Sustainable Shipping in a Changing Arctic

The International Code for Ships Operating in Polar Waters, better known by its short name “Polar Code”, was adopted by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) in 2014/2015. The Code became effective on 1 January 2017 upon entry into force of the associated amendments making it mandatory under both the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) and the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships (MARPOL). The Polar Code marks a historic milestone in the Organization’s work to protect ships and people aboard them, both seafarers and passengers, in the harsh and vulnerable environment of the waters surrounding the two poles, and at the same time protecting those environments. This chapter gives an overview of the requirements of the Code with regard to maritime safety and marine environment protection, also addressing its place in the existing global framework regulating international shipping. Associated training and certification requirements for officers and crew serving on ships operating in polar waters, as have been included in the International Convention on Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping for Seafarers (STCW), are also described. The chapter finally examines what more can be done to ensure the safety of polar shipping, taking into account on-going discussions at IMO.

The maritime industry is safety critical, where the element of uncertainty is present especially when entering high-risk shipping areas like the Arctic. The element of uncertainty increases, as the working environment gets more unpredictable and systems more complex. Unpredictability and complexity is making it difficult to define comprehensively and in advance which exact courses of action one should take when facing challenging ad hoc situations while navigating the Arctic. The human element is a vital part of successful and safe shipping in the Arctic. Recent resilience engineering and safety studies see the human element and their ability to adapt and adjust their performance to emerging situational needs, possible shortages in work descriptions and resources as a key to successful operations. High performance of the crew strongly contributes to the high performance of the ship where the captain plays a key role. This chapter addresses the safety issues in a more holistic way including uncertainty and unpredictability as a part of safety management in the Arctic shipping.

The Polar Code has entered into force and the new polar seafarer requirements are expected to enter into force in July 2018. In the meantime the IMO is working on additional issues pertinent to operations in polar areas, such as risk assessment, additional performance and test standards, gathering data on non-SOLAS ships operating in polar waters, and amendments to the survey guidelines. There are additional measures that IMO might consider to strengthen safety and environmental protections in the Arctic, including ships’ routeing and reporting, VTS, port State control, MARPOL special areas, PSSAs, emission control areas, marine protected areas, ballast water and anti-foulants.

Research results are described that explore technological innovation to reduce ship groundings and collisions by significantly increasing watchstander situational awareness to environmental conditions below the waterline. This is especially relevant to ship navigation in the Arctic requiring transit through shallow, draft-constrained coastal and archipelago waters that are relatively uncharted, lack aids to navigation, without adequate search and rescue facilities, and teaming with surface and underwater hazards to navigation. Such conditions and events create excessive risk to life and property through grounding and greatly expose the environment and wildlife to pollution damage through oil and chemical spills. Results of research accomplished to date are provided and strategies developed to enhance ship owner and operator diligence in better preparing for Arctic transits. Recommendations for future work in related capacities are also provided for enhancing the Polar Code, International Maritime Organization (IMO) carriage requirements and the Convention on Standards of Training, Certification, and Watchkeeping (STCW).

Vessels planning a passage in the Canadian Arctic face many risks, most notably from ice, extreme weather, remoteness, and uncharted or poorly charted bathymetry. For ship operators who view the Arctic as a relatively untouched area of opportunity, the desire to operate vessels in the Arctic brings new challenges and risks. This study introduces the Polar Operational Limitations Assessment Risk Indexing System (POLARIS) and demonstrates its use for assessing ship operational limitations using open-access historical ice information. The analysis of ship operational limitations in ice was aided by the construction of POLARIS scenario risk maps which were clearly demonstrated as a useful tool to support the strategic appraisal of ice conditions. Lastly, several use cases are provided to demonstrate how POLARIS and historical ice information can be used to support the strategic appraisal of ship operational limitations in ice.

