Socio-ecological crises and global climate tipping points as difficulties for expanding extractivisms: prognoses on the Arctic

ABSTRACT

The Arctic is often cast as a site where natural resources can be extracted with processes eased by retreating sea ice. This article argues that Arctic resource euphoria is misplaced – at least partly – due to the worsening climatic, ecological, and social crises that increase the costs and risks of extraction. Permafrost melt is making mineral and fossil fuel extraction riskier and more difficult, as extractive infrastructures – built with great sunk costs – are deteriorating. The climate catastrophe can already be observed, first-hand, in the Arctic. This can give insights into what kinds of dynamics can be expected globally. The deterioration of extractive infrastructures caused by the climate crisis is likely to dampen the forecasts for expanding extractivism. This article identifies interdisciplinary research gaps and needs, while offering new prognoses for the future in and through the Arctic at the interface of climate crises, global climate tipping points, and resource extraction.

KEYWORDS:

• The Arctic
• commodity frontiers
• resource extraction
• climate crises
• ecological collapses
• global climate tipping points

Introduction

In The New North: The World in 2050, Smith (2011) argues that in the future the areas north of 45 degrees of latitude will have much more strategic importance and an increased global role. However, this book, like the bulk of other existing studies, assumes that no major catastrophes, pandemics, wars, or other shocks will occur. Thus, it provides an assessment which foresees that oil and gas extraction will continue to rise, and melting permafrost will most likely not be a major problem.¹ I question these assumptions using a world-systemic approach, which analyses how the world has already entered a period of chaos where epochal, abrupt and unexpected changes will explain many more future trajectories than the popular assumption that processes of change will remain stable (Wallerstein, 2011). I merge this approach with the latest scientific knowledge on the dire situation of permafrost thaw alongside other ecological and global climatic disruptions, focusing on their effect on the Arctic. In the last decade, the body of knowledge on these global climate tipping points (GCTPs) and feedback loop events has increased, and some Arctic social science has emerged that has started to seriously take these issues into account (such as Dodds & Nuttall, 2019). There is now even more evidence that demands a thoroughly new approach to analyse likely futures, especially in the Arctic, and particularly in relation to the land and resource rush prognoses. Herein, I will bring together knowledge from many scholarly fields to make an account that differs from mainstream accounts of the likely future trajectory, including suggested areas and needs for future research.

Nine key GCTPs have been identified: the Amazon rainforest, sea ice in the Arctic, Atlantic circulation slowdown, boreal forests, coral reefs, permafrost, the Greenland ice sheet, the West Antarctic ice sheet, and the Wilkes Basin in Antarctic (Lenton et al., 2019). Of these 9 GCTPs, the extractivist processes around the tipping points in the Amazon and Arctic need to be urgently studied, as these are the most threatened settings (Roberts et al., 2021). Importantly, all GCTPs share the quality of nonlinearity; however, for the most part, this nonlinearity has not been integrated into how social science is practiced. If the unsustainable extraction of resources – extractivisms (see Chagnon et al., 2022; Kröger, 2022) – are not curbed, many forests will no longer be forests, and many ice sheets will melt. Although natural sciences are increasingly clear on the likelihood of these nonlinear futures – due to the already deteriorated capacity of large ecosystems to cope with any additional stress – these contexts are still treated as sites of linear socio-environmental change. Polluting and landscape-changing land grabs and the extraction of natural resources by extractive sectors continues to expand globally (Edelman et al., 2013; Kröger, 2019; Neef, 2021; Oliveira et al., 2021; Sosa Varrotti & Gras, 2021), potentially triggering global climatic tipping points. The forthcoming El Niño and other major global climate events will further exacerbate the already-frightening situation at the threshold of several GCTPs, such as the Amazon. In the global North, the Arctic has shown worrying signals of being close to surpassing several of its global climatic tipping points. For example, the Greenland Ice Sheet is close to the GCTP of irreversible melting, which is estimated to begin with an increase in global temperatures of approximately 1.6°C (IGSD, 2021). If the current socio-political-environmental policies stay in place, it is projected that there will be an increase in temperature of approximately 2.7°C (IGSD, 2021), which suggests this GCTP will be crossed. The aim of this article is to provide an interdisciplinary assessment of the potential future trajectory, drawing on the latest knowledge in different fields, such as climate forecasting, international relations, global development studies, and economics.

Existing works have mostly focused on how climate change has made extractive operations more viable, due to conditions generally being better suited for agricultural exploitation or resource extraction. However, the Arctic, with its unique dynamics, provides a case study of why things may not always be so clear-cut. Indeed, climate change has two opposite effects on resource extraction in the Arctic. The warming temperatures have resulted in the ice cover receding, which potentially eases resource extraction. Yet, the new climate conditions are hard on the existing infrastructure, which makes extraction more costly rather than less (including ecological catastrophes, which may be politically costly, by severely dampening the public enthusiasm for extractive operations). I will reassess the ‘Arctic Paradox’, wherein one would expect Arctic countries to rush to extract fossil fuel resources at a substantially increased rate (Heininen & Southcott, 2010). Yet, this has not happened as expected, which supports the arguments made herein about likely future trajectories. I argue that the worsening climate is not a central part of the calculus government officials use when deciding to allocate resources towards Arctic resource use policy, and developing an understanding of the GCTPs would lower the willingness of policy actors to support increasing extraction.

