News: By Source
The recent diplomatic thaw between Russia and the United States over the crisis in Ukraine has had little effect there, but it is being felt somewhere else -- in the Arctic Ocean, near the North Pole.
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The author advocates for U.S. ratification of the Law of the Sea, noting that "the agreed upon 200-mile zone deal is under great stress around the world" and would benefit from U.S. leadership.
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The Obama administration on Tuesday will announce a proposal to open up coastal waters from Virginia to Georgia for oil and gas drilling, according to a person briefed on the plan. At the same time, in Alaska, the administration will ban drilling in some portions of the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas, according to the person familiar with the plans, who could not speak publicly about them until the announcement.
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A team of scientists, in a groundbreaking analysis of data from hundreds of sources, has concluded that humans are on the verge of causing unprecedented damage to the oceans and the animals living in them.
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A project to mine undersea iron ore deposits off the New Zealand coast has been rejected because of uncertainty about the environmental effects of the project, the country’s Environmental Protection Authority said on Wednesday.
[ More ]While many existing oil and gas reserves in other parts of the world are facing steep decline, the Arctic is thought to possess vast untapped reservoirs. Eager to tap into this largess, Russia and its Arctic neighbors — Canada, Norway, the United States, Iceland and Denmark (by virtue of its authority over Greenland) — have encouraged energy companies to drill in the region.
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Russia's military said it planned to sail regular naval patrols along shipping lanes in its territory in the Arctic Ocean that opened to commercial vessels only in the last few years, as Arctic ice began melting at a record pace.
[ More ]The author argues that while there has been cooperation on extracting the Arctic’s oil, gas and mineral deposits, and exploiting its fisheries, "there has been little effort to develop legal mechanisms to prevent or adjudicate conflict. The potential for such conflict is high, even though tensions are now low."
[ More ]New marine research finds are fueling a gold rush as nations, companies and entrepreneurs race to stake claims to the sulfide-rich areas, which dot the volcanic springs of the frigid seabed. The prospectors — motivated by dwindling resources on land as well as record prices for gold and other metals — are busy hauling up samples and assessing deposits valued at trillions of dollars.
[ More ]There are few things the environmental community and the oil and gas industry agree on. But here is one: the need for the United States to join the Law of the Sea Convention, a worthy global agreement that the Senate has stubbornly refused to ratify for nearly 30 years.
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