Counterplans General Stuff

AT: Cooperation

LOST is a huge alt cause to ocean cooperation

Patrick 14 – senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations (Stewart, “The Unruled World,” Council on Foreign Relations Foreign Affairs Article, http://www.cfr.org/global-governance/unruled-world/p32502)BC

The single most important step the United States could take to strengthen ocean governance, including in the Arctic, would be to finally accede to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, as recommended by the last four U.S. presidents, U.S. military leaders, industry, and environmental groups. Beyond defining states' rights and responsibilities in territorial seas and exclusive economic zones and clarifying the rules for transit through international straits, UNCLOS provides a forum for dispute resolution on ocean-related issues, including claims to extended continental shelves. As a nonmember, the United States forfeits its chance to participate in the last great partitioning of sovereign space on earth, which would grant it jurisdiction over vast areas along its Arctic, Atlantic, Gulf, and Pacific coasts. Nor can it serve on the International Seabed Authority, where it would enjoy a permanent seat with an effective veto. By remaining apart, the United States not only undercuts its national interests but also undermines its perceived commitment to a rule-based international order and emboldens revisionist regional powers. Both China in East Asia and Russia in the Arctic have taken advantage of the United States' absence to advance outrageous sovereignty claims.

AT: Resources

No resource grab – too difficult to extract

Mayer 12/12/13—CBC News writer (Andre, "Race to claim High Arctic's oil resources may be a fool's mission", CBC News, www.cbc.ca/news/canada/race-to-claim-high-arctic-s-oil-resources-may-be-a-fool-s-mission-1.2461910)//emchen

When asked earlier this week about extending Canada's territorial claims in the Arctic, Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird was clear about the rationale.

"We are determined to ensure that all Canadians benefit from the tremendous resources that are to be found in Canada's Far North," he said.

But while the federal government is eager to establish its claims to the polar seabed, some Arctic experts believe that Ottawa is putting too much stock in trying to reap the potential riches of such a harsh domain.

"The central Arctic Ocean is exceedingly remote, thousands of kilometres from any port, from any community, it is subject to extremely hostile weather, complete darkness for several months each winter.

"I could go on. But it is probably the most expensive place in the entire world to drill for oil," says Michael Byers, author of Who Owns the Arctic? Understanding Sovereignty Disputes in the North.

Because of all those hurdles, Byers adds, the economic argument for staking Arctic claims "is not a real argument."

Byers is by no means alone in this view, though it is not universal. Other prominent Arctic researchers, such as Rob Huebert at the University of Calgary, say that while we don't have the technology today to extract much energy from the High Arctic, who knows what will be the case a few decades from now.

And it is that longer term view that seems to be propelling Canada in its newly stated intention to lay claim to the North Pole — also being sought by Russia and Denmark — by making a submission to the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf.

Baird also said that Canada is delaying a larger bid for seabed rights in order to collect more data to strengthen this territorial claim.

More than Santa Claus

While the North Pole has an emotional resonance for many Canadians, the UN submission is "not about Santa Claus," says Shelagh Grant, author of The Polar Imperative: A History of Arctic Sovereignty in North America.

"It's not the North Pole that's important," she says. "It's the area around it."

Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird has said that the Canadian government is "determined to ensure that all Canadians benefit from the tremendous resources that are to be found in Canada's Far North." (Adrian Wyld/Canadian Press)

The area she is referring to is the Lomonosov Ridge, an underwater structure of continental crust that spans about 1,800 kilometres across the Arctic Ocean from Russia's New Siberian Islands to Canada's Ellesmere Island.

Under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, a country has special rights to the resources that lie on the sea floor within 200 nautical miles of its coast. UNCLOS also says a country can secure control beyond the 200-mile limit if it can demonstrate the seabed is an extension of its continental shelf.

Russia claims the Lomonosov Ridge is an extension of the Asian continental shelf, while Canada claims it's an extension of the North American one.

What makes the Lomonosov Ridge so desirable is that it's relatively shallow, says Grant.

"The ability to mine something on a ridge that's shallower would be more feasible, probably, than some of the depths around there," she says.

Exaggerated treasure chest?

The Arctic is believed to contain as much as one-quarter of the world's undiscovered energy resources. It is thought to include not only oil and gas, but significant deposits of gold, diamond and tin, as well as other minerals.

The reason Canada and the other circumpolar countries — Russia, Denmark, Norway and the U.S. — are submitting scientific data to the UN commission is to win rights to these Arctic sea floor assets.

But there is a significant contingent of researchers who believe the quest for resources is too optimistic.

"Everybody's looking down the road, but I think there are some sober second thoughts about how much we're going to be able to extract from the Arctic," says Grant.

