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1969, a plan to show support for an

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anti-racism protest turned the lives of 14 promising

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black student athletes upside down.

1:33

Amazing Sports Stories from the BBC World

1:35

Service tells their story. Search

1:37

for Amazing Sports Stories wherever you get

1:39

your BBC podcasts. We

1:46

got cut off before. What happened? Well,

1:48

some of the soldiers was very

1:51

interested in what I was doing

1:53

outside the military base. It

1:57

was kind of sketchy for them, probably.

1:59

Since I was sitting in this car

2:02

outside this military base, I

2:04

had my computer with me, this

2:06

huge microphone, and just sitting

2:08

there and talking with somebody for like, we

2:10

were talking for like 40 minutes and

2:13

there was nobody else there, only me,

2:15

so probably it's just their job to

2:17

ask what I was doing there.

2:20

Are you okay? What happened? Yeah, they

2:22

got very interested when I told them

2:24

that I was talking with you in

2:26

London that this is going to be

2:28

a radio show, so probably

2:30

you have more listeners than in the original.

2:34

Woohoo, a win for the climate question.

2:37

Yeah. You

2:41

can't say we don't get good

2:43

access here on the BBC World

2:45

Service. That was Almond Trellovec. He's

2:47

a Norwegian reporter specialising in relations

2:49

between Russia and the West. And

2:52

you're going to be hearing a

2:54

lot more from him throughout the

2:56

show, because climate change is reshaping

2:58

Russia's Arctic coastline, and

3:00

that has very real repercussions

3:02

for global security. I'm

3:06

Graeme Jackson, and our climate question

3:08

this week, why is climate

3:10

change causing tensions to rise in

3:13

the Arctic? In

3:21

the past, we've talked a lot about

3:23

how a warming world may bring about

3:25

more conflict, and this is one such

3:27

story. But to understand its

3:29

roots and connection to climate change, you

3:31

need to understand what's happening to Arctic

3:34

sea ice. And a scientist

3:36

named Julie Breghum-Gready is just the person

3:38

to talk us through that. I'm

3:40

a professor of Earth Sciences in

3:43

the Department of Earth, Geographic

3:45

and Climate Science at the

3:47

University of Massachusetts, Amherst. And

3:50

you've worked in the Arctic for a really

3:52

long time, haven't you Julie? Yes, I've

3:54

been working in the Arctic for over 40

3:56

years, and started as a

3:59

graduate student. I mean, it

4:01

must be a pretty challenging environment

4:03

to work in. It was a

4:05

challenging environment, particularly lots of skepticism

4:07

in late 1970s about women going

4:11

up to the Arctic. It was largely

4:13

a man's world. So, partly, it

4:15

was just thought that we weren't tough enough.

4:18

But our generation of women has shown that

4:20

that isn't the case. And now we see

4:22

a lot of equity in science across the

4:25

polar regions. I mean, how tough was it

4:27

to go up there and do fieldwork? You

4:29

have to certainly tolerate some

4:32

extreme weather conditions. I have

4:34

many stories of being caught

4:37

in excruciating snowstorms or heavy

4:39

winds. There are physical

4:41

challenges that test our physical strength as

4:44

well as mental strength. Now, Julie,

4:46

I wonder if you can give us a

4:48

bit of a geography lesson when it comes

4:50

to the North Pole, because I didn't quite

4:52

appreciate that there's actually no land there. It's

4:55

just a big sheet of ice that sort

4:57

of expands and contracts over the sea. Exactly.

4:59

And in fact, over 100 years

5:02

ago, people still didn't know whether

5:04

there was anything

5:06

at the North Pole. So we

5:08

have these what I call Arctic

5:10

borderlands that include, of

5:13

course, Canada, Alaska, Russia,

5:15

Norway, Sweden, and so

5:17

on, that normally in winter

5:19

freezes over with sea ice. And

5:22

then in the summer, the edges of

5:24

that sea ice melt back. That's a

5:27

huge difference from Antarctica, where you have

5:29

a continent in the middle of the

5:31

polar region surrounded by the Southern Ocean.

