shell, and other companies, on Arctic drilling activities.

• Other polar issues:

In December, United Nations climate talks take place in Paris. “France has chosen to include ‘the fate of the Arctic; as part of the debates despite it being a possible deal-breaker. France will publish an Arctic roadmap this spring with more details — that being the first step towards France crafting a formal Arctic strategy.”

But forecasting risks is not without some of its own risks — among Polarisk’s projections: “London Mining’s Isua iron ore mine [in Greenland] is now a dead project and is likely to remain so at least until 2016.”

However, on Jan. 8 the Greenland government announced that work on the huge iron mine project, which died late last year after its owner, London Mining, went under, would now continue with a new partner.

But the new company behind London Mining Greenland A/S, General Nice Development Limited, is Hong Kong-based, with its main operational centre on mainland China — showing how Chinese investment in the Arctic will continue in 2015, as Polarisk suggested.