The Arctic This Week Take Five: Week of 13 November, 2023
Baffinland Ship Upgrade Reduces Noise and Number of Crossings As reported by Nunatsiaq News on November 14, the Baffinland Iron Mines Corp. shipped a record of nearly 6.1 million tons of ore through Milne Inlet in Nunavut this year, while reducing the number of…
The Arctic for China’s Green Energy Transition
In response to Chinese President Xi Jinping’s call for an ‘Energy Revolution’ at a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Central Financial and Economic Affairs Leadership Group meeting in 2014,1) the Chinese Government issued Energy Production and Consumption Revolution Strategy (2016-2030),2) which aims to promote…
China’s Polar Silk Road: Long Game or Failed Strategy?
The events of 2022 proved to be a year of great geopolitical changes. In February 2022, just days before Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Xi Jinping and Putin met in Beijing, where they discussed among other things…
Norway reluctant to ban deep sea mining in the Arctic
Thirty-one countries have pledged to stop all deep-sea mining in polar regions at the One Planet Polar Summit, which ended in Paris on Friday (10 November), in a deal that Norway still needs to sign amid criticism of its recent…
No place for coal in the Arctic
AT the old Svea mine in the Arctic, broken railway tracks overgrown with weeds lead nowhere. Of the hundred buildings that once made up the town, there’s almost nothing left. Coal brought fortune to Norway’s Svalbard archipelago, but that bonanza…
The Arctic This Week Take Five: Week of 6 November, 2023
Willow Oil Project in Alaska’s Arctic Given Approval to Proceed As reported by NPR on November 9, U.S. federal Judge Sharon Gleason gave approval on Thursday for the Willow oil project on Alaska’s North Slope led by ConocoPhillips, dismissing legal challenges from environmental groups. A…
Russia and China are opening a new anti-western front in the Arctic
On October 21 — exactly two weeks after what appeared to be deliberate EU-pipe and cable breakages in the Baltic Sea — Nato Admiral Rob Bauer made a major statement. “We must prepare for the fact that conflict can present…
EU urged to throw its economic weight behind Arctic conservation
Despite the EU having little direct say on the protection of poles and glaciers, advocates argued at the One Planet – Polar Summit, hosted in Paris from Wednesday to Friday (8-10 November), that its economic might can still be influential….
In Iceland visit, Special Representative on the Arctic and High North discusses challenges of the Arctic and its growing importance
OSCE Parliamentary Vice-President and Special Representative on the Arctic and High North Rt. Hon. Mark Pritchard (United Kingdom) is concluding an official three-day visit to Iceland where he discussed security and environmental challenges that the Arctic is facing. During his…
USA working with allies over sanctions on Russian Arctic LNG project
The U.S. is working closely with partner countries over sanctions on a Russian liquefied natural gas project in the Arctic as a January deadline looms on a wind-down of transactions with the plant, a State Department spokesperson said on Wednesday….