Satellite AIS data collected with AISSat-1 and AISSat-2 represent more than 5 years of maritime traffic data from the Arctic (north of 67°N). The number of ships observed per month shows large seasonal variations, as well as an annual growth. In August 2014, 2272 ships were observed, in December the number was 1563 ships. The annual growth rate in number of ships per month varies with month; between 113 ships/year for November and 201 ships/year for July. Some of the increase in the number using Class A equipment can be explained by the Control Regulation (EC 1224/2009) that has required AIS to be applied to fishing vessels above 15 m since 31 May 2014. To what extent the remaining increase in reporting vessels is due to higher activity or a higher number of ships using AIS is not studied. Considering geographic sectors of 45° longitude, the most trafficked sector is the 0–45°E sector where typically 75% of the ships in the Arctic are present. The 67.5°-longitude sector has the largest annual relative growth with of 46% or 695 ship-months in the same period. Looking at ship types, the peak numbers recorded in any month are 600 fishing vessels, 430 cargo ships, 120 tankers, 100 passenger ships, and 100 tugs. The seasonal variation most prominent is the fishing vessel peak in winter, while the remaining ship types peak in various summer months. Ship tracks for selected months illustrate the variation of the activity; August has a high number of tracks all around the Arctic as well as to the North Pole. As winter approaches the tracks fistly disappear in Alaska and Canada, then west of Greenland and lastly in the eastern part of the Northeast Passage in February. Activity is seen all year in the Norwegian Sea, the Barents Sea and the Kara Sea. In August 2014 the number of ships observed per day reached 1200 vessels. The number of position updates per ship per day was typically 13 and the largest daily time gap was typically less than 6.7 h. It should be noted that the variation over the Arctic region is large.

The Canadian Arctic is becoming increasingly important as climate change and economic pressures stimulate increasing activity in the region. The number of transits, cruise ships, and adventurer expeditions in this area is on the rise. Ensuring environmental, economic, archeological, defence, safety and security responsibilities in this challenging area has resulted in many recent investments including the Arctic Offshore Patrol Vessels and the RADARSAT Constellation Mission. This chapter will explore the challenges in detection and tracking of ships in the Arctic from perspectives including: ship-ice discrimination in remote sensing, sparse data tracking, effects of constrained navigation, and operational decision aids.

Adequate knowledge of human activities in the Arctic is fundamental to support safe and secure maritime operations and sustainable development in the area. Such knowledge is often incomplete in terms of activities, geographic area and spatial resolution. For example, in the specific case of the transits over the Arctic shipping routes, such information can be accessed through domain expert knowledge, open source statistics or data from ship reporting systems. Offshore energy and exploration, fishing, and shipping activities can be monitored and/or mapped using surveillance tools such as satellite based remote sensing (e.g. Synthetic Aperture Radar—SAR) and vessel tracking systems (e.g. Automatic Identification Systems—AIS, and Long Range Identification and Tracking—LRIT), supplemented by knowledge discovery approaches. Such data-driven methodology, combined with meteorological and oceanographic information, enables a high level of situational awareness that is otherwise often difficult to access, hard to update or challenging to extract. In this chapter we analyse ways to understand and characterise activities and discover their trends in the Arctic. This new information will assist policy makers and operational authorities when conducting Maritime Spatial Planning and the evaluation of new routing systems and impact assessments of Marine Protected Areas.

As the ice continues to melt away unabated, access to the areas of the Arctic, hitherto inaccessible, becomes real. The coastal States bordering the Sea have since laid claims to the continental shelf of what they believe is their legal entitlement, in order to exploit the resources of the seabed particularly oil and gas. Those who claim under the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), the relevant provisions thereof will be triggered, and for those outside UNCLOS, the Geneva Convention on the Continental Shelf and the rules of Customary International Law. Overlapping claim areas and the presence of oil and gas resources that transcends international boundaries are highly possible. For these reasons, the Arctic is referred to as another untamed place of the world, where the competition for resources in disputed areas or of a transboundary nature, without an established legal framework, could mar the geopolitical landscape and ultimately leading to confrontation. This may prove detrimental to the marine environment, shipping, and other peaceful uses of the sea.