Through this approach, I argue that the key concepts of the ‘Arctic hype’ and the ‘Arctic paradox’ need to be seen in a new light. These key concepts relating to Arctic politics are explored in the context of climatic-ecological changes, which are somewhat present in non-social scientific studies (assessed in the first part of this article), yet are not integrated well enough in social scientific studies on extractive sectors. I argue that due to the rapidly cascading global socio-ecological crises, it is unlikely that the foreseen ‘untapped potential’ of resources would or even could be extracted as planned (as e.g. in Borgerson, 2013). In fact, the destruction of existing oil and gas pipelines, due to melting permafrost, and riskier sea routes and offshore extraction due to unexpected storms, need to be integrated as potentially vital processes in defining the contours of extraction. Thus, the ‘Arctic hype,’ which refers to claims that over-exaggerate the potential untapped resources and boon for global resource extraction provided by the Arctic (Finger & Heininen, 2019), is likely to experience a setback and will definitely face major narrative transformation as climate worries mount. The ‘Arctic paradox,’ refers to the receding ice sheets and the opening of maritime passages, supposedly supporting possibilities for further extraction (Bruun & Medby, 2014). Paradoxically, these ecological changes are caused partially by the increased extraction and its emissions and other disturbances in the environments. Hence, the ‘Arctic paradox’ may also be under major narrative transformation.

I will first explain the key biophysical changes in which the land and resource rush in the Arctic is currently situated, to emphasize that these issues should not be studied as if they happen in a vacuum where capital investments can freely flow to places around the world. The environmental, technical, political, and economic difficulties of extraction are reviewed. These include studies on infrastructural damages and costs, which are mostly neglected by government policies, but are starting to be taken more seriously by would-be investors. The social responses and resistance to Arctic resource grabbing are explored, and the varied forms and trajectories that Arctic regions might experience are assessed. The study is primarily based on an integrative literature review (Torraco, 2005) that unites different strands of scholarship to make a transdisciplinary argument, while basing this knowledge on personal field research on mining and other resource frontiers globally and in Finland. In the review, I consider and critically juxtapose works that prognose different futures for the Arctic, from different disciplinary perspectives, focusing on carving out a more nuanced and critical assessment of the easiness and likelihood of unchecked (by nature or politics) extractivist expansion in the Arctic. I also reviewed the key international agreements on the global governance around the extraction/tipping point nexus (of the UN, Arctic Council, etc global environmental governance documents), seeing whether the Arctic and global climate tipping points are mentioned. The conclusions connect the current situation to a demand for incorporating politics at the current tipping points and making a closer connection between the continuing ecological crises and existing social scientific research on commodity frontiers and other issues.

The difficulties of resource extraction amid climate catastrophes

Global temperature increases have led to a rapid rise in permafrost temperatures around the world, which has caused rapid permafrost thaw, especially in the Northern Hemisphere (Biskaborn et al., 2019). In the Western Russian Arctic, the degradation of the permafrost system has been dramatic between the 1970s and 2018 (Vasiliev et al., 2020). This permafrost thaw has already passed a tipping point and will continue for hundreds of years even if the emissions of greenhouse gases by humans were immediately halted (Randers & Goluke, 2020). The methane and other greenhouse gases being released by the Arctic thawing will further accelerate this process, making developments in the coming decades unstable for an assumed carefree continuation of extraction. Scientists have warned that this process will continue to increase as there are very few signs of decreasing emissions;² instead the focus has shifted toward net-zero targets in the distant future and dubious offsetting schemes and other false solutions to address the climate crisis. The potential of carbon that will be emitted from permafrost thawing is massive, estimates range between 260–360 billion tonnes of carbon, a considerable part of which will thaw abruptly, not gradually – these abrupt emissions greatly increase the release projections (Turetsky et al., 2019). Just a tiny fraction of this emission potential would have catastrophic impacts (Smith, 2011).

