Professor Mia Bennett, on the Geo-Economic Future of the Arctic

Who owns the future of the Arctic, and why? Listen to Jason Mitchell discuss with Professor Mia Bennett, University of Washington, about why Arctic exceptionalism has been blown out of the water; the dangers of "empty frontier" thinking; and how policymakers, businesses and Arctic communities can realistically reshape governance and development to avoid deepening the crisis.

Recording date: 01 May 2026

Mia Bennett

Mia Bennett is an Associate Professor of Geography at the University of Washington and a leading researcher on the geopolitics and environmental transformation of the Arctic. Her work examines infrastructure, natural resource development and emerging technologies in northern frontier regions, combining fieldwork with satellite and geospatial analysis. She is also the founder and editor of the Arctic-focused blog Cryopolitics. She is also co-author of the 2025 book, Unfrozen: The Fight for the Future of the Arctic, which explores the intertwined climate, geopolitical, and societal changes reshaping the Arctic.

Episode Transcript

Note: This transcription was generated using a combination of speech recognition software and human transcribers and may contain errors. As a part of this process, this transcript has also been edited for clarity.

Jason Mitchell:

I'm Jason Mitchell, CIO for Responsible Investment at Man Group. You're listening to A Sustainable Future, a podcast about what we're doing today to build a more sustainable world tomorrow.

Hi everyone. Welcome back to the podcast and I hope everyone is staying well. So for this episode, I want to turn to one of the books that's been sitting at the top of my reading pile over the deep summer, specifically on the geopolitical future of the Arctic. Now, to be honest, when most of us think of the Arctic, we probably imagine a barren, frigid landscape, but that picture is increasingly out of date. What was once a frozen desert is fast becoming an international waterway of sorts. And the region now faces what my latest guest calls twin crises. There's an ecological one with the Arctic warming several times faster than the global average. And there's also another one, there's a geopolitical crisis as Russia's invasion of Ukraine and renewed great power rivalry redraw the terrain for cooperation and conflict in the high north. Look no further than the contention around Greenland or China styling itself as a near Arctic state or an Arctic Council that increasingly looks paralysed. But the really uncomfortable part is that these two crises effectively feed into one another. Melting ice is unlocking the very oil, gas, minerals, and shipping routes whose development only accelerates that melting. In other words, you could say that the crisis has perversely become the business case. And look, there is a lot happening here, which is why the Arctic has been a long-running theme on this podcast, going back to my first conversation more than seven years ago with the Royal United Services Institute on the effects of climate change and the strategic militarization of the Arctic. Which is why it's great to have Professor Mia Bennett on the podcast to discuss her new book, Unfrozen: The Fight for the Future of the Arctic.

We talk about why Arctic exceptionalism has been blown out of the water effectively, the dangers of empty frontier thinking and how policymakers, businesses and Arctic communities can realistically reshape governance and development to avoid deepening the crisis. Mia is an associate professor of geography at the University of Washington and a leading researcher on the geopolitics and environmental transformation of the Arctic. Her work examines infrastructure, natural resources, development, and emerging technologies in northern frontier regions, combining field work with satellite and geospatial analysis. And last, she's also the founder and editor of the Arctic focused blog, Cryopolitics.

Welcome to the podcast, Dr. Mia Bennett. It's great to have you here and thank you for taking the time to talk today.

Mia Bennett:

Hi, Jason. Thanks so much for having me. Real excited by the opportunity.

Jason Mitchell:

Let's start out with some scene setting. Most people tend to picture the Arctic as an empty kind of remote and frozen wilderness, yet in your book, Unfrozen, you argue that it's actually at the centre of two converging crises. One is an ecological collapse and another is a geopolitical rivalry. How do you think that narrative shapes international policy and corporate behaviour today? What would a more accurate framing mean and practise for decision making?

