By 2035, the Polar Ice Cap will have retreated beyond Franz Josef Land and Svalbard, above the 80º N latitude on the eastern side of the Arctic Ocean. On the western side, the ice will have retreated within the Beaufort Sea to allow Inuvik to become ice free all year. The Northern Sea Route across the Arctic Ocean has become viable to commercial shipping and the North West Passage is starting to open up.
The port facilities at Prudhoe Bay are now fully operational and the US Coast Guard cutters in the region can now use Prudhoe Bay as their home port. In order to capitalise on the port construction expertise in the region, the US develops deep water port facilities at Nome in Alaska. This will allow the shipping of hydrocarbons from the region, should they be developed, and would act as a trans-Arctic refuelling and supply facility for commercial traffic passing through the Bering Strait. A cruise terminal was also constructed to facilitate Arctic tourism.
Canada sought to add the Beaufort Sea on the UNESCO World Heritage list of tentative sites as a first step to eventual approval. This was intended to protect the environment within the Beaufort Sea and would limit the degree of commercial exploitation of the area. The United States did not agree to this proposal because it would limit any possible commercial development out of Prudhoe Bay, so the site was established only in the Canadian waters of the Beaufort Sea.
The European Commission introduced a new tariff regime whereby a tariff of 80% would be imposed upon goods landed at EU ports that originate in regions that do not adhere to the Arctic Council and United Nations directives on biodiversity and protecting the environment. The Arctic Council was divided in their support for the European action. The US and Canada, backed by Japan, supported the the new regime. Russia, backed by China and South Korea, did not support the imposition of tariffs. The people of Greenland were undecided about it.
Japan sought to expand the Canadian Water Exchange as part of a concerted international action involving the US and Greenland. Japan proposed to allow the use of it's desalinisation technology to further the exchange in a bid to gain greater water security. The proposal failed owing to objections from the Canadian operators of the exchange.
In a weakening of financial sanctions against Russia, Russian individuals and companies were granted full access to the London capital markets in return for ending its involvement with the separatist movements in the Donbas region, compliance with the full extent of financial regulation in London, and by allowing the UK full access to all military establishments to check for the existence of chemical weapons.
Meanwhile, China developed the Zabaykalsk - Manzhouli trans-shipment facility to ease rail freight between China and Russia. Freight no longer needs to be off-loaded and on-loaded owing to automatic gauge switching, but the extended length of the journey adds three days to shipping cargo by rail between Harbin and Tiksi. The lack of navigational infrastructure in the Arctic region is serving to limit safe passage to vessels the size of 10,000 TEUs or less.
The destination ports for freight originated in Tiksi are Baltimore in the US (whereupon no additional impositions are made), Felixstowe in the UK (whereupon no additional impositions are made), and Europoort in the Netherlands (where upon a tariff of 80% is imposed on goods landed). A triangulated trade route from Tiksi to Felixstowe, and then on to continental Europe has developed to circumvent the imposition of the 80% tariff imposed by the European Commission.
The years 2036 to 2040 will see the northern hemisphere experiencing a severe drought owing to much higher than average temperatures. As a consequence, Canada and Russia will enjoy a relative abundance of water, there will be acute water stress in China and the US, and mild water stress in Japan and Europe if resources are husbanded carefully. There are unusually high water abstraction rates in the Great Lakes Basin by US entities, resulting in a lower water level in the Great Lakes and a higher degree of resultant pollution.
As a result of the drought, there will be severe burn back in the Siberian forests with the consequence that large swathes of land will be cleared for agricultural use. There is also a higher than average failure of the cereal crop in the Canadian Prairie, the US Mid-West, the Eurasian Steppe, and Central China.
As a response to warming seas, fish stocks have moved. In the Pacific, the Bluefin Tuna spawning grounds have moved from the Sea of Japan to the Sea of Okhotsk, and the Pacific Salmon have moved from the Bering Sea to the Laptov Sea, the East Siberian Sea, the Chukchi Sea, and the Beaufort Sea. In the Atlantic, the Cod and Herring moves from the North Atlantic Ocean, the Greenland Sea, and the Norwegian Sea into the Barents Sea.
The fishing fleets of the United States, the European Union, Japan, and China have followed the shoals to fish illegally in these new fisheries, but with state sanction. The Canadian fishing fleet has followed the shoals and are poaching in the new fisheries, but without state sanction.
The climate has started to become an additional factor to take account of in the game. This creates a dilemma. Should the actors focus on climate mitigation? Or should they remain focussed on their objectives in the game? We shall find out when the calendar moves on to 2040.
Stephen Aguilar-Millan
© The European Futures Observatory 2020
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