Infrastructure deterioration is also a major problem in Arctic extraction: for example, the current costs of repairing Arctic oil infrastructures in Russia is so expensive that it is doubtful, in realistic economic terms, that the planned expansions of resource extraction would even be possible (Gifford).³ The melting permafrost has damaged many different types of infrastructure, including buildings, roads, and oil pipelines. Due to a lack of funding, these damages are difficult for Russian provinces to repair (Staalesen, 2021). It is already becoming increasingly difficult to construct roads and railroads due to this melting, as there have already been heat waves in Siberia where temperatures soared to over 38°C. The Russian Minister of Natural Resources, Aleksandr Kozlov, argued in 2021 that ‘the melting ground is today the underlying reason for 23 percent of all technical system failure in the region, and up to 29 percent of oil and gas production facilities can no longer be operated’ (Staalesen, 2021). However, these realities are not yet fully integrated into analyses of extractive investments and their politics. Russia has not yet recognized the magnitude of the unfolding tipping point, as 65% of Russia is in the permafrost zone, which is not noted in federal documents according to Kozlov. Meanwhile, the use of heavy fuel oil in Arctic marine transport has skyrocketed, but Russia, due to its interest in opening Arctic shipping routes, still delays taking any action to curb this pollution (Farand, 2020). In 2020, the Russian government devised a new strategy to set up a Russian Arctic Zone, including new air and shipping ports and icebreakers to open the Northern Sea Route. However, for policy analysts, increasing this commercial shipping would be a ‘climate disaster’, due to the projected increase in black carbon emissions (among other environmental concerns), which have doubled since 2015 in the Arctic shipping and lead to much faster ice melting (Osho, 2021).

These trajectories where existing infrastructure would need to be abandoned will continue to deepen if the Arctic changes do not provide the possibility for furthering extractive capacities, but instead force the discontinuation of existing investment projects. This would mean shutting down extractive areas and depopulating Arctic towns, which have become exceedingly dangerous for human and other-than-humans due to, for example, massive methane releases, and other changes forcing rapid changes in the lived environments of the Arctic (Isomäki, 2009). The Sámi people have had great difficulties in their reindeer herding as the reindeer can no longer reach the lichen in winter due to record snow cover,⁴ and must be fed at a feedlot. Recently, many herders in Finland have switched to feedlot style, which has dramatic impacts on the life and culture of reindeer herding societies, as well as the landscape. These kinds of abrupt yet increasingly typical weather disruptions affect existing livelihoods and lived environments, the kind of land uses, and the possible ways of life. Sámi spokespersons have said that if reindeer herding ends, that will be the end of their traditional culture, lifestyles, and languages. These transformations in and through the Arctic at the interface of climate crises, ecological collapses, and extractivism need to be studied more in detail in future research.

There are a few studies which have started to incorporate the above situation into their prognoses, although the vast majority, based on my review, suggests that most analyses ignore or are oblivious to these facts. Hjort et al. (2018) claims to be the first study detailing the fundamental infrastructure that is at risk across the Northern Hemisphere permafrost area due to climate changes. They argue that by 2050, 69% of the pan-Arctic infrastructure essential to human life, including housing, transport, and industry facilities, is in areas of high potential for permafrost thaw. They also note that even if the Paris Agreement target is reached, most Arctic infrastructures would be at risk. This includes such central extractive infrastructures as the 1590-kilometer Eastern Siberia–Pacific Ocean oil pipeline, 1260 kilometres of gas pipelines originating in the Yamal-Nenets region, and 550 kilometres of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System (Hjort et al., 2018). This suggests that hydrocarbon extraction will become extremely difficult, too costly, or socio-environmentally hazardous, as the constant thawing will require re-building the pipelines. As the costs of merely trying to upkeep the existing industrial structures, buildings, and essential logistics of extraction are extremely high, there will be fewer funds for expansion projects. For example, Streletskiy et al. (2019) estimate that by 2050, Russia will need to spend over 100 billion USD to sustain existing infrastructure that will be damaged by thawing. Producing cheap commodities that rely on massive infrastructures, such as hydrocarbons, is likely to become harder – even impossible. Moreover, the situation will become even less feasible due to lower investments, massive and rising costs, and lowering returns, of pumping oil and gas in the Arctic. Similarly, slurry pipelines for pumping minerals with water are likely to be unfeasible in the Arctic. A more likely, and less costly, outcome in the worst thawing regions is for the people living in the old collapsing buildings in extractive towns to be moved to other regions, where upkeeping infrastructure will be less costly, and where the rapidly cascading effects and risks of thawing are less likely. This may suggest that substantial areas of Siberia and North America would become more akin to wasteland than usable targets for extraction, as investing would be far too risky and short-lived.

These barriers set by climatic catastrophes also affect the seas. Coastal and offshore operations will suffer from increasing storms and drifting ice, which already make the situation so perilous that, along with other factors such as the unavailability of funds, or close enough ports, make other Arctic seas impossible sites for expanding drilling (the Norwegian-controlled Barents Sea is an exception) (Eliasson et al., 2017). The melting perennial and multi-year Arctic ice will not only raise sea levels but lead to extinctions of microorganisms dependent on the ice. This will lead to dramatic existential problems for Arctic life, including the many fishing and hunting dependent populations (Dodds & Nuttall, 2019).

These prognoses make it clear that not only will forecast expansions into permafrost and ice cover areas be much more difficult than expected, but that the existing logistics and extraction operations that rely on steady ground are also likely to be damaged. Those who have invested in Arctic extraction and exploitation permits, leased land and extraction rights, or have already invested in infrastructures and operations, are going to face growing and unexpected risks. As Francis (2020, p. 17) notes, it is time to ‘prepare for the unexpected’ as the Arctic is changing much faster than predicted.

