WASHINGTON – In 2017, National Geographic footage of a starving polar bear foraging through trash for something to eat captured national headlines. The video shows the bear taking shifting, lethargic steps toward a rusty bin and plunging his head in to find food. For oil companies and military contractors, that polar bear signals a massive potential pay day.
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the arctic is rapidly losing ice coverage, especially during summer months. Lawson W. Brigham, a scholar of arctic studies, speculated in the 2013 book “The Fast Changing Arctic” that the entire region could become ice free for a short window during the summer by 2030.
That environmental damage creates new opportunities to cultivate more oil.
Mead Treadwell (R), a member of the US Arctic Research Commission and former lieutenant governor of Alaska, has dedicated his policy career to making the case for the 49th state allowing the US to achieve energy independence. He’s not alone, and his policy message is echoed by American national security professionals.
President Joe Biden (D) approved an $8 billion petroleum drilling project in arctic Alaska in 2023, backing away from a 2020 campaign promise to halt all oil drilling on federal land. The US Department of the Interior argued that the move was part of a broader strategy balancing energy independence and clean energy priorities.
As the US explores energy production avenues in the warming arctic, Russia has ramped-up investments in icebreaker vessels for petroleum and natural gas production.
Security analysts are increasingly concerned that the receding ice will create a new venue for military tensions between China, Russia and the United States as the three superpowers could potentially vie for trade routes and drilling space.
A 2011 Implications of Climate Change for Naval Forces report argued that the US is at a disadvantage in the arctic due Congress refusing to participate in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. It further argued for the necessity of increased transnational cooperation with Canada and other nations in the global north.
While the US is in the near future due to a general isolationist bent in the national legislature, Congress waded further into economic and military establishment in the arctic on Thursday.
The US, Canada and Finland entered into the Icebreaker Collaboration Effort (ICE Pact) on Thursday, an allyship that will fund a fleet of polar icebreakers for economic and security expansion. It marks a new defensive action that will surely be noticed by business and military leaders in Russia and China.
Senator Maria Cantwell (D) celebrated the passage of the policy on Friday in a media release.
“We are an Arctic nation, and today’s announcement makes it clear to the world, especially Russia and China, that we are serious about having a year-round presence in the Arctic,” Cantwell said.
Cantwell’s office says that the new fleet will help ICE Pact nations become more competitive with Russian and Chinese icebreaker vessels.
According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, it costs about $1 billion to build an icebreaker vessel.
Under the ICE Pact’s current language, the companies who will assist in developing the icebreaker fleet have not yet been determined and will be announced near the end of 2024. At that point, Congress will decide upon the proper funding level for the project.
While the climate emergency may not have benefited the arctic polar bear, it has opened the way for additional financial opportunities for western nations in the global north, including military and oil drilling outposts.
