For Humpert, the impact may be bigger than shipping schedules. “The Arctic is the first region where climate change is changing the geopolitical map. If we didn’t have climate change, we wouldn’t be talking. Russia would not be producing oil and gas in the Arctic. China would not be sending container ships through the Arctic.”
“It’s the first large region on the globe where climate change is rapidly and actively changing the geopolitical dynamics — because of resources, access to shipping routes, and because a new region is suddenly accessible.”
Playing the long game
For now, global trade flows through the usual chokepoints.
“The majority of global trade goes through the Suez Canal, Mediterranean, Singapore,” Humpert said. “But the Arctic is 40 percent shorter and it has a lot less geopolitical uncertainty … so it could potentially become an alternative trade route. The question is, is it really happening? And how quick?”
Peter Sand, chief analyst at shipping consultancy Xeneta, noted the idea is hardly new. “It has been debated, talked about, tried out a number of times over the past decades,” he said. China is just the latest to push it forward: “They announced a similar thing two years ago. They did it then, and now they’re trying again.”
Earlier Chinese voyages, however, were simpler. “They did point-to-point trips, like from one Chinese port to Hamburg or to St. Petersburg,” Humpert said. “This voyage is different. They’re trying four ports in China, then through the Arctic, then the U.K., Rotterdam, Hamburg and Gdańsk. That actually resembles a normal shipping route.”