Mia Bennett:

Thanks. Yeah, that's a great question. And considering the ecological and geopolitical narratives at the moment, I mean, on the one hand you have this idea that the Arctic or this reality that the Arctic is facing a climate crisis. So on average, the Arctic is warming four times faster than the rest of the planet. Some places such as Svalbard, the Archipelago, between the North Pole and Norway are warming seven times faster. So you have melting sea ice, thawing permafrost, and then all of that ecological instability is presently compounded by the sense that the Arctic, as it has been for the past 30 years since the end of the Cold War, is now fracturing. So not only do we have NATO versus Russia on the one hand, and now a NATO that has been expanded with the addition of Sweden and Finland since 2022 or '03 as a result of Russia's full scale vision of Ukraine, but then added to the mix is of course the Trump administration and the designs that it has on Greenland.

So we have all of this friction and tension, and I think those narratives lead to a sense of urgency in the Arctic, a sense that the region is contested, a sense that it is a frontier for national interests. And I think that does a real disservice to the four million people who live in the region who rely on its lands and resources, its waters and ice, and kind of invites the sense of maybe short-term decision making, this idea that, okay, we need to act now, whether that is to invest in a new mine or build new runways without really giving fair consideration to the long-term consequences of such actions which are really motivated by, I think, on the one hand, accurate narratives, but also ones that do not really promote kind of due process and consent with the people who call the Arctic home.

Jason Mitchell:

Let's talk about the governance perspective here. The Arctic Council has traditionally been a model of peaceful collaboration, but it kind of seems increasingly paralysed with security replacing climate change as the predominant issue at Arctic conferences. So if the institutional architecture that kept the Arctic cooperative for three decades doesn't really exist anymore, what realistic governance model can take its place? Or are we heading kind of into an ungoverned Arctic?

Mia Bennett:

It's an interesting question. I don't sense that we're headed into an ungoverned Arctic. So I think any kind of proclamations by the media or what have you that the region is on the verge of anarchy or even armed conflict are certainly sensational. But nonetheless, we're very much as you identify at a point where the Arctic Council, the regional intergovernmental organisation, which was established in 1996 is really facing kind of existential issues. So for 30 odd years or so, as you say, we have the Arctic Council, which represents the eight member states of the Arctic and six Indigenous peoples organisations as permanent participants which must be consulted.

So the Arctic Council's working groups, as it's called, the kind of lower level bodies that deal with environmental issues, science, let's say marine oil spill pollution, those are still functioning, but the high level international cooperation is still more or less paused. I think without this high level body, what we're instead seeing is the rise of what could be called mini lateralism or a la carte diplomacy where you have groups of like-minded actors, for instance, let's say the Nordics and then the UK as well or bringing Canada into the mix cooperating on various issues, whether that's the Arctic environment, Indigenous people's wellbeing, science, what have you. Or you even have non-Arctic states now working with Arctic states in some other somewhat more unusual arrangements.

So one governance mechanism I could point to would be the Central Arctic Ocean Fisheries Agreement, which was signed in 2018. So that was signed well in advance of the war in Ukraine, but does bring together five Arctic coastal states, including Russia, alongside China, Korea, Japan, and the European Union, which all agreed to prohibit commercial fishing in the Central Arctic Ocean. And under that treaty, all 10 parties continue to meet despite the crisis in the Arctic. So we are seeing kind of new constellations of actors work together, which both take place within parts of the Arctic and also span the Arctic region or extend beyond the Arctic region, I should say.

Jason Mitchell:

Really, really interesting. Now you and your co-author, Klaus Dodds, argue that what we used to call Arctic exceptionalism, in other words, the notion that Arctic states prided themselves on kind of keeping the region free from great power rivalry, that no longer really exists. What ended it for context? Can the Arctic Council still function in a world where Russia is a pariah and China's increasingly inserting their polar interests?