This is due to the presence of several GCTPs in the Arctic. The tipping of these vital and large ecosystems would be irreversible and have dramatic, uncertain socio-ecological consequences. The Arctic GCTPs include the Arctic Sea summer/winter ice, Greenland ice sheets, permafrost, and the vast boreal forests. Receding ice can signify dramatically different polar vortex behaviour, with long-term extreme weather remaining in specific places, such as too much snow and cold in the winter, and summer heat waves that last for months causing drought and fire. The Greenlandic ice sheet collapse could cause tsunamis and other major problems that would affect a large coastal area, even possibly changing the flow of major ocean currents like the meridional overturning circulation in the Atlantic (Isomäki, 2009). These potential trajectories would all impact social life, and especially resource extraction infrastructures.

Despite this situation, the two-way interactions between environment and society in relation to GCTPs has only recently started receiving attention (Howard & Livermore, 2021). Howard and Livermore (2021) call for awareness of the still unidentified socio-environmental change feedback loops that can lead to major changes. In my view, conceptually, the changes that occur with GCTPs are more fundamental and have different dynamics than so-called social or political ‘tipping points’, which can be reversed with the right kind of politics or social changes (see Russill and Nyssa [2009] on how ‘tipping points’ have been used to refer to physical, biological, and social referents without noting the marked qualitative differences). Once the threshold of a GCTP has been crossed the devastated earth systems cannot be returned to ‘normal’.

The social sciences and humanities fields and theories need to be better informed and integrated with the most recent earth systems theories. To avoid a global climate catastrophe, the Arctic must retain its permafrost cover and ice areas, which in turn retain its capacities as a carbon store and sink and role as an area with high albedo (Fewster et al., 2022; Miner et al., 2022). Highlighting the crucial tipping point role of ice cover melting in the Arctic and Greenland, Finger (2013, p. 2) emphasizes that, ‘The Arctic is where the future of our industrial civilization is currently being played out.’ These politics need to be urgently studied through the lens of GCTPs.

The Arctic has more delicate regime change dynamics than smaller ecosystems. Cooper et al. (2020) predict that several large ecosystems of the Earth could collapse in the next 50 years, and IPCC (2022) offers just a few years of time to curb greenhouse gas emissions. Cooper et al. (2020) underline that if these tipping points are crossed, the collapse of these ecosystems, which are fundamental to the functioning of the Earth, can happen much faster than anticipated. Scientific inquiry should fully incorporate these material contours into its core premises across scientific fields – as these nonlinearly affect the possibilities of human and other-than-human existences. Natural science knowledge on tipping points is expanding quickly, due to new algorithms predicting tipping point and post-tipping point states (Bury et al., 2021). Yet, social sciences, such as the study of extractivisms or political economy, do not currently adequately take these into account. During my literature review, the search for ‘global climate tipping point’ and ‘Arctic’ yielded just one article hits in Google Scholar (11 May 2022). That article (Baiman, 2021) lists ‘imminent, potentially catastrophic, global climate impacts of Arctic sea ice loss, the first global climate “tipping point”’, and the literature that suggests ways to avoid breaching this tipping point. The Arctic Sea ice melting is the first tipping point to be crossed if the current warming continues (Baiman, 2021). However, a likely outcome of crossing one GCTP is others being crossed. For example, crossing the GCTP for sea ice loss would in and of itself lead to more frequent catastrophic climate events globally (Lenton et al., 2019). However, Baiman (2021) does not explore the impacts these Arctic changes would have on resource extraction – the current operations or future expansion, pace and style, which need to be studied according to my review.

Neglect of the climate crisis in Arctic government policies

Despite the above and other scientific studies and local peoples’ complaints, which clearly point toward the necessity to take future and current crises seriously, governments in or interested in the Arctic are mostly going in the opposite direction with their policies. Newlin and Conley (2021) note how extremely ill-equipped current Russian regional governments are to respond to these challenges, due to lack of funds. They are heavily in debt and falling into bankruptcy. In this haphazard situation, ecological catastrophes such as pipelines and factories leaking into rivers have increased, as environmental regulations and infrastructural investments are overlooked. The time of cheap commodities seems to be ending, as Moore (2015) has generally noted, and has been confirmed in studies about the Arctic and the case of the Finnish mining boom, where costs of investing and operations have exceeded the returns in the key expansion projects (Kröger, 2016). However, governments across the Arctic still push Arctic extractivism further. In Finland, there are major Arctic pulp investments, mining, tourism, and wind energy booms. Similar trends are also present in Norway, Sweden, Iceland, and Greenland. Instead of investing in alternatives, Russia is focusing on increasing its capacity for hydrocarbon power production (Newlin & Conley, 2021).