The existing international legal regimes that regulate the activities in the Arctic, include, the Geneva Conventions of 1958; United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea of 1982, and the Polar Code, among others. However, none of these regimes is explicit on the rules for the exploitation of transboundary oil and gas resources or those found in overlapping claim areas/disputed areas. The delimitation of maritime boundary may not be effective, where states based their respective claims on different rules, or where oil and gas resources transcend international boundary or boundaries to an extend that same resources forms part of a single geologic unit and is exploitable from either side of the divide. The economic imperative that motivates states to venture into offshore oil and gas development hold same for the Arctic states too, especially with the findings of the US Geological Survey on the hydrocarbon potentials of the Arctic (USGS). This must be balanced with the social imperative of management.

Joint Development appears to be the alternative option for the Arctic States. Its role has expanded from the traditional development and apportionment of shared oil and gas resources to other aspects of ocean governance, including but not limited to the protection and preservation of the marine environment and the conservation of the living resources. However, its status (whether a provisional arrangement pending maritime boundary delimitation, or an alternative thereto) and the legal basis for states venturing into it, remains a discourse and sometimes elusive as an international rule of law.

The contribution of this chapter to the above-mentioned discourse is to examine whether joint development is in fact the best option for a truly Arctic governance and will seek to determine the legal basis for the Arctic states to enter into such an arrangement. It will also look at whether the Arctic Council could play a leading role in instituting joint development in the Arctic, through a multilateral treaty regime, rather than leaving it to the bilateral will of the states. Further, the chapter will critically analyse the Polar Code to determine whether it could secure a successful Arctic governance on its own. The chapter will then recommend, in addition to Joint Development, the development and adoption of ‘the Arctic Natural Resources Development Code. The interaction of these arrangements will not fail to achieve the aspirations of the Arctic stakeholders. This chapter will conclude that a holistic ocean management, through joint development and the adoption of a natural resources development code will not fail to achieve a sustainable Arctic governance, including the protection and preservation of the marine environment. This will also institute a mechanism for the service of collective interest in the Arctic, through cooperation, rather than rivalry and confrontation.

Thus, a brief recount of the Arctic region and its special treatment under UNCLOS will be given. This will be followed by the analysis of the legal regimes governing the conduct of the coastal States in the Arctic and the limitation if any of such regimes. Identification will be made of the need for the development of appropriate mechanisms to fill in the gap.

The national Arctic strategies of the eight Member States of the Arctic Council serve as important domestic policy guidelines to pursue long-term national objectives in Arctic matters. As part of an evolving process, several non-Arctic States have developed such policy guidelines as well. Most of these nations are recurring observers to the Arctic Council (i.e. on a “non-ad hoc” basis). Their national Arctic strategies outline the driving factors for active research engagement and other objectives in the region. Moreover, the European Union (EU) is in process of defining its major policy objectives in the Arctic as well. The EU’s goals are evidenced by a series of publications from different EU institutions, developing further an “EU Integrated Arctic Policy”. This chapter first provides a summary and reference guide on the EU’s general policy objectives in international (marine) environmental law and ocean governance, including statements on the evolution of an Integrated EU Arctic policy since 2008. It is supplemented by some references on the German national Arctic strategy (first published in 2013) which represents an exemplary policy document of a non-Arctic State with a comprehensive interest in Arctic matters. The chapter also identifies some further common elements of national Arctic strategies of other non-Arctic States.

The primary driver of Arctic shipping and maritime operations is the development of natural resources in the Arctic. The melting of Arctic sea ice as a result of global warming and climate change is providing greater maritime access and potentially longer navigation seasons. This combined with advancements in ice-breaking technology benefitting commercial carriers are translating into shorter sea routes and reduced shipping costs. This chapter is concerned with safety and environmental implications of insurability and indemnifiability of enhanced Arctic shipping risks attributable to the presence of ice. The specific focus is on examination of relevant provisions in marine insurance contracts subject to English marine insurance law and the Nordic Marine Insurance Plan (NMIP). The discussion begins with a synoptic overview of the fundamental principles of marine insurance and then moves on to the regulatory dimension of Arctic shipping as manifested in the IMO Polar Code. Whether a violation of the Code leads to a potential breach of the implied warranty of seaworthiness entrenched in the UK Marine Insurance Act 1906 (MIA) operating through the Institute warranties is examined together with the corresponding elements in the NMIP regime. A comparative analysis is carried out of the MIA and Institute Clauses and Warranties on the one hand, and the NMIP legal framework on the other, which includes premium considerations, and ice class and notification requirements. The environmental implications for Arctic shipping are examined through the concept of protection and indemnity (P&I) insurance focusing on compulsory cover for third party liability required under relevant ship-source pollution conventions. Finally, the emerging concept of environmental salvage particularly in relation to Arctic waters is discussed peripherally.

