What’s Cracking in the Arctic

Why It Matters

Council on Foreign Relations

News

4.2 • 876 Ratings

🗓️ 29 March 2023

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

As rising global temperatures thaw the ice at the North Pole of the planet, competition between nuclear-powered states threatens to heat up the Arctic Circle even further. An increasingly minable Arctic, which contains vast natural resources, has piqued the economic interests of oil-hungry great powers, even as the warmer climate jeopardizes Indigenous tribes. Here’s how the Arctic could become the next frontier of great-power competition. Featured Guests: Esther Brimmer (James H. Binger Senior Fellow in Global Governance, Council on Foreign Relations) Captain Jeff Randall (U.S. Coast Guard Military Fellow, Council on Foreign Relations) For an episode transcript and show notes, visit us at https://www.cfr.org/podcasts/whats-cracking-arctic *Editor's Note: In a narration for this episode, the Why It Matters team mistakenly stated that Russia will chair the Arctic Council for the next two years. In fact, Russia’s tenure ends in May, 2023. As of this writing, the next chair, Norway, has not committed to restarting stalled cooperation.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Imagine a place that is very white, and all you see around you is ice.
0:12.8	All you see is vastness.
0:16.3	All you see is great expanses of nothing.
0:21.2	The ice never seems to end. It goes on forever. It's an area of immense beauty or immense
0:31.4	loneliness.
0:53.7	That is the region that is the Arctic. It sits at the top of the globe is covered in snow and sea ice and has days without sunlight. We think of it in terms of extremes, harsh, cold, barren.
0:58.8	But the Arctic is also home to 4 million people, endangered species, and a wealth of minerals and oil buried
1:06.2	in the earth.
1:07.2	For centuries, it was inaccessible to anyone but the most daring explorers and scientists.
1:13.2	But now, as climate change takes its toll,
1:15.8	the ice is melting fast.
1:18.4	New roots are opening, and the world
1:20.8	could be facing new competition over Arctic riches.
1:24.0	To complicate matters, no single country actually owns the place.
1:29.0	The US has a portion through Alaska.
1:31.0	Russia has a large sector of Arctic territory in the far north and
1:35.3	six other countries have territories of their own and in the middle is a vast section
1:41.1	that belongs to everyone and no one.
1:44.1	I'm Gabriel Sierra, and this is why it matters.
1:47.7	Today, the Arctic, where diplomatic relations
1:51.0	are teetering on thin ice.
2:00.0	The Arctic, you should think of as a frozen ocean surrounded by land.
	...

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