Since Russia’s attack on Ukraine in 2022, Russian exports to India have increased, and China has become the key player in developing new ports and maritime routes for resource export in the Russian Arctic. Overall, Russian oil production had declined by 9% by early May, and was expected to decline by 17% during 2022, due to the sanctions, this meaning lesser Arctic oil extraction and expansion projects.⁵ Yet, there have been simultaneous efforts to open or try to open new mines.⁶ Russia has focused especially on building new liquid natural gas (LNG) extraction and export capacities in the Yamal peninsula, and is less dependent on Western technology in gas than in oil drilling. Studies are needed on the extent to which we see an overall decrease in the flow of raw materials from the Arctic, and which material flows are or are not decreasing. In fact, Norway’s Arctic strategies highlight the importance of expanding Arctic oil and gas drilling, and the Barents Sea has the largest share of undiscovered resources (Heininen et al., 2020, p. 80), this suggesting that Norway will expand Arctic extraction and EU such imports. The extent to which there is a change in places of extraction should also be assessed, for example abandoning prior extractive sites in permafrost areas, while opening new areas for extraction. In this, the role of the so-called ‘blue economy’ needs to be assessed – which actually turns blue water brown with deep-sea mining and dredging (similar to the ‘forest industry’ based on forest removals). For example, Norway aims to expand underground mining and has adopted the ‘blue economy’ as a key growth strategy in the Arctic (Fasoulis, 2021). Similarly, there are claims in the international media that Arctic climate change could be an opportunity rather than a threat, as shown by the May 11, 2022, Time Magazine cover story, which mounted an argument replicating the ‘Arctic myth’.

Even as it bodes catastrophic change elsewhere on the planet, an ice-free Arctic offers immense opportunities for resource extraction—U.S. congressional research estimates that there is $1 trillion worth of precious metals and minerals under the ice, along with the biggest area of untapped petroleum deposits left on the planet.⁷

This gives an unrealistic picture of the current and future situation, given the likelihood of collapse and catastrophes that are still unaccounted for. Furthermore, the estimates of resources in the Arctic are greatly exaggerated, including often unverified or inaccessible resources (Kröger, 2019). Most importantly, converging global crises (Gills, 2017) are prone to cause changes to these growth aims, both in practice and acceptability. We still do not know the extent to which demand for resources will justify continued expansion.

This said, it is clear in the next few years, resource extraction may expand in the Arctic, given the current geopolitical situation and the record high value of key commodities (Hanaček et al., 2022). The higher prices and demand from non-Russian sites signify that previously unfeasible or unprofitable extractive investments in the Arctic will become feasible, even considering the higher costs (see Kröger, 2016). The war on Ukraine has forced the European Union to look for substitute resources from non-Russian countries, which could mean increased short-term seabed and other mining and Arctic oil and gas extraction through Norway. It could even inspire wider support for opening Greenland for mining. Given these extractivist thrusts, I am concerned especially with the 2025–2050 period, during which the perilous politics of the GCTPs will start to strongly kick in. Then, the actual and political costs of the current moves expanding extraction will increase, which will tie the energy matrix to fossil fuels for years to come.

There are diverging resource grabbing trajectories between the Arctic regions, this mostly stemming from differing government policies. The Arctic states play the most crucial role in policy- and decision-making, partly due to the lack of (legally-binding) international treaties with strict regulations on extractive activities, environmental protection, or climate change mitigation. Arctic state policies regarding extractivism and the climate crisis vary, as IIASA’s Arctic Policies and Strategies report (Heininen et al., 2020), the most comprehensive analysis of Arctic policy documents, reveals. States mostly neglect the issue of climate catastrophe and its dramatic impacts on the Arctic, focusing instead on a perceived economic potential of receding ice cover, on the expected positive impacts of climate change. A slight exception is Sweden, whose policies do use the concept of ‘crisis’ to discuss climate change impacts on the Arctic (see Heininen et al., 2020, p. 95). Pollution and climate action and concerns are largely neglected as topics in the Arctic strategies and policy documents of Canada, Iceland, Russia and the United States, while Norway, Denmark, Finland, and especially Sweden, do discuss different kinds of pollution problems and risks (Heininen et al., 2020, pp. 113–114). However, also their policies fail to cover the risks comprehensively, especially in relation to rising extractivisms and their socio-ecological impacts. This stems partly from the date of the official Arctic state policies, which are from 2011–2017, and thus need major updating. Especially problematic are the Arctic climate action policies of Russia and the United States, the latter even seeing climate change as increasing energy security (Heininen et al., 2020, p. 114).

The state policies need to be analysed in relation to actual possibilities of increasing extraction, within the changing natural conditions, extraction costs and geopolitics. The EU (2020) estimated that North America will not engage in large-scale Arctic oil extraction as it has less costly and smaller-scale options. The EU (2020) Arctic Policy paper considered it more likely that Norway and Russia would continue their Arctic oil extraction expansion (unlike North America), due to sunk costs in Norway, and as this is seen as an ‘easy’ option for GDP growth in Russia by current decision-makers. Staalesen (2020), assessing the Russian energy and climate policies, shows how climate change is mostly neglected in Russia. Expanding hydrocarbon extraction is framed as essential, and no alternatives are seen as viable. This has made many, including Sukhankin (2020), who wonders about the Russian 2035 coal strategy (which foresees major expansion), ask ‘Why does Russia ignore this rapidly shifting reality?’ This refers to Russia merely preparing to adapt to some climate changes, but not combating them (Staalesen, 2020). According to Tynkkynen (2018), the Russian state has a specific hydrocarbon giant rhetoric directed toward domestic audiences, which makes discussing the negative effects of climate change a social taboo. This rhetoric exaggerates the economic potential of Arctic industrialization and downplays the dependence on hydrocarbons. The practice of compensating Indigenous people for pollution and loss of habitat to merely stifle criticism is another example of the balancing act by the Russian state to keep the constructed hydrocarbon identities alive (Tynkkynen, 2018). The longer this hydrocarbon rhetoric continues, the more likely the above predictions on the magnitude and timing of planetary catastrophes due to climate disruptions.

