Russia’s new Arctic seabed pitch reflects soft line: polar expert

Russia has submitted a big document to the UN in support of its claim to Arctic underwater areas.

Russia is seeking to expand its Arctic territory — by 1.2 million square kilometres in the resource-rich Arctic waters around the North Pole.

That’s the gist of Russia’s new submission to the United Nations for the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, which claims “the seabed and its subsoil in the central Arctic Ocean which is natural prolongation of the Russian land territory.”

Under UNCLOS, countries with Arctic coasts, like Russia, Canada and Denmark, can claim offshore territory beyond their 200-nautical mile economic zone if they can prove underwater geology is an extension of their continental shelf.

At stake: control over the potentially huge oil, natural gas, and mineral reserves that scientists believe lie under polar waters.

But there’s nothing surprising in Russia’s new submission, says Mikå Mered from the UK-based consultant group, Polarisk.

Its 2015 look-ahead on the top “polar risks” said earlier this year that Russia’s claim would not greatly differ from its 2001 one — meaning that Russia would not claim the seabed beyond the geographic North Pole as Denmark did in December 2014.

“After the provocative Danish claim in December 2014, there were two lines in Moscow: a hard one, calling for Russia to claim seabed all the way across the ocean to the Danish/Greenlandic and Canadian Exclusive Economic Zone, and another line calling for a claim that would remain more or less within the limits of the original 2001 claim.

“That second line is the one chosen and it shows that Russia doesn’t want to heat up Arctic discussions at this point.”

The reason for that is simple, Mered suggests.

“if Russia wants to attract investors to develop its Arctic, so Russia needs to avoid scaring investors,” he told Nunatsiaq News.

Russia’s submission, filed this week, which you can look at here argues that “the constituent parts of the Complex of the Central Arctic Submarine Elevations… have the continental origin.”

It cites the Lomonosov Ridge, Mendeleev-Alpha Rise and Chukchi Plateau as belonging to “submarine elevations that are natural components of the continental margin.”

This the second time Russia has attempted to prove that claim. A 2001 submission was sent back for more info — but the Russian Foreign Ministry now said Aug. 4 that “ample scientific data collected in years of Arctic research are used to back the Russian claim.”

Canada filed a claim with UNCLOS in December 2013, but only for the North Atlantic portion of its continental shelf extension.

That’s because Prime Minister Stephen Harper has said he wants Canadian scientists to do more work on the Arctic portion of its claim to prove Canada owns rights extending to the North Pole.

Meanwhile, Inuit and other Arctic indigenous peoples say they need to be more involved in the UNCLOS negotiations — “Inuit need to remain the deciders as to whether or not any extraction will happen… there’s a need for a lot more consultation and information and knowledge-sharing,” Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami president Terry Audla has said.