Arctic Offshore Energy Resources: Distribution Across International Boundaries and Climatic Impact

The USGS estimates “that about 30% of the world’s undiscovered gas and 13% of the world’s undiscovered oil may be found [in the Arctic], mostly offshore.” While such large quantities of hydrocarbon resources hold out the promise of an Arctic energy future, this future is highly uncertain, implicating the interconnected issues of climate change, technological accessibility, sensitivity of the Arctic environment, and uncertainty of state jurisdiction over the resources under the international law of the sea. This study explores some of these questions by examining the distribution of Arctic hydrocarbon resources across national jurisdictions and by evaluating their greenhouse-gas potential. The study 1) reviews sources of the law of the sea relevant to jurisdiction over Arctic hydrocarbon resources, 2) intersects geological maps of undiscovered resources with an Arctic maritime boundary map to estimate the amount of resources across various zones of national jurisdiction, and 3) calculates the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) that would be released from combustion of all undiscovered Arctic hydrocarbon resources.