5:35

I mean, how has it changed since you

5:37

first went 40 odd years ago? Oh, it's

5:39

changed a lot. And the most dramatic change

5:41

is really in the extent of

5:44

the sea ice. When I

5:46

was first doing my work on the

5:48

coast of Alaska, it was not uncommon

5:50

for me with my small boat

5:52

to get stuck by sea ice. Even

5:54

in July and August, that sea ice would be

5:56

a problem. Today, it is not.

6:05

And that's a problem for Russia. It

6:07

has over 24,000 kilometres of coastline to defend

6:11

up there in the Arctic Circle. Before,

6:14

the sea ice did a great job

6:16

of keeping foreign military boats and submarines

6:18

well away, a natural defence if you

6:20

like. But now there's less

6:23

sea ice, and even no sea ice

6:25

for long stretches of the year. These

6:27

foreign intelligence vessels can get much closer

6:29

for much longer than Russia would like.

6:32

And if history has to address anything about

6:34

how Russia perceives the intrusion of foreign presence

6:36

is that they need to limit the

6:39

presence of foreign actors. And they do it

6:41

the way that Russia does it, which is

6:43

to militarise the region to make

6:45

sure that we don't get too close. And we

6:47

is the collective West or now NATO. Matthew

6:50

Büling has been watching the changing landscape

6:52

in Russia as part of his job

6:54

at a couple of think tanks, Chatham

6:56

House in the UK, as well as

6:58

the Polar Institute at the Wilson Centre

7:00

in the US. This

7:03

militarisation of an ice-free and

7:05

thus undefended border began in

7:07

the 2010s, Matthew says. The

7:10

Arctic relations were set to get

7:12

a lot more frosty when Russia

7:14

went on the offensive. The

7:16

end of the spirit of good cooperation

7:18

between all circumpolar countries was first and

7:21

foremost caused and provoked by Russia's actions

7:23

and policies, not least in Ukraine since

7:25

2014. Help the

7:28

provocation and start negotiations. A plea

7:30

to Moscow from Ukraine's acting president

7:32

after two airports in Crimea are

7:34

seized by armed men. And

7:36

further to the full-scale invasion of 2022. Mr

7:40

House has struck key targets in the

7:42

capital and in the east of Ukraine.

7:44

Ukraine's president issued... When we

7:46

really start talking about geopolitics, it's actually

7:48

very interesting to see that the Arctic

7:50

is increasingly defined in terms of an

7:53

increasingly isolated Russia and the

7:56

rest of the countries which happen now to be

7:58

NATO territory with the expansion of the of

8:00

the Atlantic Alliance to Finland and

8:02

Sweden. We now have this sort

8:05

of new situation where it's basically

8:07

the NATO seven circumpolar country against

8:09

Russia. Have we seen

8:11

Russia militarize the Arctic space? Or

8:13

what is it exactly that you

8:15

see that leads you to that

8:17

conclusion? So what we've

8:19

seen is a slow burning re-appropriation,

8:22

more presence, the construction or strengthening

8:24

of existing bases, new

8:26

airstrips to make sure that

8:29

the Kremlin could land aircraft,

8:31

for instance. I'm interested that

8:33

you're using the word militarization there. Where's

8:36

the line between the security

8:38

element of rightly defending your

8:40

borders versus the more aggressive

8:43

term that you're using, which

8:45

is militarization? The key here is

8:47

to understand that you have two forms of security in

8:49

a way, an environment. You have

8:51

what we call soft security, which has

8:53

a lot to do with search and

8:55

rescue operations, border protection, making sure that

8:57

your waters are protected when

8:59

it comes to avoiding illegal

9:02

fishing and shipments of

9:04

nefarious substances and so on. The

9:09

other side is hard security, anything

9:11

military, anything that has to do

9:13

with weaponization of the region,

9:16

placing military assets that can be

9:18

used to gather adverse information against

9:20

your opponents and so on. And

9:23

what is defensive can be turned into

9:25

an offensive system by the flick of

9:27

a button, not seeking to escalate for

9:29

no reason, but they are planning for

9:31

all contingencies. And this is the problem

9:33

because they're planning equally for defensive maneuvers,

9:35

but also for war. The

9:41

Arctic region is very important for

9:43

Russia and the Russian military forces.