In an essay entitled "The Questionable Arctic Bonanza," Kathrin Keil of the Arctic Institute in Washington, D.C., laments "the never-ending glut of stories about the Arctic 'treasure chamber.'"

In her view, "the picture of an Arctic as 'prime real estate' of global significance is exaggerated."

Citing evidence from the U.S. Geological Survey, Keil writes that the biggest known oil deposit in the Arctic is thought to contain between 1.3 and 6.6 billion barrels, which is significantly smaller than the Prudhoe Bay oil field off Alaska.

She also notes that due to delays, inadequate equipment and bad weather, Shell had to stop offshore exploration and drilling in the Chukchi Sea in 2013.

All of it points to the fact that the Arctic Ocean is an extremely inhospitable place to extract anything, says Byers, who is also a Canada Research Chair in Global Politics and International Law at the University of British Columbia and ran for the federal NDP in 2008.

"If we're talking about the Beaufort Sea or we're talking about the Barents Sea, in terms of oil and gas, then we're having a serious conversation," he says. But resource extraction in the central Arctic Ocean is fraught with "logistical challenges."

'Tremendous breakthroughs'

Those challenges aside, Rob Huebert, an associate professor at the University of Calgary, questions the prognostications of those who believe that the Arctic's resource bounty will prove to be more trouble than it's worth.

"My response to those people," he says, "is 'Boy, can I invest in your crystal ball?'

"To those people I would say, you may be right, but there are all sorts of tremendous breakthroughs that occur."

Huebert acknowledges that "we have no economic means of actually being able to exploit [Arctic resources] in the current state of technology and world prices."

But he says there have been a number of recent technological innovations that have allowed us to extract fossil fuel deposits that would have once been thought unattainable.

He cites hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, which has been used to access massive shale oil and gas reserves in certain U.S. states in particular.

"I mean, who would have thought that North Dakota would emerge as the largest energy-producing state in the U.S., and that by 2020 the country would be energy self-sufficient?" he asks.

For his part, however, Byers says that the sheer length of time needed to get any resources out of the Arctic seabed makes it a long shot.

Settling the claim on the Lomonozov Ridge, for example, could take several decades alone.

Then factor in the time needed for exploration and development, and it could take many decades before any company can pull fossil fuels from the Arctic floor, he says. "And who knows if we'll still be using oil and gas in a hundred years' time."

No resource tensions

Mahony 3/13 – Citing expert studies by Arctic Researches (Honor, “Fears of Arctic conflict are 'overblown,' March 19, 2013 , http://euobserver.com/foreign/119479) zabd

The Arctic has become a new frontier in international relations, but fear of potential conflict in the resource-rich region is overblown, say experts. For long a mystery because of its general impenetrability, melting ice caps are revealing more and more of the Arctic region to scientists, researchers and industry. Climate change experts can take a more precise look at a what global warming is doing to the planet, shipping trade routes once considered unthinkable are now possible, and governments and businesses are in thrall to the potential exploitation of coal, iron, rare earths and oil. The interest is reflected in the growing list of those wanting to have a foot in the Arctic council, a forum of eight countries with territory in the polar region. While the US, Denmark, Iceland, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Russia and Canada form the council, the EU commission, China, India, South Korea and Japan have all expressed an interest in having a permanent observer status. "The Arctic has become a new meeting place for America, Europe and the Asia Pacific," says Damien Degeorges, founder of the Arctic Policy and Economic Forum. During a recent conference on Arctic shipping routes in the European Parliament, Degeorges noted that "China has been the most active by far in the last years." He points to its red-carpet treatment of politicians from Greenland, a territory that recently got full control over its wealth of natural resources. Bejing also cosied up to Iceland after the island's financial meltdown. The two undertook a joint expedition to the North Pole and the Chinese have the largest foreign embassy in Reykjavik. Meanwhile, South Korea's president visited Greenland last year and shipping hubs like Singapore are holding Arctic conferences. The interest is being spurred by melting icebergs. Last year saw a record low of multi-year ice - permanent ice - in the polar sea. This means greater shipping and mineral exploitation potential. There were 37 transits of the North East Passage (NEP), running from the Atlantic to the Pacific along the top of Russia, in 2011. This rose to 47 in 2012. For a ship travelling from the Netherlands to China, the route around 40 percent shorter than using the traditional Suez Canal. A huge saving for China, where 50 percent of its GDP is connected to shipping. Russia is also keen to exploit the route as the rise in temperatures is melting the permafrost in its northern territory, playing havoc with its roads and railways. According to Jan Fritz Hansen, deputy director of the Danish shipowners’ association, the real breakthrough will come when there is a cross polar route. At the moment there are are two options - the North East Passge for which Russia asks high fees for transiting ships - or the much-less developed North West Passage along Canada. His chief concern is that "trade up there is free. We don't want protectionism. Everyone should be allowed to compete up there." And he believes the biggest story of the Arctic is not how it is traversed but what will be taken out of it. According to the US Geological Survey (2009), the Arctic holds 13 percent of undiscovered oil and 30 percent of undiscovered gas supplies. Greenland is already at the centre of political tussle between the EU and China over future exploitation of its rare earths - used in a range of technologies such as hybrid cars or smart phones. "The biggest adventure will be the Arctic destination. There is a lot of valuable goods that should be taken out of nature up there," he said. This resource potential - although tempered by the fact that much of it is not economically viable to exploit - has led to fears that the Arctic region is ripe for conflict. But this is nonsense, says Nil Wang, a former Danish admiral and Arctic expert. Most resources have an owner "There is a general public perception that the Arctic region holds great potential for conflict because it is an ungoverned region where all these resources are waiting to be picked up by the one who gets there first. That is completely false," he said. He notes that it is an "extremely well-regulated region," with international rules saying that coastal states have territorial jurisdiction up to 12 nautical miles off their coast. On top of that is a further 200 nautical miles of exclusive economic zone "where you own every value in the water and under the seabed." "Up to 97 percent of energy resources is actually belonging to someone already," says Wang.

