Politics in Antarctica? Cooperation with Russia is forbidden, says the expert

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Everyone imagines Antarctica as an endless white landscape where penguins and researchers run around. Several foreign websites have recently highlighted the slowly growing rivalry between world powers that is beginning to show in the South.

Disputes also stem from the paralyzed treaty system, which has maintained political order on the continent for decades. However, the manager of the Czech Antarctic Research Program, Pavel Kapler, considers advancing climate change to be the most important problem in Antarctica.

“We can clearly see the consequences of global warming there, large snowfields that are a strategic source of drinking water are disappearing before our eyes year after year. The glaciers we monitor, which for many years were completely safe for the movement of people, are now torn by dangerous cracks, so we have to organize glacier courses for our scientists,” says the expert from Masaryk University, who has been to Antarctica ten times.

In an interview with Seznam Zprávy, he also offers his perspective on power rivalry and also explains the role played by the Czechs at the South Pole.

How does it work in Antarctica in terms of any “separation of power”?

Antarctica is a continent literally dedicated to science and peace by the Antarctic Treaty. Human activity and presence in Antarctica is decided by the Consultative Assembly of the Antarctic Treaty States, i.e. a kind of equivalent of the UN for Antarctica, which decides what will or will not happen there. It is an assembly that oversees, for example, that no state will assert territorial claims here.

In this grouping, 12 original signatory countries had the right to vote at first, now there are 29 of them, and the Czech Republic has been among them since 2014. They decide by consensus, which means that everyone must be in favor of changing or agreeing to anything. It is an absolutely elite club; Antarctica is an area larger than Europe, and only 29 countries decide what to do there. And the Czech Republic is one of them, which is great.

More and more states show interest in consultative status, i.e. the right to vote in this system, which of course sympathize more or less with other states. At the last session, Canada and Belarus strove for his recognition, and it is probably clear who supported their candidacy. However, due to the tension caused by the war in Ukraine, no agreement was reached.

So can it be said that there is any kind of rivalry between countries in Antarctica? Are the dynamics of the operation there changing?

It is not strictly about the increasing influence of specific countries in Antarctica, it is more about politics, which has a subtle but significant undertone here, perhaps in an effort to increase the number of sympathetic votes for some future key vote. On the spot, however, there is a clear willingness and effort to cooperate as much as possible between the states.

The only exception today is the prohibition of cooperation with Russia for European countries, which is unfortunate for some programs and their research activities. In the context of geopolitical events, however, completely understandable.

Antarctic analysis

It offers a lot of reasons, due to which the rivalry between the great powers that have their own interests is gradually intensifying inconspicuously. The most remote and coldest continent, Antarctica, has not been out of the geopolitical struggle for a long time.

However, all countries are very cooperative and invest in their Antarctic infrastructure – new ships, new stations are being built. For example, China pulled a big thorn out of our heels this year, because it accommodated our nine-member expedition heading to Nelson Island. Without Chinese support, it would be difficult to implement this operation of ours.

Through this cooperation and sharing of logistics and accommodation capacities, national research programs save not only the environment, but also high costs; it also allows us to better implement the research we all do there.

So you’re not worried about China’s expansionism? For example, I came across fears that some military activities could be carried out in Antarctica under the guise of science.

I visited the Chinese station in Antarctica. National programs in Antarctica use their militaries as logistical support, as only militaries have vessels and aircraft that operate in these conditions, this is quite common. But I didn’t notice anything like that with them, even though it could be perfectly fine in this context.

The Antarctic Treaty tells us that Antarctica is a continent dedicated to science and peace, so the military can only operate there as a logistical and technical support, it cannot pursue its own interests there. It is not even possible to conduct nuclear weapons tests or rocket launches there, it is a strictly protected natural area.

How do you actually perceive the Antarctic Treaty System? For example, I was interested in the fact that it has no notice period, which seems like something that could easily cause problems.

The Antarctic treaty system has been in operation for over 60 years and worked very well until the war in Ukraine. But now it finds itself in a stalemate and it seems that it was a good system only for the time of world peace. There is certainly room for debates on changing the procedural system.