Mia Bennett:

Sure. Yeah. So I kind of see two questions here. On the one hand, you ask about Arctic exceptionalism, and I would agree that this idea that the Arctic is immune from great power conflict elsewhere has come to an end. So perhaps for the past 30 years, there was this idea that even though we can point to Russia's annexation of Crimea, even though that took place, cooperation in the Arctic did still persist for another nearly a decade. I think Russia's full scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 was really the straw that broke the camel's back.

As Klaus Dodds, my co-author and I point out Unfrozen, there were signs leading up to the war that Russia was really starting to become more aggressive in the Arctic, that NATO was already experiencing fractures under the first Trump administration. So there were indications, but Arctic exceptionalism certainly now I think the worry is that in fact the Arctic could become a source of tension for great power struggles elsewhere, and we've certainly seen that with Greenland. I think that's what ends at it.

And yes, whether the Arctic Council can still function in this sort of world, I mean, I think as we were just discussing, it really clearly cannot function in line with what it was supposed to do because Russia is, as you say, a pariah. I don't know if China's assertion of polar interests is necessarily anathema to the Arctic Council's functioning. In fact, China has been an observer in the Arctic Council since 2013. I think China presents challenges elsewhere, but not necessarily within the world of Arctic Council governance.

Jason Mitchell:

Let's talk about this idea of the Arctic paradox. In other words, the idea that the melting ice that should serve to alarm us ends up simultaneously unlocking the very oil, very natural gas and minerals whose extraction actually ends up accelerating that melting. Russia to some degree is funding its war effort from Arctic Energy at the same time that the US administration is pushing a drill baby drill policy. How do we break a feedback loop where the crisis serves somewhat perversely as the underlying business case itself?

Mia Bennett:

Oh, this is a tough question. And as an academic, I identify issues, but I don't always have the tools to diagnose and solve them. So how do we break this feedback loop of the Arctic paradox? I mean, honestly, I struggle with this question. I think instead I mostly just wring my hands watching this very phenomenon of the melting ice enabling increased extraction from whether it's mines in the Canadian north or oil and gas fields ever farther offshore Norway and Russia. There's no doubt that this opening up of the Arctic is inviting new extraction rather than really pushing governments and corporations to take a step back and say, "Hey, maybe we should proceed in a little bit more conscientious manner and consider the long-term repercussions of our actions." So I don't see a way to break this feedback loop within a kind of capitalist extractive global economic system, honestly.

Jason Mitchell:

That's not super optimistic, but let me push you a little bit more here. You've drawn a direct line between Russian Arctic resource extraction and the funding of the war in Ukraine. Can you put that in the context of the political economy of Arctic oil and gas? Is there a fundamental contradiction between Western climate commitments and the continued purchase of commodities extracted from Russia's Arctic? How should Western governments think about the fact that the commodities funding the war is still flowing through global markets? How should policymakers reconcile investing in Arctic development, i.e. shipping lanes and subsea cables when those opportunities could represent a direct result of environmental loss?

Mia Bennett:

I would say that Russia has been active in Arctic oil and gas extraction for decades. A lot of the activity can be traced in fact to the Soviet Arctic, if not earlier. What we've seen in recent years is as Russia's oil and gas fields in Western Siberia have dried up, the country has pushed farther north with its extraction into the offshore. And what's now maybe somewhat novel is that as you identify, these revenues are crucial to the Russian war machine in Ukraine. So there's an increased sense of urgency in terms of extracting these resources, and that urgency is perhaps exacerbated by the fact that Russia is no longer partnering with Western oil and gas companies, which might've been previously able to provide technology that would meet certain environmental standards. Now Russia's partnering with say China, and I think is much less mindful of adhering to whatever environmental standards it might've done before because of the urgency of extracting oil and gas.