Even if Russia exploits resources – they’ll do it while adhering to multilateral treaties and laws

Keil ’13 – Europe Director for the Arctic Institute, Project Scientist at the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS) in Potsdam, Germany, in the Sustainable Interaction with the Atmosphere (SIWA) cluster, PhD at the Berlin Graduate School, Fellow at the NVP-Nansen interdisciplinary PhD and Post-doc Summer School (“The Arctic: A new region of conflict? The case of oil and gas”, June 6th, SagePub) //J.N.E

As repeatedly expressed by high-ranking politicians, Russia is determined to boost its presence in the Arctic to protect its national interest and security, while at the same time the country adheres to principles of international law and cooperation as outlined in the official strategy. Also, the Foreign Policy Concept of the Russian Federation from 2008 states that ‘[s]hould our partners be unprepared for joint efforts, Russia, in order to protect its national interests, will have to act unilaterally but always on the basis of international law’ (President of Russia, 2008, own emphasis). This creates a conflict that Elana Wilson Rowe (2009: 1–2) describes as the tension between the ‘open’ and the ‘closed’ North, meaning that Russian ‘northern policies often encompass both more outward oriented inclinations, exemplified by cross-border cooperation, as well as a tendency towards increasing securitization of northern issues and northern territory and defence of “national northern interests”’. This tension becomes most obvious in the oil and gas sector. Russia is confronted here with the challenge of having to balance market and strategic concerns. While the development of petroleum resources on the Russian continental shelf will be difficult or even impossible to realize in the near future without the involvement of foreign expertise and capital, offshore oil and gas are at the same time defined as strategic natural resources, and thus fall under the evolving legislation and politics on strategic resources, which explicitly limit non-Russian involvement (Moe and Rowe, 2009: 107). For example, investments in certain strategic fields, including the entire offshore sector, is limited to companies with a minimum of 51% Russian ownership, mostly represented by the state-controlled Gazprom and Rosneft (Rowe, 2009: 9). The generally difficult legal and political situation for foreign investment and business cooperation between foreign and Russian (state) companies contributes to the tension between the ‘open’ and ‘closed’ Russian economy.

The Arctic’s inhospitable conditions and obstacles makes any progress in development impossible—despite thawing

Kemp and Boersma, 1/4/12—*fellow and program officer at the Transatlantic Academy **fellow ("The Great White Hype: Is Geopolitical Competition over the Arctic Exaggerated?", The German Marshall Fund of the United States, blog.gmfus.org/2012/01/04/the-great-white-hype-is-geopolitical-competition-over-the-arctic-exaggerated/)//emchen

WASHINGTON—Slowly but surely, climate change is opening up the Arctic. Greenland’s glaciers and ice fields are melting, sea ice around the North Pole is decreasing each year, and the huge permafrost areas of Russia and Canada are beginning to thaw. This has led to widespread speculation of a Great Game-style scramble for the region’s abundant resources. Many studies, including those by the private sector and the U.S. Geological Survey, confirm that there are vast treasure-troves of oil, gas, and minerals in the Arctic. Yet, with the exception of iron ore in Greenland, these resources have not yet been exploited. In fact, despite rising temperatures, the impediments to extracting and transporting most resources from the Arctic will remain formidable for the foreseeable future.

One factor facing developers is that, despite global warming, the Arctic remains largely inhospitable, and there are innumerable obstacles to cashing in on its riches. Oil rigs require airstrips, roads, electricity generation, and pipelines; mining operations require port facilities and technology to withstand the bitterest winters; and all resource extraction requires a specialized labor force. For the private sector to develop any part of the Arctic, enormous investments of capital and labor would be necessary.

