BERLIN — Climate change is rapidly becoming one of the most divisive issues of our time. Depending on where you find yourself — geographically or politically — you’ll be confronted with distinct interpretations of what is happening to our planet.
On the other side, there’s either a denial of those facts or science with a spin. The latter was on display in Finland on Monday, where Secretary of State Mike Pompeo objected to climate change action references in a key Arctic policy statement, and instead preferred to highlight potential advantages of global warming for global trade.
“Steady reductions in sea ice are opening new passageways and new opportunities for trade,” Pompeo said.
U.S. allies in the Arctic Council — Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden and Canada — were stunned by his stance.
Speaking to Finland’s public broadcaster, the director of the University of Lapland’s Arctic Center, Timo Koivurova, said tensions with Russia were one reason the Arctic Council faced a difficult time ahead. “But mostly it’s been about the Trump presidency and their stance toward climate change, which really has made things difficult,” Koivurova said.
“I feel like I got a slap in the face,” Liisa Rohweder, the CEO of WWF Finland, which is an observer at the Arctic Council, told the broadcaster.
The Finnish chairman of the Arctic Council, Aleksi Harkonen, had earlier indicated that no statement would be passed without a climate change mention: “Provided we have a declaration, climate change will be addressed.”
To other members of the Arctic Council, the latest report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — which found that 95 percent of the region’s thickest floating sea ice has already melted — added a sense of urgency ahead of the meeting this week.
U.S. efforts to remove the references were first reported by The Washington Post on May 2, but other members of the Arctic Council have continued to try to negotiate a reversal. On Monday, Pompeo appeared to stick with his stance, however.
Instead of climate change, he focused on more traditional foes: Russia and China.
“We’re entering a new age of strategic engagement in the Arctic, complete with new threats to the Arctic and its real estate, and to all of our interests in the region,” Pompeo said.
The secretary of state on Monday joined others in comparing the trade route’s growing accessibility to the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, which allowed ships to go straight from the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea. But the northern route would cut the distance by an additional 5,000 miles, from 13,000 to about 8,000. Container ships would arrive about two weeks faster, which would make them competitive with trains that cost twice as much.
Last summer, an ice-class vessel owned by Danish shipping giant Maersk became the first container ship to complete the route as an experiment.
Estimates of when that sea route would be ice-free in summer have shortened, as the impact of climate change has progressed. Copenhagen Business School researchers said that the route could become easily accessible to normal container ships at some point within the next 25 years.
The Kremlin sees the Northern Sea route as a future revenue source and may bill companies seeking to pass its exclusive economic zone. Russia has also invested into military bases in the Arctic region to secure its claims on natural resources in the region.
Meanwhile, China is hoping to expand its Belt and Road Initiative to the Arctic and to build economic hubs there. Last year, China called itself a “near-Arctic state,” even though it is located about 1,000 miles from the Arctic, and called for a “Polar Silk Road.”
Amid Beijing’s territorial claims in the South China Sea, concerns have mounted that China might be increasingly willing to defend its trade interests with military might, even though experts say that a similar scenario in the Arctic Sea is unlikely, at least in the near future.
The northern route would also give China an alternative to a southern route dominated by U.S. allies.
On Monday, Pompeo dismissed China’s claims to be a “near-Arctic state” and warned of South China Sea scenarios in the region. Occupying a bigger area than the Mediterranean Sea, the sea that stretches from China to Indonesia holds oil and gas reserves but is also crucial to global trade routes. China views most of the sea as part of its territory and has constructed artificial islands around reefs and rocks, but other nations in the region are rejecting the Chinese claims. The United States is supporting none of those claims and wants to preserve the status quo.
China on Tuesday rejected Pompeo’s criticism, with Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang saying that the remarks were “inconsistent with the general trend of peaceful cooperation in the Arctic, completely confuses right with wrong, and has ulterior motives.”
Beijing also appeared to reject Pompeo’s stance on climate change, with Shuang saying that “on the cross-regional and global issues of the Arctic, China will not be absent and can and will play a constructive role."
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