Now, whether there's a contradiction as to the Western import of commodities from Russian Arctic and the West climate commands, I don't really see the logic necessarily there. I mean, I think the West itself is, we have Arctic countries like Norway, which are trying to be very green, but at the same time, Norway is the world's first country to say it wants to mine its deep seabed. So there's a lot of cognitive dissonance within Western states themselves when it comes to balancing or not climate commitments and the push for extraction. I think what is more of the contradiction for the West in terms of importing commodities from the Russian Arctic is the fact that it's at the same time trying to supply weapons to Ukraine and support Ukraine to defend itself against Russia. And at the same time, sure, it's still importing Russian liquified natural gas.

So yeah, that's certainly a really tricky situation. We have seen the US and the EU and a few Asian countries try and apply sanctions to Russian commodities, and yet those commodities still find a way to market. They find a way around sanctions. So it's a bit of a cat and mouse game. Places like Dubai have become kind of clearinghouses for Russian capital and Russian goods, and those third party locations and countries I think just further complicate these global circuits of how commodities from Russian Arctic are still finding buyers and still in essence funding Russia's war in Ukraine.

Jason Mitchell:

Talk more about this Russian blind spot. In other words, this interpretation that Russians serve more as a source of Arctic tension rather than a legitimate stakeholder and equal participant in Arctic cooperation. Given that Russia controls roughly, what is it, half the Arctic's landmass and two thirds of its population and that no environmental or security challenge in the region can be solved without engaging it, how do you think about it as an actor you can't necessarily or always collaborate with? What does that mean when Russia, as the single largest Arctic state, acts as effectively a black box?

Mia Bennett:

I would say Russia becoming a blind spot or even a black box is a source of deep concern for me. I think we're seeing a lack of cooperation and a lack of even people to people collaboration and exchange that we haven't seen since the Cold War, and which in fact in some sense may be worse than during the Cold War. There were still some exchanges during the Cold War. We had agreements such as the kind of polar bear treaty that was signed at some point during the Cold War, which brought together five Arctic coastal states to try and safeguard this iconic species. But now, I mean, when I talk to my colleagues, they can barely even get an email back from a former Russian collaborator. So the gap is growing and there's a real sense of loss, which I think absolutely makes it near impossible to address circumpolar challenges.

As you say, Russia accounts for half of the Arctic, so what does it even mean to do work at an Arctic scale when you're only working with 50% of the region? I mean, sure, people say, okay, maybe for science you can bring in satellites and remote sensing to gather observations, but even satellites can't make up for a lot of field-based knowledge or observations about whether it's permafrost or carbon or radioactive waste, which can really only be gathered on the ground. So I think addressing these environmental and of course security challenges, it's not really feasible. And I think people are still coming to terms with the fact that the Arctic as a region is not really manageable at that circumpolar scale anymore.

Jason Mitchell:

So China calls itself a "near Arctic state." It's a label the US is kind of dismissed as entitlement to essentially nothing. But you've studied China's Arctic activities pretty closely from satellite programmes to ice class vessels. So in your mind, what is China actually doing in the Arctic that people aren't paying enough attention to?

Mia Bennett:

Right. So yes, China, it may be in the Arctic state, but certainly it lacks territorial sovereignty in the region. I think that's kind of the basis for which former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo under the first Trump administration and others said, "Yeah, it doesn't mean anything that China's 900 miles from the Arctic." I think though China is being quite resourceful in terms of accessing the Arctic through legal means, typically through its global commons or increasingly through Russia or through the research station that it runs on Svalbard. Being a beneficiary of the Svalbard Treaty, it has the right or the benefit technically, as it's called, to do that.

So what we're seeing China doing is really advancing technologies at the vanguard, whether that's underwater or in orbital and outer space or in the polar regions more broadly construed both the Arctic and Antarctica where China's also active. And I think China's trying to fuse together technologies that can bring in observations from these various domains, which China refers to as its strategic new frontiers in ways that I think ultimately turn China into what the US Department of Defence has called a pacing threat. China may begin outpacing the US when it comes to, let's say, detection of submarines underwater or other sorts of deep sea to outer space communication. So even though China doesn't have territory, it is finding ways to kind of intervene or at least begin observing activities across these more than territorial domains. And I think that's something that really needs to be watched.

