How Viable is Arctic Shipping?
canopic jug writes:
Now that the poles are melting, and that seven of the world's ten biggest shipping companies have suspended transit through the Red Sea, and that deforestation is drying up the Panama Canal, the site Modern Diplomacy raises the question, how viable is Arctic shipping? Even with the ice eventually out of the way, it is not necessarily the best option for transportation.
Increasingly, yes - and for a worrying reason. The Arctic is warming four times faster than the global average. Since 1978 ice cover has shrunk by roughly 78,000 square kilometres per year. In June 2023 a study in Nature Communications, a journal, suggested that the Arctic's first ice-free summer could come as soon as the 2040s, even if the world significantly reduces its greenhouse-gas emissions. As ice thins and cold-water shipping technology advances, Arctic waters will become more easily navigable.
They are already getting busier, if from a low base. The most popular shipping route in the Arctic is the nsr, which is controlled by Russia. Trade volumes along the route increased by 755% between 2014 and 2022. Russia wants traffic to increase ten-fold from 2022 levels by 2035. In October it announced a joint venture with DP World, an Emirati logistics company, to develop Arctic container shipping. That month NewNew Shipping Line, a Chinese firm, completed its first round-trip on an Arctic route between Shanghai and St Petersburg.
[...] The Arctic will struggle to rival established shipping routes. Extreme seasonal weather limits its potential for commercial shipping. But as the ice cover shrinks, its waters will become busier - and Russia will make ever greater use of them.
Back in September, Nature had an article about updating the Polar Code as shipping through the region increases. The Polar Code is a regulatory framework to try to reduce the likelihood of shipping disasters along the Arctic routes.
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