President Barack Obama toured Alaska this week to bring more attention to the effects climate change has had on the Arctic region. President Obama, the first sitting U.S. president to visit the Arctic, addressed the U.S.’s role in climate change, saying “the United States recognizes our role in creating this problem, and we embrace our responsibility to help solve it. And I believe we can solve it.”
On his three-day tour, the president visited the remote villages of Dillingham and Kotzebue to show the harm climate change is already having on U.S. soil. Acknowledging the U.S. cannot solve the issues of climate change without international help, the president told the other nations attending the conference, “we are eager to work with your nations on the unique opportunities that the Arctic presents and the unique challenges that it faces. We are not going to — any of us — be able to solve these challenges by ourselves. We can only solve them together.”
But climate change is not the only threat posed in the Arctic. Senator John McCain, who visited the Arctic earlier this year, says the most immediate threat is Russia. In an article in the Wall Street Journal this week, McCain wrote, “Russia is threatening the security and prosperity of the Arctic and Northern Europe by assertively deploying its military power, patrolling its neighbors’ coastlines both above and below water, and building or reopening numerous military outposts across the region.”
But Russia isn’t the only country flexing its military muscle. On Wednesday, the final day of President Obama’s trip, five Chinese navy ships were spotted by the U.S. Defense Department off of Alaska’s coast. This was the first time the People’s Liberation Army Navy has been seen in the Bering Sea. As climate change opens new shipping lanes and new opportunities for oil exploration, there is growing concern about the security environment in the region.
Alexandra Viers is an analyst at The Cipher Brief.
