Denmark is laying claim to the North Pole. i asked myself why a country would do that and what ownership of the pole would mean - for Denmark and the rest of the world. One can't imagine that this is somehow related to cornering the seasonal market on elves and reindeer. Nor does it seem that the costs of administering new territory of such strategic importance would be offset by pocketing fees from the annual North Pole Marathon. The magnetic dip pole is moving about 40 miles/year towards Russia, which, among other things, is causing enormous problems for the aviation infrastructure; surely Denmark does not want to have to subsidize yet more renovations at Heathrow, et al. or suddenly find a fleet of Russia submarines calling Danish territory 'home'. Obviously, the Danes' motivation must lay elsewhere.
An article at European Geostrategy last week states that of the five High Arctic States (Russia, United States, Canada, Norway and Denmark/Greenland), 'All but Denmark have... explicitly identified the Arctic as a key part of their national energy security policies. ' This same piece cites a USGS study that 'suggests that thirty percent of the estimated ninety billion barrels of oil and twenty-eight percent of the 1667 trillion cubic meters of gas fall into zones (beyond the continental shelf of a given state) that are... currently contested.' Of course. Arctic oil and gas - i should have known that immediately. Evidently though, the geostrategists spoke too soon, because Denmark is now incorporating annexation of the North Pole territory into its official Danish-Greenlandic-Faroese policy objectives for the coming decade.
It's plausible that Denmark's policy might be coming from a desire to support the Greenlanders' development strategies, rather than risk Greenland becoming fully independent and thereby no longer giving Denmark preferential access to its energy resources or military bases. Well, there i've gone and contradicted my own supposition: no altruism here. Backing the policies of Greenland's current administration must certainly contravene an array of Danish environmental and wildlife protection policies; at the very least, extracting more fossil fuels does not fit with its ambitious 2020 goals for greenhouse gas reduction. Contravention, however, is what right wing governments generally do best.
The Nuuk Declaration, just signed on 12 May 2011 by 10 participating states of the Arctic Council (the aforementioned five, plus Finland, Sweden, the Faroe Islands and Iceland), reads very nicely from environmental, indigenous rights and food security standpoints, but intent and action are forever at odds in such international memoranda. It's hard to envision how more oil and gas exploration are compatible with 'developing best practices in the prevention of marine oil pollution', just as it is unclear how indigenous rights are to be secured when no indigenous nations were included in the council's negotiations. Greenland is giving Cairn Energy - or perhaps Capricon, its 'nonlisted subsidiary' (whatever that means) - licenses for exploratory drilling over 102,000 square kilometers off Greenland's coast. The company posted $1.6 billion in revenues for last year and has major operations in India, Albania and Spain. As of yet, there don't appear to have been any mishaps in their Arctic operations, but the Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico hadn't had a troublesome history either, until it exploded. If the terms of the declaration are ever realized, then at least whichever country is responsible for the next big Arctic oil slick won't be alone in trying to (unsuccessfully) make it go away.
The Nuuk Declaration, just signed on 12 May 2011 by 10 participating states of the Arctic Council (the aforementioned five, plus Finland, Sweden, the Faroe Islands and Iceland), reads very nicely from environmental, indigenous rights and food security standpoints, but intent and action are forever at odds in such international memoranda. It's hard to envision how more oil and gas exploration are compatible with 'developing best practices in the prevention of marine oil pollution', just as it is unclear how indigenous rights are to be secured when no indigenous nations were included in the council's negotiations. Greenland is giving Cairn Energy - or perhaps Capricon, its 'nonlisted subsidiary' (whatever that means) - licenses for exploratory drilling over 102,000 square kilometers off Greenland's coast. The company posted $1.6 billion in revenues for last year and has major operations in India, Albania and Spain. As of yet, there don't appear to have been any mishaps in their Arctic operations, but the Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico hadn't had a troublesome history either, until it exploded. If the terms of the declaration are ever realized, then at least whichever country is responsible for the next big Arctic oil slick won't be alone in trying to (unsuccessfully) make it go away.
Back to the North Pole. Claims are apparently to be presented to the UN for a June 2014 decision, so if this matter is of interest/concern to anyone, you've got time to try and influence the outcome. The best place to start, i would think, is finding out what the policy of your own government is on the issue of releasing international territories into the exclusive hands of a single nation. The NOAA has a webcam on the true pole, so if you're ever curious about what's going on up there, this link should give you a direct line to the march of penguins, slaughter of seals, planting of national flags or whatever else happens to be in temporal focus. The cloud from Iceland's latest volcanic eruption seems to be moving in the opposite direction, so if you can't sleep and want a taste of White Night, now's your chance - before Denmark pulls the plug.
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