For Humpert, the impact may be bigger than shipping schedules. \u201cThe Arctic is the first region where climate change is changing the geopolitical map. If we didn’t have climate change, we wouldn’t be talking. Russia would not be producing oil and gas in the Arctic. China would not be sending container ships through the Arctic.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the first large region on the globe where climate change is rapidly and actively changing the geopolitical dynamics \u2014 because of resources, access to shipping routes, and because a new region is suddenly accessible.\u201d<\/p>\n
Playing the long game<\/p>\n
For now, global trade flows through the usual chokepoints. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe majority of global trade goes through the Suez Canal, Mediterranean, Singapore,\u201d Humpert said. \u201cBut the Arctic is 40 percent shorter and it has a lot less geopolitical uncertainty \u2026 so it could potentially become an alternative trade route. The question is, is it really happening? And how quick?\u201d<\/p>\n
Peter Sand, chief analyst at shipping consultancy Xeneta, noted the idea is hardly new. \u201cIt has been debated, talked about, tried out a number of times over the past decades,\u201d he said. China is just the latest to push it forward: \u201cThey announced a similar thing two years ago. They did it then, and now they\u2019re trying again.\u201d<\/p>\n
Earlier Chinese voyages, however, were simpler. \u201cThey did point-to-point trips, like from one Chinese port to Hamburg or to St. Petersburg,” Humpert said. “This voyage is different. They\u2019re trying four ports in China, then through the Arctic, then the U.K., Rotterdam, Hamburg and Gda\u0144sk. That actually resembles a normal shipping route.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For Humpert, the impact may be bigger than shipping schedules. \u201cThe Arctic is the first region where climate…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":432679,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[147117,1395,2311,2000,8812,299,5187,46727,39,2661,856,7697,332,1199,1398,1201],"class_list":{"0":"post-432678","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-arctic-ocean","9":"tag-china","10":"tag-climate-change","11":"tag-eu","12":"tag-eu-china-relations","13":"tag-europe","14":"tag-european","15":"tag-freight","16":"tag-fuels","17":"tag-oil","18":"tag-pollution","19":"tag-ports","20":"tag-russia","21":"tag-services","22":"tag-shipping","23":"tag-trade"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115223106168722670","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=432678"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432678\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/432679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=432678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=432678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=432678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}