Climate change is transforming the Arctic: Melting sea ice, thawing permafrost, and changing maritime accessibility are opening new territories, resources, and shipping routes while reshaping the region’s strategic landscape. These changes have placed the Arctic at the center of a geopolitical competition between Russia, NATO states, and increasingly China. But the significance of these developments extends beyond economic interests and regional rivalry.
The Arctic hosts critical military infrastructure, strategic nuclear assets, and key pathways for power projection, making it a geopolitical magnifying glass in the evolving global security environment. But while climate change is widely recognized as a threat multiplier in the Arctic, regional governance has not yet adapted to this new reality. Climate change, geopolitical competition, and nuclear risk are typically treated as separate policy challenges, managed by separate institutions with different mandates. The global climate governance institutions approach the Arctic primarily through a focus on climate change effects and environmental management, while the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), the bedrock of the global nuclear order, addresses nuclear risk through the traditional pillars of non-proliferation, disarmament, and peaceful uses of nuclear energy. At the regional level, the Arctic Council, the leading intergovernmental forum for Arctic governance and cooperation, explicitly excludes military security from its mandate. The result is a growing governance gap that no longer reflects the magnitude and complexity of issues in the Arctic.
