After meeting at the second international forum The Arctic: Territory of Dialogue, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and Iceland President Olafur Grimsson have concluded that the two countries will cooperate on renewable energies in the area.
“Even ten years ago no one in Iceland could imagine that we would need assistance while developing Arctic natural resources, but the time has come and we have needed such help from an economic and environmental point of view,” said Grimsson, adding that Iceland needs help from foreign companies to harvest Arctic resources.
On top of the talks between Putin and Grimsson were the projects involving geothermal energy. Putin said that Russia has a few ideas about how the two countries should cooperate on the matter.
Of course, any cooperation at this level would need a higher communication capacity between the countries, and this translates in better Russian-Iceland commercial navigation, transport terminals and corridors like the Northern Sea Route.
This kind of cooperation is beneficial for the two countries and for the environment, but intensifying the traffic in the Northern Sea Route is something that had been predicted by scientists a while ago.
The route is now available to regular ships because the icebergs that were once there melted and now they don’t pose significant threats anymore. The paradox is that with the increase of ship traffic in the area, further heating of the climate will be promoted and the rest of the icebergs will keep melting even faster.
Economically and politically, though, everything looks nice and profitable.
