Geoenvirоnmental risks on the background geopolitical challenges for the oil and gas industry in the Arctic

Abstract

The article is devoted to the issues of geoecology and geopolitics in the Arctic. The authors reveal the need to consider geopolitical challenges in the analysis of geoecological risks (GER) of oil and gas development of the Arctic region. This is due to the intersection here of the strategic interests of several States and their focus to prove the inability of Russia to ensure environmental safety in the development of Arctic fi elds. Th e subject of GER is used as a geopolitical tool against Russia due to the probability of it becoming a key player in the region. The authors propose a model for the analysis of GER, which is based on critical loads (CL) of acidity of pollutants and includes 2 stages: 1) the stage of quantitative assessment of GER, which allows to calculate not only the magnitude of the projected changes in the state of the Arctic ecosystems, but also the probability of their occurrence; 2) the stage of management of GER taking into account geopolitical factors, assuming a qualitative expert assessment, which is a procedure for making a management decision to achieve acceptable levels of the total GER.