These moves indicate technological lock-ins are being built, based on existing grabbing trajectories, such as the Norwegian focus on offshore drilling and the ‘blue economy’ of seabed extraction. The propensity of such sunk costs tends to be for existing projects to continue, even if they are problematic, unprofitable, or destructive. This is because someone has invested and wants – or needs – to make money to pay debts, or to continue resource grabbing. It is possible that soon this situation of ever-expanding resource frontiers, will come to loggerheads with harsh realities. This is expected to happen faster in the Arctic, as the temperature increases there are 2–3 times higher than elsewhere, and the natural conditions are fragile. Francis (2020, p. 16) calls the Arctic the Earth’s ‘canary in the coal mine’.

Besides natural barriers, there are international politics that strongly impact the pace and style of extraction. Leroux and Spiro (2018) note the crucial importance of inter-state competition: if one starts to extract, others can use the solutions and technologies and have the impetus to also invest. The Russian will to expand hydrocarbon extraction is greatly affected by Western sanctions, without which it has proven impossible for Russian operators to expand Arctic oil operations, as it requires extensive technological developments and Western funds (Morgunova, 2020). Inter-state rivalry between some Arctic nations has, curiously, been an impediment to starting offshore and port-expansion projects as forecasted earlier. Imposing greater environmental regulation has been interpreted by other would-be Arctic extractive nations that the country is not interested in expanding to the Arctic – Leroux and Spiro (2018) argue this has deterred expansion thrusts. Yet, national expansion thrusts remain. Morgunova (2020) explains that – besides Russian – Norwegian will and citizen support is high for Arctic extractivism. Thus, Norway is the most likely candidate for being the prime nation to expand Arctic extractive operations, as it has funds, making what happens in Norway and its current operations extremely important for the whole region’s, and the world’s, future.

Market and social responses to worsening extraction possibilities

While governments are trying to promote Arctic resource rushes, global markets and investors have already started to mostly look in other directions. The drastic decrease in oil prices in 2020, linked to COVID-19 pandemic politics, and Russian and Saudi Arabian manoeuvres to make use of multiple global crises to push oil prices down (as they can sustain lower prices longer than other oil producers, thus eventually capturing markets, see Ma et al., 2021), and the rising flow of investments to so-called renewables instead of hydrocarbons, partly lessens the likelihood of Arctic offshore oil investments. Carayannis et al. (2021) estimate that oil and gas companies are unable to utilize their unique competencies in the Arctic, and that only one or two large Arctic projects may materialize. Considering this slowdown of investments from the viewpoint of Leroux and Spiro (2018), who emphasize that not investing does not cause leakage to other regions, but in fact creates a strong regional policy of not engaging in extraction, COVID-19, low oil prices, and the shift to so-called renewables investments in the past 2–3 years, seemed to give some hope for the timeline before the attack on Ukraine. Now, Norway is however likely to increase Arctic oil extraction, and same could happen with some other Western Arctic resource extraction sites.

Consideration of timelines is essential and suggests currently budding resistance to Arctic resource extraction projects (see Hanaček et al., 2022) is well-timed and needs to be supported and expanded in scale and scope. The Arctic context is changing so rapidly that even a few years can show the instability of this setting for investments – in which case the would-be investors, at least those losing money, should be grateful for the current resistance against their ill-thought moves to expand extraction. Shell had to pay several billion USD as it abandoned its Alaska offshore oil exploration project, amid rising Greenpeace and other global protests. Other companies are likely to take note of the risks of consumer boycotts, as even one Arctic oil leak would be devastating for the fragile environments. Such an accident would signify a drastic end to the extraction pushes, but hopefully Norway or other actors are not going to test their luck and realize those risks. Greenland has recently curbed the possibilities of mining expansion, even though there was heavy socio-political pressure because mega-mining was thought to advance independence (Blanchard, 2019). The strong presence of Indigenous livelihoods (Bjørst & Rodon, 2021) surely helped mount an effective, larger-scale resistance to extractivism (Kuokkanen, 2019). I expect similar mobilization trends among the Sámi in Scandinavia (Lassila, 2018) and other Indigenous populations in North America to be similarly crucial in resisting extractivism.