9:45

They have some of their most

9:48

important military bases on the Kola

9:50

Peninsula, closer to the Norwegian

9:52

border bases with atomic nuclear

9:54

weapons. So

9:57

it's very important for Russia to have control

9:59

in this region. That's

10:01

our Arctic reporter, O I

10:26

can try to step

10:28

out of my car to have a sense of what's

10:30

going on. It's

10:32

windy weather with rain

10:35

so it's not very possible to

10:37

be outside. Kind of cold as

10:39

well. Do you want to step back

10:41

into your car? I'm feeling a bit guilty

10:43

about making you stand outside in that weather.

10:45

Sure. Now

10:49

I'm sitting in my car.

10:52

I'm walking at two French

10:54

military vessels, one submarine and

10:56

one ordinary vessel. It's

10:59

the first time the French Navy is

11:02

visiting this part of Norway. From Saadäwister

11:05

from America, the

11:08

largest submarine ever been

11:11

present in Sromsø. How

11:13

big is the US submarine? Do you know?

11:16

Well, it is 170 meters long. Wow.

11:20

And I spoke to a guy

11:22

that was inside on a guided

11:24

tour and he told me that

11:26

they had four floors inside the

11:29

submarine. Gosh. So it's kind

11:31

of a huge thing. That

11:33

also tells us a lot about

11:35

the rising tensions up in Arctic

11:38

and how the big players are looking at this

11:40

region. Norway

11:44

is spending more and more money on

11:46

their national army. We

11:48

just bought new tanks, also

11:51

new submarines. So

11:54

the military spending in Greece is

11:56

also something happening in Norway. We

12:02

went to the harbour, to the military base, and

12:04

I did a brief

12:06

interview with the commanding officer

12:09

of the local home guard

12:11

force in Fromse. His name

12:13

is Major Svergadale. He

12:16

is in charge when Allied

12:18

was also visiting Fromse. We

12:21

have a large neighbour in the east that

12:23

is kind of interesting in seeing what's going

12:25

on, so we're trying to prevent that. But

12:29

if you see on the

12:31

global picture, these military build-ups,

12:33

unlike the rising tensions between

12:35

the global powers, should

12:37

we be worried about that? Be

12:42

in their attention. I'm

12:45

pretty curious about that long pause

12:47

there. I think in

12:50

the Norwegian military and in the armed

12:52

forces, they don't talk about

12:54

politics. It's up to

12:57

the politicians and to the government to speak on

12:59

behalf when it comes to the rising

13:01

tensions with Russia. A

13:06

reminder that you're listening to the

13:08

climate question from the BBC World

13:10

Service. Today we're answering why tensions

13:12

rising in the Arctic. We've

13:17

heard how melting sea ice is

13:19

creating a new and enormous coastal

13:21

front for Russia to defend, and

13:24

Russia has stepped up its military presence.

13:27

Then the invasion of Ukraine

13:29

and the expansion of NATO

13:31

has effectively ended any cooperation

13:33

between Russia and the West.

13:36

Instead, Russia has been building

13:38

relations with China. It's

13:42

a fascinating relationship and it's one that changes

13:45

a little bit every year, especially now in

13:47

the light of sanctions. Malta

13:49

Humpa is referring to the

13:51

international sanctions placed on Russia

13:53

after it invaded Ukraine. Malta

13:56

is a journalist at High North News and

13:58

a senior fellow at the... Arctic Institute,

14:00

which is a think tank based

14:02

in Washington, DC, in the US.

14:06

And it's not just sanctions that have opened

14:08

up avenues for this budding friendship. Climate

14:11

change and the melting sea ice have

14:13

created a new trade route through the

14:15

Russian Arctic, a way for Russia to

14:17

make money despite those sanctions

14:19

and finance its war. Yeah,

14:22

so we have the Northern Sea Route, which

14:24

is the shipping route that goes along Russia's

14:27

northern coastline, kind of from Scandinavia in

14:29

the west all the way to the

14:31

Bering Strait close to Alaska in the

14:33

east. Why is it so

14:35

attractive to go along that North Sea

14:37

Route? Why wouldn't I just go say

14:40

via the Suez Canal or the Panama

14:42

Canal? So for transit shipping, which

14:44

goes from Asia to Europe, it's shorter. So

14:46

it's about 30 to 40 percent distance saving.