Jason Mitchell:

Talk more about the commercial implications of all this. The Northern Sea Route is becoming navigable precisely because of climate change. The shipping activity that follows will only accelerate warming further. So how do you think about that feedback loop? To what degree is anyone in a position to regulate Arctic shipping before it scales?

Mia Bennett:

Right. I would add a little bit of a correction, which is that the Northern Sea Route has been used by Russia and previously the Soviet Union for close to a century. And if we were to go back hundreds of years, you could see all sorts of shipping activity, particularly along the western side of the Northern Sea Route. So there's more than climate change at work in driving shipping along the Northern Sea Route. But certainly climate change is extending the season for shipping and also making it possible to ship year round from Russia to Asia.

So there's on the one hand, yeah, these environmental drivers of increased shipping, but I think what people sometimes forget is how much geopolitical constraints are actually limiting Arctic shipping. So China for a little bit was pausing shipping along the Northern Sea Route, it's picked that back up again, but are Japanese and Korean vessels coming through the Northern Sea Route, not exactly. So that might be, I don't know, one kind of, I don't want to say silver lining, but one way in which, okay, maybe Arctic shipping is not going to suddenly accelerate.

And at the same time, in terms of who's regulating Arctic shipping, the International Maritime Organisation instituted its Polar Code in 2014, which regulates shipping in both Arctic and Antarctic waters. And we do see, I haven't really closely followed this, but I believe Russia and all the other Arctic states are adhering to those regulations. So there are still effective bodies that are trying to regulate everything from heavy fuel oil to the type of ballast that can be brought into the Arctic. So there are rules there that are still functioning.

Jason Mitchell:

I want to change tracks just a little here. Greenland has recently become a big focal point of geopolitical interest from countries like obviously the United States, China, and European nations, partly because of its strategic location and resource potential. To what extent is the growing interest in Greenland about resources versus strategic geography and how might that reshape, in your mind, Arctic geopolitics in the coming decades?

In other words, to what degree is this time different from Greenland's historical resource precedent it's had? For instance, the US security dependence on things like cryolite during the Second World War.

Mia Bennett:

I mean, I think there is no doubt historical precedent for US interests in Greenland, which goes all the way back to 1867, the very time when the US purchased Alaska from the Russian Empire. So the US has long had its eyes kind of in fits and starts on expanding its northern territories, whether to the West with Alaska or to the East with Greenland, and even Iceland was briefly considered. So sure, there's a historical through line, but I think I would chalk up the Trump administration's interest to simply what Klaus Dodds, he calls ego politics. I think Trump is interested in doing a massive real estate deal that would effectively expand American territory by the largest amount in what, decades or if not centuries. So I think it's kind of an irrational explanation to US interest in Greenland. I mean, the US has operated military bases in Greenland since the '40s and '50s, and there's still an ongoing defensive Greenland agreement with the Kingdom of Denmark that would enable the US to build even more bases if it wanted to.

So Greenland is essential to US security, but the US already has the right to do more if it wants. There's also no prohibitions against US companies investing in Greenlandic mineral deposits. So I think a lot of the noise around Greenland is really just, I would say, can be attributed to Trump and his kind of personal designs.

Jason Mitchell:

You've written that while the US administration raises fears of Russian and Chinese ships near Greenland, Greenlanders themselves are more alarmed by the prospect of American ones. What gets lost about Greenland when the conversation is dominated by great power competition? What do you think Greenlanders actually want themselves?

Mia Bennett:

I think what typically has gotten lost in these conversations, but which I think positively is now surfacing, is the fact that Greenland is an island populated by 57,000 people who have the right and the desire to determine their own future. So I think when we saw when everything was kicking off about Greenland in January, a huge proportion of Greenlanders gathered in the streets in Nuke to protest what the US was doing. And I think that was a real sign of strength from the Greenlandic population. And we've also seen Greenlandic leaders hold their own on the world stage against the world's number one superpower.