Global governance and Arctic tipping points

It is notable that in my research on global governance around the extraction/tipping point nexus, I found that current international agreements around the climate crisis, and Arctic governance, do not mention tipping points. For example, of the 30 statements signed by states at the COP26 in Glasgow, only the Energy Collaboration Agreement, even mentions ‘tipping point’; however, the term is not used to refer to the climate, but to energy transitions.

Studies on the impact of Arctic tipping points on Arctic governance suggest a need to revise existing governance arrangements, such as the Arctic Council, as GCTPs make the situation more complex (Young, 2012). Galaz et al. (2016) review how such changes in governance are difficult, since global and regional governance institutions have been created to address linear and incremental changes, not nonlinear, surprising, and irreversible GCTPs. This may be a reason for the current oversight in many parts of the Arctic in relation to governance strategies.

Hermann (2020) suggests that because many Arctic communities are already past a tipping point – rather than the current inter-state governance system – more power should be given to the four million local people living in the Arctic. Arctic tipping points have received some attention in global media outlets, for example coverage of the severe impact to global sea levels if the Greenland ice sheet continues melting (Hermann, 2020). Yet, thus far, relatively little has been done to change business-as-usual in Arctic extractivisms, or to insert the role of GCTPs into such analyses.

Impacts of possible collapse

Based on my review, most of the studies and theories on the effects of crossing Arctic tipping focus on what happens in climate science or natural sciences, but the political economy and social change aspects – which are a whole different realm – still need more conceptualization. Some scoping of this need has taken place regarding the possibility of societal collapse in general, notably in Bendell and Read (2021), wherein these kinds of discussions are made more mainstream. However, Bendell (2020), as well as Wallace-Wells (2019) – who has discussed the dire consequences of runway climate crises – has been criticized for overtly negative accounts by e.g. the climate scientist Michael Mann (2021). Therefore, controversy remains about whether changes following GCTPs will be collapse-like or more gradual. Bendell’s premise is that the world would be facing societal collapse mid-century, and that many people living now might experience this collapse; however, nonlinear possibilities remain poorly theorized. The role of and impact on resource extraction is not specifically studied in the new collapse literature. Based on the fragility of current resource extraction operations, I expect possible collapse events, or even less drastic climatic-ecological crises, to lead to major difficulties for extraction. This can be deduced from what happened to Venezuelan oil extraction infrastructure during the political turmoil in the post-Chavez era (Watters, 2021). When in a collapse situation, crucial technical expertise can be lost, and it is not easy to return to the prior production patterns, which are fragile in the current world trade patterns.

There are two distinct arguments in the collapse discussions that help in these prognoses. The first posits that there would be radical, abrupt collapse, which would be over quickly (Brovkin et al., 2021), with humans facing a fate like mammoths – simultaneous and instantaneous. In 2020, 250 scientists signed a letter that argued for the need to discuss the possibility of such a collapse.⁸ The other idea is that we are already in a slow implosion where things are running down in many ways.⁹ Wars, healthcare crises, permafrost melting, rising costs of extraction, and new extractivist resource booms, drive this slow implosion (Kröger, 2022). Meanwhile, capital is increasingly concentrated, and there is neoliberal authoritarianism in several governments, which are hostile to environmental concerns (Scoones et al., 2022) and to the idea of GCTPs. These governments seem inextricably tied to continued and expanded extraction and economic growth.

Huntington et al. (2012) generally note that the closer to tipping points, the more restricted the options for how to respond to them. Therefore, it is urgent to incorporate a GCTP theory into scholarship and practice. Huntington et al.’s (2012) remark suggests the possibility and even high likelihood that if the tipping points are crossed there will be abrupt disruptions to raw material flows. I foresee that the 2025–2050 period of the crossing of GCTPs has the potential to affect regional policy-making, thus curbing extractivisms.

The role of resistance and resource conflicts

The above discussion has focused on the biophysical and political changes which strongly suggest that future resource rushes in the Arctic will not take place in the way fathomed thus far. The role resistance needs to be better studied and understood, as this is likely to increase. Extractivist projects have been placed on Indigenous lands and periodically put Indigenous and conservation areas at risk, as shown in Alaska and Russia (Kumpula et al., 2011). Wilson and Stammler (2016), argue how extractivist logics have pushed many locals into supporting extractivist projects. However, since 2016 there has been significant mobilization against extractivism in the Arctic among the Sámi and other groups (Kuokkanen, 2019). Locals have engaged in acts of resistance like countermapping their territories against mining projects’ mapping of ‘resources,’ and emphasizing the place-specific, unique qualities that cannot be compensated if destroyed (Lassila, 2018). In comparison to the global South, with its heavily oppressive and violent polities and contexts of extraction, the Arctic setting – even Russia – seems to offer more room for local agency and resistance against extractive projects (Stammler & Ivanova, 2016). Yet, this resistance does not automatically surge in response to grievances it needs to be built by active agency and specific resistance strategies (Kröger, 2013, 2020).

