There’s oil and gas in the Antarctic, too, which global warming may open up. But as the U.K. and others stake claims, scientists wonder what it would cost environments there, and ultimately the planet
LONDON – As Russia, Canada and Denmark roll up their sleeves and flex their muscles over the Arctic and North Pole, planting titanium flags on the ocean floor and planning new military bases around the Arctic Circle, a similar drama is unfolding at the opposite end of the Earth.
Britain is considering submitting data to the United Nations Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS) that would give the U.K. exclusive economic rights to over a million square miles of seabed off the coast of its Antarctic territory. Australia has already put in their own claim to the seabed off their Antarctic territory, and there is little doubt the other five nations that claim a slice of the continent – Norway, Argentina, Chile, France, and New Zealand – will do so as well by a 2009 deadline.
This will all be based on article 76 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which gives every nation in the world economic rights to the seabed up to 560 kilometres off its coastline or continental shelf (the same basis for the Russian claims in the Arctic).
Russians and Canadians have long made claims to the North Pole – though technically it belongs to no one – and have seen the Arctic as part of their national identities (who among Canadians, didn’t once proudly think of Santa Claus as a citizen?). But why would anyone feel the need to claim territory off the shore of the Antarctic, a nearly uninhabited frozen island we only reached a hundred years ago?
The motivation lies deep under the sea floor: minerals, oil and gas. It is now nearly impossible to drill in Antarctic waters, mainly because the weather is so severe.
But there may come a day when oil rigs start firing up – perversely because global warming, caused in part by burning fossil fuels, is rendering the Antarctic environment more hospitable to exploration. Meanwhile new freezer-friendly technologies are being developed. Chile is preparing to mine for gold beneath one of their glaciers, and Norway has just opened the world’s first oil operation north of the Arctic Circle.
“This year represents a wake-up call,” says professor Robert Huebert, a political scientist at the University of Calgary.
“For those of us who have been following the Arctic, there is a feeling that we are witnessing changes that have been 20 years in the making. There is a rare combination of political, strategic and cultural changes coming together: the Arctic is changing.”
And “What happens in the Arctic might happen several decades later in the Antarctic,” says professor Klaus Dodds, of the University of London’s department of geography.
While national pride is behind some recent assertions of sovereignty, natural resources may be more fundamental.
“What is happening in the Arctic and in the Antarctic is the continuation of a long tradition of flag waving, but (now) below the ice,” he says. “The Australians, British, Canadians and Russians are all preparing the ground. They are basically saying that although they may not do anything right now with regards to resource exploitation, they are keeping their options open – who knows what the world will look like in 20 years’ time?”
Half a century ago, few thought this would happen. The 1959 Antarctic Treaty put a freeze on all seven previous claims, with the intention of preserving the continent as a demilitarized zone and a haven for scientific research. All mineral exploitation south of 60 degrees latitude is supposed to be barred until at least 2048.
“I’d love to say that nothing will happen until 2048, but I don’t think anyone should make any predictions,” Dodds adds. Which, he says, is disheartening, given the significance of the 1959 treaty. It has long been hailed as “one of the success stories of international law, in that the regime has been supported by all member states, including Russia, Germany, Japan and the U.S., even through the worst days of the Cold War,” says professor Gillian Triggs, dean of the University of Sydney law school in Australia, and an expert on the Law of the Sea and the Antarctic Treaty.
So if Antarctica is officially nobody’s territory,would these claims violate the 1959 Treaty? Technically no, says Triggs. The seven nations that claim territory in Antarctica did so before the 1959 treaty – in Britain’s case, back in 1908 with the early explorers. So those claims are not in breach of Article 4 (2) of the Antarctic Treaty, which states that “no new claim, or enlargement of an existing claim to territorial sovereignty in Antarctica shall be asserted while the present treaty is in force.”
“Continental shelf rights exist as a consequence of the original territorial claim. Delimitation is not therefore either a `new claim or an enlargement of an existing claim,'” she says.
