The Polar Retrospective – Russia-US Arctic oil talks, a withdrawn documentary, ‘glacial fracking’, and Greenlanders’ genes
The Polar Retrospective looks at recent stories from around the world’s polar regions. This week we look at the latest statement of Russian official Kirill Dmitriev, a now withdrawn documentary, glacial fracking, and a new study on Greenlandic genes.
The Polar Retrospective is a collaborative effort by the Polar Journal AG team. Each writer chooses a topic they found interesting and important in the past week. The initials at the end of each section indicate the author. We hope you enjoy it.
US and Russia suddenly closer over Arctic projects at Riyadh meeting
Last week in Riyadh, the Arctic was discussed by Russian and US delegations on the margins of ceasefire negotiations in Ukraine – with Kiev and its Western allies on the sidelines.
“It was more a general discussion – maybe joint projects in the Arctic. We specifically discussed the Arctic,” reports POLITICO after a telephone call with Kirill Dmitriev, director of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), who was at the negotiations. This fund focuses on key sectors of industry and technology.
Last September, the RDIF and the Russian oil companies announced that they wanted to create a special fund, “to support the development of service companies and technologies crucial for oil and gas extraction”, explained Shumanov Ilia, Executive Director of Arctida, an NGO dedicated to transparency and sustainability in the Arctic, to Polar Journal AG.
The issue is a major one for the Kremlin. Since 2014 Vladimir Putin has been trying to wean himself off Western technologies to support his industry while avoiding sanctions, but it hasn’t worked out as planned. “Russia still needs technologies from abroad to keep the industry going on at the same level,” he points out.
Some projects, such as the Pobeda offshore oil field in the Kara Sea – a joint discovery by Igor Sechin’s Rosneft and ExxonMobil – never got off the ground. The American company withdrew in 2014, after the annexation of the Crimea.
Since 2022, US companies from mining sector with contracts in Russia, such as SLB, Weatherford or ExxonMobil have been under pressure. As was the case recently, in January, SLB announced that it was aligning itself with the latest set of sanctions.
“I guess the invitation to come back, as announced by Dmitriev, is also a way to avoid taking control of the assets of the companies that still operate in Russia.” considers Shumanov Ilia. “I assume that if it happened, it would require additional investments and costs on behalf of the Russian Federation to continue the operation, and probably at the moment, there are no eligible businesses or authorities willing to take on the responsibility.”
Even if the content of Kirill Dmitriev’s statements is still abstruse, the fact remains that the rapprochement between Russia and the USA is sudden.
“This development could have long-term implications for Arctic energy, geopolitics, and international cooperation in the region”, according to High North News. C.L.
Contested Greenland documentary withdrawn after heavy criticism
400 billion Danish crowns or about 54 billion euros. That is (or was) the central figure in a controversial documentary published a couple of weeks ago by the DR – Denmark’s public broadcaster.
The figure is an estimate of the total amount of revenue made by Denmark in a period of more than a century from a cryolite mine in south Greenland. After the release of the documentary, the size of this figure and the way it was calculated came under heavy criticism from Danish economists and politicians alike, including the minister of culture.
After initially defending their publication, DR has now decided to apologize, withdraw the documentary from their website, and fire the editor in charge of it.
This, in turn, has led to criticism in Greenland where the documentary has become an important talking point ahead of the election on March 11th. There, the documentary was felt to reframe the usual story of Greenland’s relationship to Denmark.
Among the critics of the decision to withdraw the documentary was Greenland’s prime minister Muté B. Egede, who himself participated as a source in the documentary.
“What a blunder by DR to unpublish Orsugiak – Greenland’s White Gold. It is pure and simple denial of the essence of the documentary—namely, that Denmark has profited greatly from us, at our expense. I miss the recognition that we, as a people, have been treated unequally,” he wrote in a statement on Facebook. O.E.
‘Glacial fracking’ – Glaciers in the Arctic release significant amounts of methane
An international research team led by Dr. Gabrielle Kleber and Dr. Leonard Magerl, both researchers at iC3 in Tromsø, has shown for the first time in a new study that melting Arctic glaciers release significant amounts of the greenhouse gas methane. The study of a small glacier in Svalbard showed that glacier meltwater rivers transport large quantities of methane to the surface.
The researchers analyzed the methane concentrations in the meltwater of the Vallåkrabreen glacier and found levels up to 800 times higher than the natural concentration at atmospheric equilibrium. Unlike previous studies that attributed subglacial methane to microbial production, this methane originates from thermogenic sources – meaning it had been trapped in geological formations for millions of years.
«Glaciers act like giant lids, trapping methane underground. But as they melt, water flushes through cracks in the bedrock, transporting the gas to the surface. You can think of as a natural ‘fracking’ process process, or as we have called it: ‘glacial fracking’,» says Dr. Leonard Magerl in a iC3 press release.
During the 2021 melt season alone, the team estimated total methane emissions from this single glacier at around one tonne, with 63 percent originating from the meltwater flow.
The study suggests that similar methane emissions could be occurring in many other glacial regions across the Arctic. Svalbard alone has over 1,400 land-terminating glaciers, many of which rest on methane-rich sediments.
This largely overlooked methane source could significantly contribute to climate change by driving further warming, which in turn accelerates glacier melt – creating a self-reinforcing cycle. J.H.
New study lifts the veil on Greenlanders’ genes
Research led by an international team of geneticists, public health specialists and environmental scientists on the genetic analysis of Greenlanders has revealed the genetic variations of the island’s population. The findings, published in Nature on 12 February, also pave the way for genomics-based health care.
The researchers sequenced the DNA of almost 6 000 Greenlanders, or 14% of the island’s total adult population. The results enabled the researchers to determine that Greenland was first populated by a very small group of people. This group, consisting of less than 300 people, arrived from Siberia via North America during the last 1 000 years. The group then broke up into smaller groups. These scattered groups rarely intermarried and developed specific genetic variants, such as a gene involved in the metabolism of fatty acids from seal or whale meat.
However, this isolation has favoured certain recessive genes that can have a negative impact on health. For example, one variant has made Greenlanders more susceptible to a certain type of liver disease.
This research therefore fills a gap in genetic research. Until now, 80% of all genetic research has been carried out on people of European origin. Greenlanders have therefore been largely under-represented, which has led to inequalities in genomics-based health care. M.B.
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