14:48

While you can't really do that in the

14:51

winter yet, because there's still too much ice,

14:53

for about four or five months out of

14:55

the year, you can go

14:57

through the Arctic now without any

14:59

ice classifications. He means

15:01

special ships designed to break through the

15:03

ice, all would stand its crushing forces

15:05

if they were to get a frozen stack.

15:08

But just to be clear, it's still only

15:11

a tiny fraction of world trade passing

15:13

through this route, but it's growing

15:15

and an important moneymaker for Russia,

15:18

which can charge fees and tolls

15:20

to passing vessels. Malta

15:22

says overall the Arctic represents

15:24

20 percent of

15:26

Russia's GDP. There

15:28

is some disagreement here. The US

15:30

says Russia has no right to

15:32

charge fees. And much of the

15:35

world is boycotting this trade route since the

15:37

invasion of Ukraine, with some

15:39

exceptions, including China. For

15:42

China, it really is an alternative trade trade

15:44

route because China is pretty dependent on the

15:46

Suez Canal on the Strait of Malacca by

15:48

Singapore. They are dependent on a few

15:51

key shipping routes that they

15:53

have very little control over. So that's where the Arctic

15:55

comes in as well, that the Arctic, especially if you

15:57

think 20, 30, 40 years down the line, road

16:00

where climate change will have done even more

16:02

opening up, even more damage, more

16:05

shipping routes being available for China. Really,

16:07

the Arctic is a long-term play. How

16:10

would you characterize this relationship with

16:12

China and Russia? So

16:14

China is definitely a benefactor of the

16:16

sanctions. They are able to receive

16:19

more and more oil now from the Russian Arctic,

16:22

and they're receiving it at a discount. They're

16:24

paying about $6 less per barrel of

16:26

oil that they're importing from Russia compared

16:28

to the oil that they're receiving from

16:31

Saudi Arabia. And while Saudi Arabia was

16:33

historically the largest provider of crude oil

16:35

to China, now it's Russia. Melting

16:38

sea ice has also meant Russia can

16:40

access and extract more oil and gas

16:42

than before. In fact, it's extracting 40%

16:46

more Arctic oil than it did a

16:48

decade ago. It's

16:50

not easy mind. This is still

16:52

a pretty hostile place to work

16:54

in. Sub-zero temperatures, of course, but

16:56

also it's isolated, right? If

16:59

you land yourself in trouble, help may be

17:01

weeks or maybe even months away. And

17:04

there's not much in the way of infrastructure up

17:06

there. It has to be built from scratch. In

17:09

other words, it's expensive, which

17:11

is where China comes in

17:13

again. China is heavily

17:15

invested in some of those projects,

17:17

also the liquefied natural gas project

17:19

on the Yamal Peninsula and the

17:21

upcoming Arctic LNG2 project. And

17:23

there's, of course, a certain irony there that it took climate

17:26

change to melt about 50% of the ice. And

17:29

now that the ice is gone, you suddenly

17:31

have the ability to exploit more

17:33

oil and gas and cause more

17:35

CO2 emissions. But for Russia,

17:37

really, this is the lifeblood. These

17:43

new relations between China and Russia,

17:45

two of the world's biggest superpowers,

17:47

might be perceived by some as

17:49

threatening, and certainly something the US

17:51

and Europe will be watching closely.

17:55

But what about in Norway, where our

17:57

reporter Almond is? How real

17:59

is the threat? seen that? I

18:02

think that depends on who you ask.

18:04

Of course, some people feel that the

18:06

situation we are in

18:08

the middle of is very concerning. But

18:11

what the Norwegian military have been

18:13

very outspoken on is that the

18:15

Russian military is not a threat

18:17

to Norway at this moment. Many

18:21

of the soldiers that were based close

18:23

to the Norwegian border before the war

18:25

have been sent to war in Ukraine.

18:29

And many of the bases are now

18:31

totally empty of soldiers. I

18:33

put a similar question to Arctic analyst

18:36

Matthew Tu, and he had a similar

18:38

view. How serious

18:41

are rising tensions that we're seeing today?

