Region coveted for its minerals and rare land, the Arctic presents for the time being a low operating potential, according to the geographer specializing in geopolitics Béatrice Giblin. This is due to difficult access conditions and expensive costs.
American expansionist ambitions, Russian militarism and Chinese infrastructure development: the Arctic has become for several years a major geopolitical issue at the heart of international rivalries.
For Béatrice Giblin, geographer specializing in geopolitics, this is explained in particular by climate change and the end of the post-cold period period during which “we thought that conflicts were finished and that the dialogue was going to be able to work well”.
The return of Donald Trump to the White House – who reiterated his willingness to seize Greenland as well as Canada and its northern coast along the Arctic – also marked a turning point in diplomatic rivalries, as is the exploitation of mines and the installation of infrastructure by China and Russia in the region, underlines in the morning of the RTS.
>> Also listen to the episode of the show Living History on the geopolitical issues of the Arctic:
“Hypotheses”
According to Béatrice Giblin, the representation of a “mining Eldorado in the lands of the Arctic” only represents only “hypothesis”. “We imagine billions and billions of cubic meters of gas, billions of oil barrels and rare land. All this makes a certain number of political and economic leaders fantasize as well as certain journalists.”
>> Read on this subject: Arctic, polar Eldorado which revives tensions between superpowers
However, extracting minerals requires colossal investments. “The Arctic is a region in which the environment is very harsh and extreme. Expeditions to the North Pole cost expensive and are not without risk,” notes the geographer.
Costly extraction
Furthermore, even if the interest in the new sea routes created by the melting of ice grows, their operating potential is still much lower than commercial passages such as the Suez or Panama Canal, because the traffic is difficult, specifies Béatrice Giblin.
“During the extraction of minerals, many waste is also extracted, which poses expensive logistical problems. For it to be profitable, the price of the extracted material must be very high. […] You will not invest if the extraction costs are several tens of times higher than the coveted ore price, also explains the specialist, who quotes the example of oil, inexpensive and for the time abundant.
The decline of permafrost can also compromise the construction of infrastructure.
Interview by Aleksandra Planinic/IAR