On June 19, 2015, following a long period of preparation, the UN General Assembly adopted Resolution A/69/L.65: 65 “Development of an international legally-binding instrument under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea on the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction”. A preparatory committee will develop draft recommendations in 2016 and 2017. The proposed new instrument will have important implications for the areas beyond national jurisdiction, including the Central Arctic Ocean and therefore for the Arctic governance regime overall. Key components of the “package” of measures discussed during the sessions of the Working Group were area-based management tools, including MPAs; marine genetic resources, including questions related to the sharing of benefits; environmental impact assessments and capacity-building and technology transfer. The potential implication of such a new legal instrument on areas beyond national jurisdiction in the Arctic will be manifold. They will affect shipping and other marine operations. Arctic nations have expressed initial views on the proposed measures but it will in the end be a decision of the international community as a whole to decide on the details of the new Implementing Agreement which will then provide a binding regime for all High Seas areas, including the Central Arctic Ocean.

The recent adoption of the Polar Code relates to the Northwest Passage (the Passage) that connects the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans through the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. The Passage has not, however, been completely navigable due to the existence of Arctic sea ice. Arctic waters are however, increasingly becoming more accessible since sea ice, largely due to the effect of climate change, is thawing. This holds the potential of greater maritime activities in the Arctic waters including the Passage. It is consequently essential to ensure maritime safety and environmental protection. The question is, who has jurisdictional authority to govern such activities within the Passage? Canada claims that it is part of its historic internal waters and therefore, Canadian legislation is applicable. It also dismisses the notion that it is an international strait and/or may be used for innocent passage. There are two criteria for the qualification of a strait as international: Geographical situation connecting two parts of the high seas; and it is used for the purposes of international navigation. Moreover, littoral states do not have a right to prohibit innocent passage in time of peace. This is in conjunction with the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and customary international law. Canada has the right to exercise jurisdiction over issues relating to marine pollution in the Passage waters. It simultaneously has the obligation to apply international rules such as the Polar Code.

Article 86 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) defines the high seas as all parts of the sea excluding internal waters, territorial sea, exclusive economic zone and archipelagic waters belonging to an archipelagic state. The high seas, as such, are considered to be res communis, and can be enjoyed by any state (Through the freedoms to fish, navigate, lay submarine cables, research etc.). The notion of res communis has preceded today’s concept of public domain and provides a sense of undisturbed entitlement to the shipping industry, which in recent years has translated into a dramatic increase in navigation and trans-Arctic shipping.

For the Arctic, shorter sea-routes and trans-Arctic shipping across the high seas of the Arctic raises significant governance issues. One such issue relates to oil spills and oil spill preparedness and response for the Arctic. Following the Torrey Canyon disaster in 1967, the shipping industry has witnessed a significant number of oil spills and severe damage to the marine environment. Owing to the fact that a coastal state’s authority to regulate foreign shipping does not extend to the high seas, transiting ships would only be subject to international shipping safety and the environmental rules and standards (UNCLOS; Art. 211 (1)). For the high seas there exists a corpus of international law, i.e. the International Convention Relating to Intervention on the High Seas in Cases of Oil Pollution Casualties 1969 (Intervention Convention). But the inevitable question is to what extent can the Intervention Convention provide an effective framework to deal with oil pollution response in the Arctic high seas? Or do the Arctic high seas require an integrated approach, which can link together differing agendas and mandates of the Arctic States in trying to deal with the impacts of an oil spill disaster? This approach is analogous to the European Union initiatives reflected in various “macro-regional strategies”, and would be similar to the North American (US-Can) joint preparedness agreements for oil spills response.

