Arctic

The Olympic torch for the upcoming Winter Games in Sochi, Russia has made quite the journey so far. It’s only a little over a month into its 123-day, 65,000 kilometer relay, but already, the torch has made it to the frigid north and even outer space. This past week, cosmonauts carried the torch during the […]

Oil and gas. Uranium and rare earth metals. Cod and shrimp. Reindeer and seal pelts. These things constitute the bulk of discussions about Arctic resources, yet there’s one resource that’s overlooked: time. At the Arctic Circle summit in Reykjavik earlier in October, economist and Sami reindeer herder Anders Johansen Eira gave a talk, “The Challenges of […]

In a 15-14 vote, Greenland’s parliament voted to overturn the long-standing ban on uranium mining. The Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs expressed in a memo that it supported the decision given that Greenland has maintained control over its mineral resources since 2010. While the decision was close, the lifting of the ban should not come […]

On Tuesday, after 22 days at sea, the first-ever South Korean pilot service of the Northern Sea Route (NSR) reached its destination in Gwangyang, South Korea. Korean shipping line Hyundai Glovis chartered a Swedish oil tanker to carry 44,000 tons of naphtha, a light derivative of crude oil, from the Russian port of Ust-Luga, 110 kilometers […]

For all the talk of China and the Arctic, there’s one dark horse that definitely made itself known at the Arctic Circle: Singapore. With a speech that hit all the right notes, Sam Tan Chin Siong, Senior Parliamentary Secretary at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and a Member of Parliament, described the contributions Singapore can […]

The U.S. federal government shutdown’s dire consequences for research in Antarctica made the front page of The New York Times website today. On October 8, the National Science Foundation (NSF) announced that it was canceling the U.S. Antarctic Research Program for 2013. The program has been placed on caretaker status, meaning that staff will be […]

Under the guidance of President Ólafur Grímsson, Iceland has strived to position itself as a new geopolitical center for the Arctic. While only a tiny portion of the country, the island of Grimsey, sits above the Arctic Circle, that hasn’t stopped it from claiming Arctic coastal statehood. With lots of shipping activity, plans to build […]

“It’s so far, but so very near to us now.” This is what Dr. Uttam Kumar Sinha observed during the opening of the AsiArctic conference at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analysis (IDSA) in New Delhi, India last week. India received observer status in the Arctic Council in May of this year, along with […]

Four months after its acceptance as an observer to the Arctic Council, South Korea is fulfilling expectations surrounding its new role by leading a research survey into the Beaufort Sea to look for subsea permafrost and methane hydrates. The East Asian country’s self-constructed icebreaker, the Araon, left Barrow, Alaska on September 8 bound for Canadian waters. The Araon will spend […]

In my previous post, I noted how there isn’t likely to be a dramatic shift in Norway’s Arctic policy even though the Conservatives will now be at the helm of government. Regardless of whether Labour or the Conservatives dominate, oil will still be one of Norway’s top priorities in the Arctic. But questions remain as […]

In Norway’s elections on Monday, the Conservative party (Høyre) won the most seats, sweeping Labour Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg from power after eight years. The Conservatives, however, did not win enough seats to form a majority government. As such, headed by new Prime Minister Erna Solberg, they will likely ally with the populist, anti-immigrant Progress […]

A graduate student recently interviewed me for his dissertation on Russia, the Arctic, oil and gas. During the interview, he asked me what I believed was the single most important Arctic resource. The answer could have been oil, gas, minerals, fisheries, or any other number of commodities. I responded that oil and gas are probably […]