Arctic Sovereignty -- But Why?

After the ignominious failure of the Liberals' 'Green Shift' under former leader Stephane Dion, we should expect the party to take a step to the right as new leader Michael Ignatieff waltzes onto the dance floor with intentions to cut into the Harper Tories' centrist positioning. How else to dispel the down-market leftist Eau d'Ion that clung to the party during the fall election campaign?

Right on cue, and with Barack Obama still only President-elect, Ignatieff polished up his tough guy credentials by assuring a hooting, cheering audience of more than a hundred Young Liberal that he will keep Yankee hands off our beloved Arctic regions.

"This is sovereign Canadian territory, okay?" he told his audience, referring to the Northwest Passage.

"And let me remind you, Mr Obama, that Canada exports more petroleum to the United States than Saudi Arabia [does] -- so I suggest respectfully that you listen very, very carefully when the Canadian Prime Minister soeaks."

So from Dion's embrace of a significant new economic policy (carbon tax coupled with broad income tax reductsions) the party is poised to embrace the dramatic loss of sea-ice in the high Arctic as a segue to preserving the old petroleum economy and the bellicose rhetoric that goes along with it. Take that, Stephen Harper.

The metaphorical temperature ins the Arctic has been rising dramatically eve since it became clear around 2005 that the actual temperature is rising so fast, as a result of global climate change, that the whole vast region is turning from impenetrable ice sheet to open water. Again this year, scientists report record-breaking open water where there should be cool, sunlight-eflecting ice. Not only does this phenomena create a positive feedback that accelerates global warming, it also stirs the aquisitive spirit of every nation encircling the Arctic because it raises the possibility of a huge mineral and oil bonanza.

The Americans touched a nerve with Canadians (who fantasize that they really do care about the Arctic as a kind of 'missing child' of Confederation) when they sailed an icebreaker through the Northwest Passage in 2005 without asking Canada's permission. The Danes pissed us off with their assertion of sovereignty over an obscure island off of Greenland.

But it is the Russian government that has made many in the diplomatic community nervous. Grandstanding events like the 2007 planting of a Russian flag at the North Pole are one thing, but Germany's Der Spiegel mag reports this week that the most recent iteration of the country's National Security Strategy states that

"It cannot be ruled out that the battle for raw materials [in the Arctic] will be waged with military means."

But it is precisely such a confrontation that we must rule out, and soon. Hunger for raw materials is driven by economic growth and competition, two forces that humanity must get to grips with if we hope to stop the global slide into the ecological trashbin. Mr Ignatieff is hardly helping the situation.

There are more sensible voices speaking up to give the Arctic a fighting chance at sustainable co-existence with human beings - especially that made by aboriginal activist and Nobel Prize nominee Shiela Watt-Cloutier:

"We [Inuit and other northern aboriginal people] are Canadians, and we can continue to assert sovereignty for Canada if Canada would build sustainable communities here."

That's the catch - what is sovereignty for? What end is served by one country or another controlling a vast part of the Earth's lands and seas?

That's the question we must ask and answer, together, internationally. Luckily we have international law and we have civil society organizations ready to take up the challenge, and to those actors we will return in future posts.

See the latest detailed map of the disputed territories, drawn up by UK researchers.

See a recent CBC documentary 'Battle for the Arctic'.

(with thanks to Remi Parmentier - chezremi.blogspot.com)