So I mean, this is, again, a country of 57,000 people. You have to imagine how small their diplomatic core is, and the fact that these people are being pulled in every direction now, whether to the EU, to China, to the US to explain their desires, I think they are completely overburdened but really, really I think showing the world a model of not only Greenlandic leadership, but Indigenous leadership, which is really exciting in many ways. So I think when it comes to what Greenlanders want, the polls show that I think well over 80, if not close to 90% of Greenlanders do not want to join the US. Many Greenlanders want ultimately independence for their country, but they want to work towards that in a slow and steady manner. I think the crisis with the US has actually pushed Greenland closer to Denmark for the time being.

And lastly, I would say Greenlanders not only want to chart their own country's future, but I think they want to chart their country's strategic future. And what I mean by that is Greenlanders want to be the ones who kind of architect the place and position for their country within international relations rather than having the US or the EU, let alone Russia and China, which I don't think actually have big designs on Greenland, kind of decide what their country means for international relations.

Jason Mitchell:

So I've devoted several episodes trying to understand the impact of US budget cuts over the last several years on scientific data sets with names like NOAA's former chief scientist, Sarah Kapnick, and even the Singapore Earth Observatory's Benjamin Horton. So to what degree are those cuts impacting Arctic data sets that scientists maybe worldwide have relied on for decades? As someone who uses remote sensing in your own research, what's actually being lost here? Can other countries or institutions fill that gap? And what's really at stake? What happens to our understanding of the Arctic if the world's largest funder of polar science simply walks away?

Mia Bennett:

I think that US budget cuts to polar science in both the Arctic and Antarctic are absolutely devastating. People have spoken about the cuts as presenting an existential threat to not only US polar science, but international polar science. The US for a long time has been the world's number one producer of polar research. China's been catching up lately, and China sure can step up and fill some of the gaps perhaps, but China's not known for creating publicly available Arctic data sets, whether from satellite imagery or other observations in a way that's legible and easy to use for people from around the world.

So I think we're seeing real gaps take place, everything from this Arctic Digital Elevation Model, which was a data set maintained out of the University of Minnesota for years and provided really high res maps, basically topographic maps of the Arctic, that's no longer being produced. There's a chance that numerous satellites operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency might no longer receive funding. My colleagues here at the University of Washington have spoken about how there's really basically no NASA funding that's related to the Arctic to apply for. A lot of people's grants are still running, but what comes next is the big question. There's not a lot coming down the line.

And so I think what's happening is grad students aren't being admitted. They're going to study in places like Europe, maybe the UK, Canada. So we're going to have a brain drain when it comes to scientific and polar scientific talent. And there's It's going to be a diffusion of people elsewhere. So yeah, I don't think this gap can be easily filled, and I think we're going to end up with a lot of gaps, both in terms of Arctic data sets and in terms of institutional knowledge that will really challenge our ability to deal with things like the climate crisis with all sorts of other cross-border challenges in the region.

Jason Mitchell:

Have you seen the shift already take place over the last 12 months?

Mia Bennett:

I would say so. I've heard of grad students who are planning to take up postdoctoral research positions in the US who were planning to come from the UK or France decide, okay, they don't want to come to the US, even if the funding still exists because of other kinds of issues such as just the general dire state of US politics and the attitude the Trump administration has towards international students and workers. So people are not coming. Positions that even are still funded are being left vacant.

I've heard of several US colleagues who've been recruited by institutions in Canada or France. Norway is funding a big research effort in the Arctic Ocean, which I think it still would've done regardless of what's happening in the US. But I do feel that people are leaving and looking for opportunities abroad and not necessarily ever planning to come back. So this is an opportunity for other countries to bolster their Arctic research programmes, but we're entering a period with a real loss of a leader at the helm of Arctic research, and I think that is quite concerning.