18:43

Because I've certainly read articles with titles

18:45

of things like the new Cold War

18:48

is coming to the Arctic. Do you

18:50

take those at face value or are

18:52

you a bit more skeptical? There

18:54

are sort of a tension grabber headlines that should not

18:57

be taken for face value. Cooperation

18:59

remains despite current geopolitics when it

19:01

comes to border management, for instance,

19:04

between Russia and Norway and Russia-Finland

19:06

when it comes to life at

19:08

sea operations or search and rescue

19:11

operations. Traditionally

19:13

it's been quite a low-tension region, hasn't

19:15

it? Yeah, absolutely. And it became

19:18

the spirit of this logic in 1987 during a very famous

19:22

speech given by Mikhail Gorbachev, who

19:24

came up with the idea that

19:27

we should leave geopolitics aside in

19:29

the Arctic because of the nature

19:31

of the environment, because of how

19:33

fragile this environment is. So

19:36

that means stay away from geopolitics. Basically

19:38

don't bring your Cold War competition, which

19:47

was in 1987 coming to an

19:50

end slowly, but don't bring

19:52

it to the fore and don't make it the

19:54

sort of smallest common denominator of how the Arctic

19:56

should be dealt with. It should first and foremost

19:58

be a spirit of cooperation. Arctic

20:01

reporter O one

20:25

of the first thing I did as a newly

20:29

employed local reporter in Czechness

20:31

was to cover the football

20:33

match between the Russian and the

20:35

Norwegian border guards. This was in

20:38

2013 and it's kind of amazing thing

20:40

to watch you know 11 against

20:43

11 military servicemen playing

20:46

a football match. Who won do you

20:48

remember? I think Norway was the

20:50

winner and I remember I asked one

20:52

of the Russian officers in the break

20:55

he was sitting inside

20:57

this cafeteria eating Norwegian waffles and I

20:59

asked him what do you think this

21:01

course should be and he just replied

21:03

with a smile on his face that

21:06

for the sake of the border I hope it will

21:08

be true. Those

21:14

days are long gone and

21:16

even though the risk of a

21:18

new Cold War, maybe small, the

21:20

current tension is a problem for

21:22

people who live in the Arctic.

21:24

Without collaboration it's harder to deal

21:26

with those shared impacts of a

21:28

warmer world. The problem is

21:30

the future the problem is that when it comes

21:32

to dealing with climate change when it comes to

21:35

dealing with the future impact of it on the

21:37

region all these discussions of

21:39

stoops so unless we do

21:41

it collaboratively and all together and we

21:43

have maybe have a fighting chance at

21:46

mitigating the impact of climate change or

21:48

we do it you know separately on the Club of

21:51

Western countries and then without Russia and then without China

21:53

and so on and then this is where we have

21:55

a problem because it's much easier

21:57

and much better to deal with it

21:59

collaboratively. comparatively than standing alone. So the

22:01

future in a way stops. And

22:05

that's a problem for people living in the Arctic.

22:08

As we've heard, it's an area that's warming

22:10

faster than most of the places on Earth.

22:14

People here are on the front line

22:16

of climate change, with sea ice melting,

22:19

new shipping lanes opening, and

22:21

fears over who might venture down

22:23

them, weapons and periscopes at the

22:25

ready. There isn't

22:27

an immediate risk of an Arctic

22:29

war, but tensions are rising, and

22:31

Russians living in the Arctic are

22:34

increasingly cut off from solutions to

22:36

climate change as a result. There

22:40

is one thing that could help.

22:42

We could refreeze the Arctic sea

22:44

ice, and that could put tensions

22:46

on ice. Sea ice

22:48

is actually one of the few things that we

22:51

might be able to bring back. Scientists,

22:53

Julie Brigham-Gready again. If we

22:55

can decrease the CO2 enough

22:57

in the atmosphere and cool the

22:59

high latitudes, it's possible

23:02

some generations into the future that we can

23:04

actually see the sea ice recover. And

23:07

that would be a remarkable feat

23:09

of human ingenuity to do that.

23:26

As a total aside here, sometimes on

23:29

the climate question, we learn interesting things

23:31

or gather tape that doesn't quite fit

23:33

the narrative of the programme, and it

23:35

ends up on the cutting room floor.