The operative word in the proposed paper is “intervention”, which can be contrasted with “prevention” that usually runs to the conclusion of remediation efforts after an oil spill. Although related to response, intervention would occur the very moment a national authority is advised of an incident in progress that has the potential for a spill (e.g. a vessel in distress with a developing leak). This definition is guided by the fact that the Arctic is a pristine area, and for pristine areas there ought to be advanced intervention rules to stop all types of vessel-source oil pollution at the source. This goes beyond the given international oil spill prevention and response regime. The effort is to realize whether an integrated intervention plan for the Arctic high seas can bring the stakeholders together and form an alliance to save the pristine high sea areas from oil spill disasters in areas beyond national jurisdiction.

The Bering Strait region of Alaska is home to three different groups of indigenous people and 20 federally-recognized Tribes. Indigenous communities in the Bering Strait have both a right and a strong desire to be included in discussions about the future of vessel traffic in the region, to have their Traditional Knowledge and expertise about the marine environment considered and utilized, and to have meaningful involvement in decision making about activities taking place in their homeland and with the potential to impact their lives. This chapter outlines some of the concerns that Tribes and Tribal organizations have regarding current and projected vessel traffic in the region. It also discusses recent research conducted by Kawerak and Tribes that can contribute to discussions about the future of arctic shipping, including GIS mapping, Traditional Knowledge documentation projects, and regional meetings that have focused on shipping.

Increasing Arctic marine use is driven primarily by natural resource development and greater marine access throughout the Arctic Ocean created by profound sea ice retreat. Significant management measures to enhance protection of Arctic people and the marine environment are emerging, including the development of marine protected areas (MPAs) which may be effective and valuable tools. MPAs have been established by individual Arctic coastal states within their respective national jurisdictions; however, a pan-Arctic network of MPAs has yet to be established despite Arctic Council deliberations. This overview focuses on those MPAs that can be designated by the International Maritime Organization and by international instrument or treaty to respond to increasing Arctic marine operations and shipping. Key challenges remain in the Arctic to the introduction of select MPAs and development of a circumpolar network of MPAs in response to greater marine use: the variability of sea ice; the rights and concerns of indigenous people; a lack of marine infrastructure; application to the Central Arctic Ocean; establishing effective monitoring; and, compliance and enforcement in remote polar seas. Robust bilateral and multilateral cooperation will be necessary not only to establish effective MPAs but also to sustain them for the long term. Reducing the large Arctic marine infrastructure gap will be a key requirement to achieve effective MPA management and attain critical conservation goals.

The International Code for Ships Operating in Polar Waters (Polar Code) is expected to enter into force on 1 January 2017. As a major exporter of seafarers, the maritime higher-education academy in China should take positive and appropriate measures to comply with the requirements of the Polar Code. Human errors dominated the causes of maritime accidents, so education, training and certification are the most important parts of the Polar Code. However, the education and training for seafarers involving the Polar waters are not covered in current maritime higher-education programmes based on the STCW Convention and codes. Consequently, additional courses and trainings should be developed to make the seafarers competent with the operations in polar waters. These issues will be discussed from the following aspects: the courses and textbooks, training and assessment, selection of instructors and the development of simulators for polar waters. This chapter provides guidance to improve compulsory competence of seafarers required by the Polar Code.

For more than 50 years, the oil and gas industry has funded and conducted research to improve oil spill response technologies and methodologies with industry, government, academia, and stakeholders jointly involved. This research has included hundreds of studies, laboratory and basin experiments and field trials, specifically in the United States, Canada and Scandinavia. Recent examples include the SINTEF Oil in Ice JIP (2006–2009) and research conducted at Ohmsett—The National Oil Spill Response Research and Renewable Energy Test Facility. This sustained and frequently collaborative effort is not commonly known and recognised by those outside the field of oil spill response.

To build on this existing research and continue improving the technologies and methodologies for Arctic oil spill response, nine international oil and gas companies (BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Eni, ExxonMobil, North Caspian Operating Company (NCOC), Shell, Statoil, and Total) are working collaboratively in the Arctic Oil Spill Response Technology—Joint Industry Programme (JIP). The goal is to advance Arctic oil spill response strategies and equipment as well as to increase understanding of potential impacts of oil on the marine environment. The $21.5M (USD) programme is coordinated by an Executive Steering Committee comprising representatives from each company under the auspices of the International Association of Oil and Gas Producers. The world’s foremost experts on oil spill response, development, and operations from across industry, academia, and independent scientific institutions are being engaged to perform the scientific research.