Jason Mitchell:

So there's another element of your research that critiques the notion of frontier making, the idea that remote regions are blank slates waiting for development. As Arctic ice recedes or increasingly recedes, new shipping lanes, roads and ports are appearing. Who is building this infrastructure and who benefits? Is there a version of Arctic development that doesn't ultimately end up repeating the same extractive patterns of the past?

Mia Bennett:

Right. So I think again here I would emphasise that it's not only climate change that is compelling this infrastructure boom in the Arctic, but I think what's actually evident is that right now it's militarization that is really driving investment in Arctic infrastructure, whether it's new runways, new space ports, in the case of Northern Norway and Sweden, new ports such as one that's been off and on in Nome, Alaska for years now. A lot of those projects are suddenly seeing money come to the table, not because climate change is reaching new heights, but because of the Russian threat, because of the US seeming to withdraw a little bit and European states feeling the need to bolster their own security now. So it's often the military that is coming to build this infrastructure or at least governments in the name of national security.

And as to who benefits, there is talk more and more of so-called dual use infrastructure. So this idea that let's say a new port, such as the one I mentioned in Nome, could have both facilities for Navy ships to dock alongside local subsistence fishermen, so civilian and military purposes. I tend to be a little bit sceptical of this idea of dual use because ultimately a big ticket project is only going to be built in the Arctic, if there's a real benefactor like the military or an extractive company. And so oftentimes the kind of civilian add-on, as it were, can just be window dressing the blueprint and not actually ever see the light of day. I think it is possible though to avoid this kind of history in which projects were just literally railroaded through the Arctic. If states and corporations engage in free, prior and informed consent with Indigenous communities, with local bodies in the Arctic, I think we are seeing better behaviour than in the past.

I've spoken to, for instance, Sámi people from the Nordic countries who talk about how the military does approach them and say, "Hey, we want to do a training exercise," and they kind of forewarn them. The bigger issue they've addressed though is infrastructure is still not always completely run by them. So whether it's green energy infrastructure like windmills or a new runway that the military wants to build, it's almost kind of a done deal before any consultation has taken place. And that of course has permanent impacts in a way that training exercise over the weekend does not.

And at the end of the day, I mean this period of militarization will ultimately end, everything is a cycle and yet the kind of long-term ecological and societal impacts of infrastructure that one day may well be obsolete will be left for local people to deal with and pick up the pieces. And so that is the real worry, I think. How do we avoid repeating that kind of history where what do we do with these toxic legacies as it's been called of militarization and extractive infrastructure? I'm not so sure there's a good clear plan for dealing with that yet.

Jason Mitchell:

Look, I get the militarization point, but another theme in your work is that Arctic communities are often portrayed either as victims of climate change or obstacles to development, yet they are obviously political actors in their own right shaping the region's future. From your research and field work, what are some examples of Indigenous leadership or governance that challenge the outside world's assumptions about who really determines the Arctic's future?

Mia Bennett:

Yeah, I think this is a great question because it does point to the agency that Arctic communities, especially Indigenous organisations, increasingly have in charting the region's political and economic future, especially I would say in countries like the US and in Canada where for the past 60 years, Alaska Native, Canadian Inuit and other Indigenous organisations have made incredible gains in terms of securing rights and autonomy from their respective national governments. And so we could look to places like Alaska where you have organisations on the North Slope, which is the region facing the Arctic Ocean, where there's a vast amount of oil and gas resources and extraction. And oftentimes this extraction is championed by local Alaska native organisations. They're not interested in being so-called conservation refugees. They promote economic activity. They see direct gains, whether it's as a result of taxes that then can support local schools or support, I don't know, basketball teams.

