The Northern Sea Route (NSR) might change the global trading routes with the influence of Russia and China, however, it might bring bigger harm.
In recent years, the NSR has become a strategic maritime passage being an alternative route for connecting Europe to Asia along Russia’s Northern coast. The Arctic route has shone with the rough impact of global warming on the Arctic, causing the ice to melt with rising temperatures, making the route a more accessible and faster option every year. It is estimated that the route can even become ice-free at the end of the century. Given the potential the NSR holds and its route through Russia’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), the Russian government didn’t hesitate to become a highly influential party on the issue, eventually holding hands with China to develop the Arctic.
The major issue with using Arctic routes is the change in seasonal sea-ice patterns on routes. Especially in harsh arctic climates in winter, Arctic routes become mostly inaccessible due to the formation of thick sea ice. According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center the sea ice can thicken up to five meters, but the sea ice thinning caused by climate change causes the ice to remain mostly at one to two meters. However, the ships don’t only go through flat ice but may have to cut through 5 to 20 meter thick ice ridges. Russia and China suggest expanding and making the NSR accessible all year round with the use of nuclear-powered icebreakers.
For this purpose, Rosatom started to cooperate with the Chinese company Hainan Yangpu NewNew Shipping with the agreement they signed at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, managing joints on the operation of the shipping line and implementing renovations in ice-class container ships for NSR along with enhancing Hainan Yangpu New New Shipping’s presence on the NSR by raising its seven voyages to twelve.
Despite the possible dangers of using nuclear energy along with the environmentally destructive causes of breaking sea ice, Russia’s economic ambitions shadow the risk, rather targeting big projects such as transporting at least 150 million tonnes of crude oil, liquefied natural gas, coal, and other cargoes via its northern sea route per year, starting in 2030 or importing materials like rutile, titanium dioxide, wollastonite, iron oxide, calcined quartz sands, and premium glass sands with low iron content to China. The large sums of expectancies only further motivate Russia to nuclear-energy icebreaker vessels, opening new economic sources for the country while being
pressured by sanctions. Smruthi Nadig
highlights Russia’s expansion on nuclear-energy icebreakers by stating that the authorities docked the nuclear-powered vessel Sevmor in the Arctic region last year; a 34,600 deadweight tonnage
(dwt) vessel carrying up to 1,324 TEU and a new nuclear-powered icebreaker the Ural.
If Russia manages to successfully establish its goal as Rostam’s special representative for Arctic Development said, "Our main task is to build up to five Arctic-class vessels, which will allow the company to operate on the Northern Sea Route year-round,” it is obvious that the NSR will only continue to spark more interest in transportation because of its advantages, even outshining other popular routes like the Suez Canal. The NSR offers significantly shorter navigation distance from Europe to the Far East as it accounts for around only 60% of the traditional Suez Canal. Moreover, the advantages do not only stop with shorter delivery times and more efficient fuel consumption, but the NSR route also can benefit by reducing the carbon emissions in maritime transportation by offering a shorter route. The International Maritime Organization (IMO) GHG Study in 2020 highlights that marine transport emits 1 gigaton of carbon dioxide, which is 30% more than global air transport and equivalent to 14% of all transport emissions. When Rostam manages to achieve its task with the use of nuclear-energy icebreakers, it is expected to reduce up to 30 million tones of annual carbon dioxide emissions.
While environmental aspects of reducing carbon emissions are mentioned in many places, one issue is often overlooked: the constant breaking of ice. Icebreakers continue to break the ice in the Arctic region, simply causing the unity of the sea ice to be disrupted. The disruption of ice results in an increased interaction between seawater and sunlight, which is quite alarming for the Arctic environment. Unlike ice with its high reflectivity, seawater absorbs more sunlight causing the Arctic to absorb heat and increase its temperature rapidly.
To comprehend the impact of the icebreakers better, the Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy reports that an icebreaker traveling through approximately 998km leaves behind a 10-meter wide ice-free zone, having a total area of 10.1 square km break at the end of the journey
When the harms of breaking ice year-round are considered, the reduction in carbon emissions can’t help the use of NSR for being an environmentally beneficial route as it is stated in many reports. However, the environmental impacts of the route are solely out of interest for Russia as the ambition for geopolitical and economic power while fighting with the sanctions and the Ukrainian war took over the country. For now, we must wait to see how Russia’s plans will change the geopolitical and economic dynamics as well as its impacts on the endangered Arctic environment.