Last April, the Norwegian and Russian foreign ministers announced that they had begun talks on resolving the 40-year dispute over the maritime border between their two countries in the Barents Sea and Arctic Ocean. In October, Foreign Ministers Jonas Gahr Støre and Sergei Lavrov met again, in Murmansk, this time to sign an treaty on […]
The fifth-annual Arctic Frontiers conference, which promotes dialogue and cooperation in the Arctic, recently convened at the University of Tromsø in northern Norway. Over 1,000 attendees from 20 different countries attended the conference, this year entitled “Arctic Tipping Points,” and heard lectures and presentations on both Arctic policy and science topics. Jonas Gahr Støre, Norway’s […]
A sad story recently published in the scientific journal Polar Biology bears testament to the consequences of the Arctic’s shrinking ice cap. Scientists from the USGS tracked a radio-collared polar bear, who swam for nine days straight in search of ice. In August 2008, when the extent of the ice cap was at its second-lowest […]
The University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs has released a report entitled, “Rethinking the Top of the World: Arctic Security Public Opinion Survey” (PDF). Based on the results from a survey of 9,000 people in eight Arctic countries, the report gives an in-depth analysis of Canadian perceptions of the Arctic, along with a […]
BP and Rosneft, two of the world’s largest oil companies, have formed a “global alliance” to explore three license blocks in the Kara Sea on the Russian Arctic continental shelf. BP is the world’s third-largest energy corporation, while Rosneft is a major oil extraction company owned by the Russian government. Rosneft will now have a […]
“The Polar Imperative: A History of Arctic Sovereignty in North America,” a book by historian Shelagh Grant on the race to claim sovereignty in the Arctic, has been shortlisted as a potential contender for the Lionel Gelber Prize. Each year, the award recognizes the English-language book that “seeks to deepen public debate on significant global […]
After several months of bidding wars, ArcelorMittal has beaten out Nunavut Iron Ore Acquisition to acquire a majority of Baffinland Iron Mines Corporation’s shares, thereby winning control of the Mary River iron ore deposits on Baffin Island, in Canada’s Eastern Arctic (map). The world’s largest steelmaker will control 70% of the shares, while Nunavut will […]
The NPR has a four-minute clip from Morning Edition discussing Shell’s plans to drill in the Arctic. Journalists from NPR visited the 300-foot cleanup vessel Nanuq, currently harbored at Unalaska. The Nanuq is one of the many response assets included in Shell’s plan in the case of an oil disaster. Although the moratorium on offshore […]
I hope everyone had a happy holiday season. I will return tomorrow, Monday, January 3 with a new blog posting.
For those of you interested in the Arctic-like conditions making the collective fingers and toes of Western Europe blue, there is an interesting blog post on the Wunder Blog. Some frozen individuals in London and New York decry global warming when they have to turn up their thermostats in early December, but the fact is […]
On Thursday, Canada’s National Energy Board will make a decision on whether to green-light the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline. Plans for the pipeline have been up in the air since the 1970s, alternately buoyed and sunk for many reasons, one of them being changes in natural gas prices. It is estimated that natural gas futures should […]
As the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is celebrating its 50 anniversary, it is coming under renewed threat. Newly-elected Alaskan governor Sean Parnell is a staunch supporter of the oil and gas industry, which could spell bad news for conservationists. On December 3, he wrote a letter to President Obama telling him to not turn ANWR […]
Bashneft has bought the Trebs and Titov onshore oil deposits in Russia’s Timan-Pechora province for a reported 18.5 billion rubles ($587 million). The Russian government had earlier sought to keep the deposits under the government’s ownership, since the two constitute strategic oil deposits with 78.1 million tons and 132.8 million tons of oil, respectively. However, […]
Larry Smith, a professor of geography at UCLA, recently came out with a book entitled “The World in 2050: Four Forces Shaping Civilization’s Northern Future.” On a Guggenheim Fellowship, Professor Smith traveled to the world’s northernmost reaches, visiting places ranging from a monastery in Russia to aboriginal villages in Northern Canada. He used technical computer […]
Greenland is requiring companies that drill in its waters to pay for a $2 billion bond upfront – before drilling even begins – in order to cover the cost of cleaning up any oil spills that might occur. Already, Greenland had some of the “strictest [requirements] made to date to any oil company,” according to […]