I think Indigenous peoples across the Arctic would generally emphasise that they don't want to be stuck in time. They are future oriented people, like all people. They have diverse views. So not everyone on Alaska's North Slope will be in favour of oil and gas extraction, but ultimately they just don't want their fates to be decided by the outside. So all that is to say, when we see now, going back to the crisis in Greenland, when we see Indigenous people speaking clearly and boldly for the vision they want to set up for their community, I think that ultimately helps undo these assumptions that Indigenous people in the Arctic or anywhere for that matter are kind of these passive people, let alone victims in their own kind of world. I think that's absolutely not the case and the Arctic proves that kind of narrative wrong.

Jason Mitchell:

Interesting. So final question here. If you look beyond the diagnosis that Unfrozen provides and more towards a prescription to the extractive, endangered and adversarial forces that you outline, what does that look like? In other words, if all three scenarios are already materialising, where are most realistic leverage points for bending the trajectory towards something more sustainable? And who do you see as the actor's best position to pull those levers?

Mia Bennett:

Right. So it's interesting this question about trying to shift away from a diagnosis of the problems facing the Arctic towards more prescriptive recommendations. And there was actually a review of our book lately published in Asia Policy, which was asking us why hadn't we done a bit more in terms of coming up with some recommendations? And again, I think ultimately it's because at least the way I see my own roles in academic, I diagnose problems, but am I a policymaker? No quite. But I think your question is important and I would like to try to be able to better offer some possible interventions or ideas. And I think where I see those existing at the current juncture in Arctic is perhaps more at this local, if not mini lateral scale we were discussing earlier. So I do think that pan-Arctic regional cooperation is kind of completely sidelined at the moment.

I would say more promising would be cooperation between, let's say the Nordic countries, Canada and the UK and the European Union, both with its own Arctic states and partners such as Norway. So I think these kind of sub-regional organisations can act on issues like climate change or come up with recommendations for critical mineral extraction, let's say, mineral supply chains. And then I think the other actor best positioned to encourage sustainable development, sustainable policies in Arctic would be Indigenous peoples, which we were also talking about earlier. I think these are interesting groups because we kind of spent some time discussing, let's say, leadership in Greenland, but there's also organisations such as the Inuit Circumpolar Council, which is a quite powerful Indigenous organisation that represents Inuit in four countries. So the US and Alaska, Russia and Chukotka, and then Canada and Greenland. And that organisation actually recently became the first Indigenous organisation to hold a kind of permanent membership as an observer in the International Maritime Organisation.

So Indigenous peoples in the Arctic, their populations often span national borders. And I think that fact, which is complimented by the organisation of these bodies across borders, reminds us that the Arctic is not a space fully divided by national borders and that it is imperative to work across these arbitrary lines to come up with ecological, infrastructural, cultural policies or solutions, I would say, to the challenges that people face. And so I think those would be the actors who can kind of pull levers in a way that, sure, it's not going to happen across all of the Arctic at once, but they can do so in a way that at least challenges the primacy of national governments at a time when national security is so high on the agenda. It's important to simply be reminded of the fact that, hey, cross-border challenges still exist and someone needs to work across those borders to address them.

Jason Mitchell:

Great. So it's been fascinating to talk about what your new book, Unfrozen, reveals about the Arctic as a hotspot of intersecting climate, geopolitical, and economic tensions, why abandoning outdated narratives like exceptionalism and empty frontier thinking matter and how policymakers, businesses, and Arctic communities can realistically reshape governance and development to avoid deepening the crisis. So I'd really like to thank you for your time and insights.

I'm Jason Mitchell, CIO for Responsible Investment at Man Group, here today with Dr. Mia Bennett. Mia is an associate professor of geography at the University of Washington and co-author of Unfrozen: The Fight for the Future of the Arctic. Many thanks for joining us on A Sustainable Future, and I hope you'll join us on our next podcast episode.

Mia, thank you so much for your time today. This has been super, super interesting.

Mia Bennett:

Thanks, Jason. It's been a real pleasure speaking with you. I really appreciate all your questions and reading the book and look forward to staying in touch. Thanks again.