We are now paralyzed by the fact that what Russia proposes will not be approved by the Western states, and vice versa. After all, this is also illustrated by the already mentioned situation from last year with Canada and Belarus.

The Antarctic Treaty was created during the Cold War and the states were still able to come to an agreement. However, the current situation is different: the changing climate (the real one, not the political one) makes Antarctica a much more interesting place for everyone today than ever before. Fortunately, it is still true that everyone helps each other in the field, and the truth is that if international cooperation worked as well as it does in Antarctica, we as a human being would be much better off.

What is the significance of Antarctica?

According to Pavel Kapler from Masaryk University, who is the manager of the Czech Antarctic Research Program, Antarctica is key to understanding the global climate, and scientists are heading there to understand the principles that govern the climate on our planet. Of course, this also leads to better awareness of climate change.

“For politicians and geopolitical interests, this is only secondary. But if the climate on the planet becomes unsustainable and uninhabitable in some parts of the world where people currently live, Antarctica can become a prospective colonization territory,” the expert said in an interview. “Certainly colonization of Antarctica is more likely than Mars in the near future.”

Antarctica is also a very strategic area, where natural conditions make mining impossible for now. However, we can find everything there, from oil to cobalt to lithium or gold. In addition, there are also sources of coal and simply everything from the times when Antarctica was in a different climate zone.

But it is of course also true that at the level of the highest politics, where the consultative assembly belongs, political moments are manifested through and through, when opposing camps block each other’s decisions. And an open military conflict in Europe is not really conducive to peaceful cooperation.

Whether this will lead to a change in the Antarctic Treaty, we can only speculate. But let’s hope that we will rather return to the consensual and accommodating approach that has been there for the last more than 60 years.

How does your JG Mendel Science Station in Antarctica work?

The Czech scientific station is not only “ours”, i.e. of Masaryk University, where the Czech Antarctic Research Program is based, but it is “ours”, i.e. all of us, because we perceive its operation as a service to our entire country, the scientific community and the public. In our opinion, this is a project of extraordinary importance and nationwide reach.

Continuous research is carried out at the station, which is, among other things, a necessary condition for the Czech Republic to maintain its consultative status. This year, the twentieth expedition of Masaryk University stayed there, but many other institutions directly or indirectly carried out research there: Charles University, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, FN Ostrava, Mendel University, Liberec University of Technology and many others.

Photo: List of News

Until 1961, when the Antarctic Treaty came into effect, seven sovereign states claimed the territory of the continent.

The station in Antarctica is successfully standing and operating, but it would need repairs, while the budget for its operation continues to decrease. Of course, it would be good if it increased, but the current geopolitical and world economic situation does not favor it. We are now happy that we are functioning at all and that we can perform this service for the republic and the scientific community.

In addition to the above, Antarctica also faces other challenges. For example, how big of a problem is climate change?

As a former naturalist I can say that everything in the world is change – life is change because evolution is unstoppable. But the current changes that the planet is going through, and this is really visible in Antarctica, are unprecedented. You can’t really say that nothing is happening there, because we have satellite images, we have a lot of measurements, and in the 20 years there we have also acquired a detailed knowledge of the local environment.

Today we can say with certainty that changes are taking place in the surroundings of the Johann Gregor Mendel Czech Science Station, which have not happened so rapidly and drastically for a long time.

We can clearly see the consequences of global warming there, large snowfields that are a strategic supply of drinking water are disappearing before our eyes year after year. The glaciers we monitor, which for many years were perfectly safe for people to move around, are now riddled with dangerous crevasses, so we have to hold glacier courses for our scientists. In addition, their edges are covered with dust, which reflects less sunlight, which accelerates the melting of the glaciers. It can be said that Antarctica is melting before our eyes.

If we do not understand the entire climate system, of which Antarctica is a key part, we will not be prepared in time for what lies ahead as humanity. And that is exactly the reason why scientists even from such a small country as the Czech Republic have to go to Antarctica and do their work there.