Policy studies recommend making more lasting national and international laws to ensure the major planetary benefits a healthy Arctic provides (Carson, 2019). These include the high albedo of snow and ice cover, whose melting should be prevented, but is now exacerbated by flaring in gas and oil refineries in the Arctic regions, and black smoke from other burning processes (Isomäki, 2009). However, there are not many drastic changes to these industrial activities currently underway, as many think there is still plenty of time in the future to mitigate the damages. However, if these activities continue unabated for too long, the potential changes might come too late to have significant impact. The ecological degradation might be too severe to reverse if no proactive action is taken. French (2019) argues that because of the Arctic and other tipping points, one cannot continue extracting and then learning from one’s mistakes. The paradigm need to shift to building on knowledge related to the high risks of extraction, and high gains of resistance.

Concluding remarks

This article has united existing climatic forecasting research with social scientific studies on the nexus of climate crisis and extractive operations, and identified a dire need for future studies on these issues. Due to the global commodity boom the 2005–2021 period saw a notable and major expansion of extractivisms around the world and in many parts of the Arctic (Kröger, 2019); however, the future outlook for Arctic resource extraction in 2025–2050 is far more uncertain and most likely more costly and difficult, given the rising costs, risks, and instabilities caused by global climate tipping points and other climatic-ecological-political changes. Furthermore, resistance and Indigenous mobilizations, alongside rising geopolitical tensions, have already challenged and complicated resource flows. In the short term extractivism may increase in the Arctic; however, in the longer term extractivist processes in the Arctic are likely to face severe political and climatic-ecological challenges, even collapse-like events.

The Arctic is not merely just one more case of global extractivist expansion. The amplification of climate change and permafrost melt makes the extraction of minerals and fossil fuels much more difficult, risky, and even impossible there, sooner than in many other places. Infrastructures with huge sunk costs are already deteriorating and spreading pollution into the Arctic areas due to climatic disruptions. The rapidly advancing climate catastrophe can already be observed, first-hand, in the Arctic. This provides insight into the type of dynamics that can be expected elsewhere. Several Arctic regions are likely to see rapid collapse of extractive infrastructures amid high hopes for further expansion. The coming climate catastrophe is largely neglected in current Arctic state policies: Heininen et al. (2020, p. 121) identified a major ambivalence and political inability of Arctic states to remedy the conflicts of economic development and environmental protection. Economic development is the most prominent feature in Arctic state policies: the top four most mentioned sectors are mining, tourism, oil and gas, and fisheries. This has led to a situation of increasing commodity flows from the Arctic (Hanaček et al., 2022). Yet, increasingly, also other-than-human agency can quickly and abruptly change the contours of resource and commodity frontiers. Such drastic events may offer space for positive and fast political responses.

If the Arctic reaches its tipping points there is no return to the Holocene’s stable climatic (or political) conditions (Francis, 2020). I argue that the whole social scientific apparatus needs to dramatically shift to incorporate the politics at these global climate tipping points (GCTPs). Business-as-usual in the face of the global climate crisis shows continually increasing emissions. This cannot continue when GCTPs are reached and start to show their impacts. Will these tipping point politics reveal radically different ways of doing politics and understanding the role of other-than-human nature and its role in affecting political possibilities? These tipping points need to be further incorporated into analyses and policies beforehand to prevent them from materializing.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Academy of Finland [grant number 316725].

Notes on contributors

Markus Kröger

Markus Kröger is a Professor of Global Development Studies at the University of Helsinki. His research focuses on global natural resource politics. His books include Contentious agency and natural resource politics (Routledge, 2013), Iron will – global extractivism and mining resistance in Brazil and India (University of Michigan Press, 2020), Studying complex interactions and outcomes through qualitative comparative analysis: A practical guide to comparative case studies and ethnographic data analysis (Routledge, 2021) and Extractivisms, existences and extinctions: Monoculture plantations and Amazon deforestation (Routledge, 2022).

Notes

1 There is a specific chapter in Smith (2011) looking at much negative, abrupt possibilities. These are sidelined as less likely, due to the modelling approach, which required knowledge about whether, how, and when events would occur (Smith claims these were not robust enough in 2010), and the common and conventional perspective that assumes continuity over disruptions.

2 See e.g., this letter signed by 41 scientists: https://www.climatechangenews.com/2020/12/11/10-myths-net-zero-targets-carbon-offsetting-busted/.

3 https://www.worldfinance.com/featured/on-thin-ice-thawing-permafrost-dampens-russias-economic-growth-prospects

4 Global warming and the melting Arctic Sea ice seems to cause the weather extremes in larger areas, occasionally causing more snowfall and long-lasting cold in Northern Europe through the disrupted polar vortex (https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/understanding-arctic-polar-vortex).

5 https://www.hs.fi/talous/art-2000008823708.html.

6 https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/03/business/russia-china-energy-ukraine.html.

7 https://time.com/6174947/melting-arctic-indigenous-communities-alaska/.

8 https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/dec/06/a-warning-on-climate-and-the-risk-of-societal-collapse.

9 https://globaldialogue.isa-sociology.org/articles/beyond-koyaanisqatsi-reimagining-civilization.