The JIP has completed phase one of the programme which included technical assessments and state of knowledge reviews in the following six areas: dispersants, environmental effects, trajectory modelling, remote sensing, mechanical recovery, and in situ burning (ISB). Sixteen research reports that identify and summarise the state-of- knowledge and regulatory status for using dispersants, remote sensing and ISB in the Arctic are available on the JIP website (www.​arcticresponsete​chnology.​org).

Phase two activities are now underway which include laboratory, small and medium scale tank tests, and field research. Eleven projects are in progress ranging from dispersant effectiveness testing; modelling the fate of dispersed oil in ice; assessing the environmental effects of an Arctic oil spill; advancing oil spill modelling trajectory capabilities in ice; extending the capability to detect and map oil in darkness, low visibility, in and under ice; herder application, fate and effects; and expanding the ‘window of opportunity’ for ISB response operations. This chapter presents recent JIP progress and key learnings from results.

Maritime activity in turbulent environments represents a challenge to the emergency preparedness system. In particular, the Arctic may be turbulent as to weather, especially in winter time. The consequences of accidents may be severe due to long distances, cold climate and limited local resources. In this chapter we look into large scale emergencies causing mass rescue from ships. We elaborate on the coordination of the broad range of search and rescue actors included in such an incident both in the air, at sea and ashore with several institutions and management levels included. We also describe the incorporation of host nation support from neighboring countries. We build upon the experiences from the accident of the cruise ship “Maxim Gorkiy” in the ice South-West of Svalbard. We illustrate the organizational structure of mass rescue operations and the coordinative roles at different levels. Finally, we discuss the implications for emergency management in extreme environments like the Arctic region.

Considering that the Arctic’s ice-coverage maintains a downward trend, maritime routes that were previously covered with ice-pacts are—slowly, but steadily—becoming more available for shipping. Additionally, great interest is now openly expressed for the extraction of the natural resources available in the wider region and especially its seabed, another possible task for maritime transport. The International Maritime Organization (IMO) has already taken a very significant step to ensure a safer and cleaner shipping industry in the region under discussion through the adoption of the International Code for Ships Operating in Polar Waters, which strongly promotes maritime safety in these challenging waters. Issues such as uncharted areas, ice that is drifting and harsh environmental conditions are just a few examples of challenges for Arctic shipping. Strengthening the necessary technical infrastructure in order to support the expected increase of maritime traffic in the Arctic routes, with emphasis on facilitating timely response to emergencies and search and rescue (SAR) activities should be added to the equation. Even though there is encouraging institutional progress when it comes to ship building standards and the STCW provisions are continuously improved, due to the current occasional-limited use of polar waters for seaborne trade, there is obviously a lack of crews with the necessary experience. New preparatory training courses, some type of “field” activities, improved simulator capabilities and a new more proactive emergency response procedure that involves cooperation of all Arctic countries are needed to mitigate the high risks.

In this chapter, we emphasize the fleet configuration challenges of Arctic offshore oil and gas exploration. We highlight the role of offshore service vessels in achieving effective and safe oil and gas exploration activity in Arctic waters. We elaborate on the fleet resource configuration and operational management challenges. Data from case studies of operations in two High Arctic regions, the Disco Bay, Western Greenland and the Kara Sea in northwest Russia are revealed. The results show that the context of ice-infested waters, lack of infrastructure and risk related to weather and cold climate demands a more in-depth planning process including more companies and institutions, a more complex resource configuration with multi-functional vessels, and advanced Polar water competence as to logistics, managerial capacities, ice management and emergency preparedness. Implications for the industry and for further research are discussed.

This volume is focused on a broad set of challenges and issues related to sustainable marine operations and shipping in a future Arctic, a region experiencing extraordinary change and increasingly intense attention. The numerous chapters in this volume highlight the key current and future issues in the Arctic, with a sharp focus on what remains to be done and how we must proceed.