China to Suffolk via the Arctic: new sea route brings climate peril

Melting ice sheet opens up north-east passage - which brings fresh political and environmental dangers

- James Tapper

The moment the Istanbul Bridge docked in Felixstowe last week was heralded in China as a milestone.

For the first time, a container ship had travelled to Europe from China across the Arctic Sea, making its voyage from Ningbo to Suffolk in less than 21 days - about half the time the route normally takes via Suez, said Xinhua, the official state news agency.

It's a route that has only been made possible by the melting Arctic ice sheet, and the fact that the voyage was possible adds to evidence of a potential environmental catastrophe. Yet Xi Jinping, Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin spy opportunities: for faster trade routes, tourism, better access for fishing fleets and to oil fields that may lie beneath the North Pole.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicts the Arctic may have ice-free summers by 2050, but the Arctic is warming three times as fast as the rest of the planet, according to the World Meteorological Organisation, so it may happen sooner. Without ice to reflect the sun's rays, the ocean would heat more rapidly, causing more extreme weather events in Scandinavia and the UK.