23:38

This week, we have a bit more time

23:40

to share those interesting and quirky bits of

23:42

tape with you. So did

23:44

you know winters are darker in

23:46

the Arctic because of climate change?

23:49

I did not. Here's Almond. So

23:51

it's raining now. Now we can

23:53

have rain at Christmas Eve, long

23:56

piers, without any snow at all. have

24:00

the effect that it's lightening up when

24:03

it's even not that much sun. This

24:06

makes this a very dark period of

24:09

the year. Snow

24:11

and ice reflect the sunlight, making

24:13

Norway lighter and brighter in the

24:15

winter months, but now

24:17

there's less snow. It's darker than

24:19

ever. The Arctic

24:21

is also warming four times faster than

24:24

the rest of the world, but people

24:26

in Norway are finding ways to adapt.

24:29

As Amund found out, when he

24:31

visited an allotment to find them

24:33

growing, vegetables that normally grow in

24:35

much warmer conditions. Yeah,

24:38

well every part of the society is changing

24:40

here because of the climate change. I've

24:43

spoken to a guy called

24:45

Røne Patlsson. He is the

24:48

leader of Hult-Erkopak. It's

24:50

both a place where individuals can

24:52

come and put their onions and

24:55

potatoes and carrots into the soil,

24:57

but it's also a school project

24:59

where primary schools learn about

25:01

how to do farming in

25:03

the Arctic region. He

25:06

mentioned that some of the vegetables he grew

25:14

this year is something

25:16

that they usually have in the Mediterranean

25:18

and some

25:20

of his friends now have grapes in

25:22

their garden. Great!

25:26

Yeah, and

25:29

that's something.

25:31

Less snow and ice might

25:33

be something you'd expect with climate change.

25:35

I don't know about you, but growing

25:37

grapes in the Arctic is pretty surprising

25:39

to me. It reminds

25:41

me of this other thing we learned

25:43

in another show that we made about

25:46

the Arctic, this time in Greenland. You

25:48

usually hear about sea levels rising, but

25:51

in Greenland the sea level is

25:53

falling. The reason

25:58

this happens is is that the

26:00

Greenland ice sheet has so

26:03

much ice that the mass

26:05

of ice here actually influences

26:08

Earth's gravitational field. This

26:13

may sound complicated, but you don't need

26:16

to be Einstein to understand why. You

26:19

just need to know that everything

26:21

exerts an invisible force, a force

26:23

that pulls objects towards it. And

26:26

the bigger that thing, the bigger that pull. It's

26:29

how the Earth stays in orbit around the sun.

26:31

It's why apples fall to the ground

26:33

instead of float upwards towards the sky.

26:36

And it's how the Greenland ice sheet

26:38

pulls the ocean towards it. Here's

26:41

Twyla Moon from the University

26:43

of Colorado. So you can

26:45

imagine that this mass of ice is

26:48

pulling ocean water towards it.

26:51

As we're losing that ice, it

26:53

doesn't have the same gravitational pull

26:56

on the ocean waters around it,

26:58

allowing that water to relax away

27:00

and instead create rising seas

27:03

far away. Gosh, I

27:05

mean, I think that's really surprising. It is. And

27:08

in fact, because of the way

27:10

the Earth's system works, people here

27:12

in Greenland are actually needing to

27:15

plan for lowering sea levels. Is

27:17

that because of this gravitational pull

27:19

that you're describing or are there

27:22

other factors here? Here in Greenland,

27:24

sea levels will lower in

27:26

part because of that change in the

27:28

gravitational pull as we lose ice from

27:31

the ice sheet. But also

27:33

as we lose ice from the ice

27:35

sheet here, the ground that it

27:37

sits on is able to rise some.

27:40

I confess I am a science nerd, but to

27:42

me that is just fascinating. That

27:46

wraps things up for today. If you'd

27:48

like to get in touch, the email

27:51

is theclimatequestion at bbc.com. Otherwise,

27:53

we'll be back next week. The

27:55

producer was Ben Cooper. The series

27:57

producers were Alex Lewis and Simon Watts.

28:00

and the editor was Chyna Collins with

28:02

magical mixing by Tom Brigno. Can

28:10

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happened? In 1969,

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