Senior NATO commander: Climate change could lead to Arctic conflict
Global warming and a race for resources could spark a new ‘cold war’ in the Arctic, a US naval admiral warns ahead of key talks on environmental security.
NATO and Russian top researchers gather in Cambridge on Wednesday for a workshop on environmental security in the Arctic Ocean.
Admiral James G Stavridis, Supreme Allied Commander for Europe has warned that global warming and a race for resources could lead to conflict in the Arctic:
- For now, the disputes in the north have been dealt with peacefully, but climate change could alter the equilibrium over the coming years in the race of temptation for exploitation of more readily accessible natural resources, Stavridis said, according to the newspaper Guardian.
The US naval admiral believes military forces have an important role to play in the area – but mainly for specialist assistance around commercial and other interests. He calls on today’s global leaders to take stock, and unify their efforts to ensure the Arctic remains a zone of cooperation and not a zone of competition, or worse a zone of conflict.
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The NATO research workshop “Environmental Security in the Arctic Ocean” opens in Cambridge on October 13. The objectives of the workshop are to openly and objectively address the potential instabilities and opportunities in the Arctic Ocean as matters of environmental security; to utilize academic institutions as venues to facilitate dialogues that build trust among all Arctic states, and to consider strategies that both promote cooperation and prevent conflict in the Arctic Ocean.