Dodds agrees that there is “nothing illegal” about seabed claims – but says they violate the spirit of the 1959 Treaty, which was supposed to mark a milestone for international peace and cooperation.
The British claims have ruffled the feathers of Chile and Argentina, who have long felt more entitled to territory on the continent. They are almost certainly going to put in their own claims, which will overlap with each other’s as well as with Britain’s.
“Clearly the treaty is starting to come under pressure – it is difficult to see the regime holding as it has done. It will probably begin to exist in principle only as states start to eat away at the edges,” says professor Martin Pratt, director of research in the international boundaries research unit at Durham University in England. “A lot will depend on the price of oil and gas.”
So how will the century pan out for Antarctica? Will this unusual jurisdiction be carved up for exploitation?
“Development is all going to be driven by the price of the resource, and when the resource is valuable or scarce enough, I wouldn’t count on any treaty to protect the continent,” says professor Bill Fraser, an ecologist at Montana State University who has been conducting field research on the continent’s western peninsula since 1974.
But as in the Arctic, the hunger for development raises questions about the future of one of the most fragile, and important, ecosystems on Earth. Increasingly, protection for the poles is being recognized as protection for the planet.
“Both the Arctic and the Antarctic are barometers of climate-change effects – they are the canaries in the coal mine,” says Fraser.
Over the past 50 years, the average midwinter temperature at Fraser’s research station has increased by about six degrees Celsius – five times the global average, he says.
We are all familiar with the plight of the polar bear, languishing from a lack of sea ice and, therefore, the seals on which they prey, and the same thing is happening in the Antarctic. Shrimp-like krill, for instance, are in decline – and therefore so are penguins, whales and the rest of the food chain that depends on them.
One of the culprits in warming is the loss of “albedo,” or reflectivity. Snow and ice reflect sunlight, which keeps the planet cooler. But as the ice caps melt, we lose their protective reflection, trading it for water, which absorbs the sun’s heat. This causes the earth to soak up more sunlight and heat up even more, causing more snow and ice to melt. On and on in a spiral.
Making matters worse for the Antarctic ecosystem is illegal fishing that has decimated fish populations, says Fraser.
“One fishery after another is collapsing around the continent. It’s a bleak picture. If you combine the effects of fishing and climate change, you are looking at a system that is on the verge of collapse – it is reaching the tipping point, beyond which there is a good chance it won’t recover.”
Humankind needs to strengthen environmental protections for the poles, rather than opening them up for development, says Karen Sack, oceans policy advisor for Greenpeace International, the global environmental watchdog.
“We need to make sure that Antarctica stays as pristine as it can. Our weather systems are largely driven by the Antarctic, so as global warming brings change, we have to watch what is going on there even more closely so we can understand where that weather is coming from and what the possible ramifications are.”
Scientists are concerned that the polar ice caps could melt completely; reliable climate data shows they are melting much faster than anyone had expected.
If they disappear, ocean levels could rise by up to 25 metres, according to NASA scientist and Columbia University climatologist James Hansen.
He estimated in 2006 that humankind had about 10 years to take decisive action on warming or risk environmental catastrophe.
Given these concerns, the focus on looking for resources in the Antarctic misses the point entirely, says professor Thomas Homer-Dixon at the Trudeau Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Toronto.
“This all reflects a broader misunderstanding of the implications of climate change,” says Homer-Dixon, who holds the George Ignatieff chair of peace and conflict studies. “The Arctic Ocean opens up because of our profligate use of fossil fuels, and what’s the first thing we think about? Going up there and looking for more fossil fuels.
“The media hype over resource exploration, new ice-free passages, increased shipping traffic – I think those issues are wholly exaggerated and overblown,” says Homer-Dixon. “They will happen. And there will be nasty little disputes. But believe me, when we lose the ice at the poles, we’re going to be worried about other things.”