While there is a possibility that the Arctic seaways – running through Canada and along the northern Russian coast – will become open to transportation for most of the year, large container ships are unlikely to use these routes. The Arctic will remain a dangerous trade route for commercial shipping, and neither Canadian nor Russian authorities can offer much in the way of support and rescue facilities in the event of emergencies along their northern borders. The dangers are further evidenced by recent investments in traditional sea routes and facilities, such as the Panama Canal. By contrast, the port of Reykjavik in Iceland, which would be ideally positioned to serve as a future hub for northern sea routes, has seen no such investment.

In the long run, permafrost thawing may prove to be the greatest obstacle to Arctic developers. It has made the construction of roadways and airfields much more difficult, and in some cases has caused extractive projects to be abandoned. This process has already caused enormous problems in Russia, where large cities such as Yakutsk and several large river ports, pipelines, conventional hydro electricity plants, and even a nuclear power station lie in permafrost areas. Yakutsk in particular has seen severe damage to its infrastructure and the closure of a runway of its airport as a result of the land below melting.

Theres no race in the artic for resources – too expensive and no tech

Ruel 11 – Public Relations and Communications for Canadian Government (Geneviève, “The (Arctic) show must go on: natural resource craze and national identity in Arctic politics”) International Journal. http://go.galegroup.com.proxy.lib.umich.edu/ps/i.do?action=interpret&id=GALE%7CA279137180&v=2.1&u=lom_umichanna&it=r&p=AONE&sw=w&authCount=1 //Laura T

In 2000, the Canadian government released a policy paper on the "northern dimension of Canada's foreign policy." Among the objectives pursued by the policy was "to enhance the security and prosperity of Canadians." After stressing the sense of northernness as a central aspect of Canadian identity, the policy asserts that "[Canadian] future security and prosperity are closely linked with our ability to manage complex northern issues." (2)

In July 2009, Chris Nelder asked in Business Insider, "How much oil is in the Arctic?" (3) Numbers have been put before investors, politicians, and academics, often accompanied by a waterfall of words referring to a hypothetical yet impressive amount of natural resources lying beneath the seabed. The amount and quality of resources is highly uncertain and the numbers change from year to year. The amount of natural resources remains hypothetical, although it is enthusiastically propounded in speeches.

In 2009, a study conducted by the United States Geological Survey confirmed that the Arctic holds an important natural resource potential. The Arctic is estimated to hold 30 percent of the world's undiscovered natural gas and 13 percent of the world's undiscovered oil. Geological Survey scientists explain that these estimates were arrived at using a probabilistic geology based methodology. The Arctic continental shelves are assessed as "one of the world's largest remaining prospective areas." The authors of the study insist that undiscovered "natural gas is largely concentrated in Russia" and hence does not fall within a contested region. (4) Though the numbers are impressive, the authors doubt that a major shift in oil and gas production is likely to occur. Frederic Lasserre argues that no more than five percent of the natural resources are to be found outside of the exclusive economic zones already under the control of one or another Arctic state. (5) The recognition of these aspects should reduce the craze about natural resources.

Apart from oil and gas, the Arctic abounds in other mineral resources, including diamonds, gold, silver, tin, iron ore, zinc, uranium, and nickel. (6) In addition, Canada has now become the world's third-largest producer of diamonds, with mines operating in Nunavut and the Northwest Territories. (7) The government of Canada has highlighted diamonds, oil and gas, and mining and exploration as the three priority economic sectors in northern Canada. (8)

Aside from conflict, many headlines also focus on an alleged race in the north. If indeed there is a race among Arctic nations, presumably it is not a race for natural resources. It is rather one of handling climate change and adapting politically, socially, and legally to the physical and political manifestations of rapid warming. At present, it is a sprint to terminate the mapping of their continental shelves extension, as the United Nations convention on the law of the sea (UNCLOS) imposes a deadline on its parties for the submission of their scientific data and claims. The convention stipulates that states have 10 years following their ratification of the text to submit their claims over the extended seabed to the UN commission on the limits of the continental shelf. It is in effect a race to develop and acquire maritime technology as the north faces the arrival of newcomers. It is not, however, a race with a sole--wealthy--winner at the finish line.

Although mining activities already take place in the Arctic, there is no doubt that the economic activities related to oil and gas production will be very expensive. "To exploit [Arctic oil and gas] will require technologies that don't yet exist, enormous amounts of capital, and a high tolerance for risk. In other words, the price of oil will have to be high, and stay high, to make the effort worthwhile." (9) If some believe the world's energy resources have reached this expected high value, the current economic conjuncture posed an interlude to the prospecting activities. (10)