US Secretary of State Antony Blinken left Sunday for a trip focused on the future of the Arctic, a source of growing tension with China and a test of the strained US relationship with Russia ahead of an expected Biden-Putin summit meeting.

Blinken was traveling first to Copenhagen, where he will meet Monday with Danish leaders before going on to Iceland for a ministerial meeting of the eight-country Arctic Council on Wednesday and Thursday.

In Reykjavik, all eyes will be on a meeting between Blinken and Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov -- the first high-level meeting between the two quarreling powers since Joe Biden took office in January.

The Arctic, a vast area of extreme and inhospitable conditions, has in recent years become the site of geopolitical competition between the countries that form the Arctic Council (the United States, Russia, Canada, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Iceland).

As global warming makes the region more accessible and less forbidding, interest in the Arctic's natural resources, its navigation routes and its strategic position has grown.

To Washington's chagrin, the Arctic is also coveted by China -- which only has "observer" status on the Council, but which has positioned itself as a "quasi-Arctic" power.

During the presidency of Donald Trump, the United States pushed back against what it considered Russian and Chinese "aggressivity" in the region. Now, the Biden administration appears intent on continuing to assert its stake in the territory.

"We're not saying no to all Chinese activities or to Chinese investment, but we are insisting on adherence to international rules and adherence to high standards," said James DeHart, US coordinator for the Arctic region, in a recent briefing with reporters.

Some Chinese activities, he added, were of "concern" to the United States.

- Greenland not for sale -

Perhaps Blinken's most important mission is to turn the page on two controversies inherited from the Trump administration.

The Republican president had advanced the idea that the US might buy Greenland, with its immense Arctic territory, from Denmark -- drawing an angry retort from Copenhagen that the idea was "absurd" and the territory was "not for sale."

The US secretary of state will have to steer well clear of such provocations as he meets first with officials in Copenhagen and later makes a brief stop in the autonomous territory.

More seriously, Blinken's predecessor, Mike Pompeo, shook up the last meeting of the Arctic Council when he took the unprecedented step of blocking the group's final communique because it mentioned climate change.

Pompeo seemed even to see opportunity in the warming climate, saying the gradual shrinking of pack ice was opening new navigation routes and creating commercial opportunities.

The American message changed radically with Biden's arrival in the White House, as the new president made the fight against global warming one of his priorities.

- Opening carries risks -

The Council will issue a final communique this time -- already approved by the eight ministries -- as well as a common "strategic plan" for the next 10 years, said Marcia Bernicat, a senior State Department official dealing with environmental issues.

"The opening up of the ocean, if you will, is not an unqualified good thing. It also represents a tremendous risk," she told journalists in a briefing Friday.

She said recent studies show that the Arctic is warming "not at twice the rate, but three times the rate of the rest of the world."

The Biden administration wants to use climate issues to explore possibilities for cooperation with Moscow, which will hold the rotating presidency of the Arctic Council for the next two years.

Blinken and Lavrov will review "the totality of the bilateral relationship -- the good, the bad and the in-between," said State Department spokesman Ned Price.

"The bad" is likely to occupy a fair amount of the discussion, given sharp US-Russian disputes over the Kremlin's interference in US elections as well as allegations of spying and cyberattacks.

Biden, determined to break clearly with what many saw as Trump's deferential relationship with Putin, has gone so far as to label the Russian leader as a "killer." The rival powers imposed tit-for-tat sanctions not long after Biden's election.

But the new US administration insists its foreign policy is highly pragmatic and open to finding common ground even with its worst foes when it is in the American interest -- as on climate change or disarmament.

That is the prime US objective at the Reykjavik conference, which is expected to lead to the confirmation of a first Biden-Putin summit in Europe in June.

The US side wants to "test and try to see if we can achieve a relationship with Moscow that is more stable and more predictable," Price said.

The Arctic: key things to know
Reykjavik (AFP) May 16, 2021 - The Arctic, whose bordering countries will meet in Reykjavik on Wednesday and Thursday, is on the frontlines of global warming and is increasingly coveted for its natural resources and strategic location.

- What and where is it? -

The Arctic is an ocean surrounded by land, unlike the Antarctic at the other end of the world, which is a continent surrounded by water.

Its vast territory of 21 million square kilometres (7.7 million square miles) stretches from the North Pole to the Arctic Circle.

Bordered by North America, Asia and Europe, it spans eight countries or territories: Russia's northernmost coast, Finland, Sweden, Norway and Iceland, Greenland, Canada and the US state of Alaska.

The Arctic Ocean connects to the south with the Atlantic and to the west with the Pacific via various straits.

- Polar nights -

Its extreme climate means living conditions can be very tough.

With temperatures sometimes falling below minus 50 degrees Celsius (minus 58 degrees Fahrenheit) and with a very low level of light for much of the year -- including "polar nights" in which nighttime lasts more than 24 hours -- its only vegetation is the tundra, a vast, treeless area of low swampy plains.

At the height of winter, ice forms to cover 14 million square kilometres of ocean. In summer, it melts to less than five million square kilometres -- or even four million, with the annual melt being accelerated by global warming.

- Four million inhabitants -

Some four million people live in the Arctic region, including around 500,000 people from dozens of distinct indigenous cultures such as the Inuit, the Aleut, the Sami and Yakut.

Many depend on the ocean and its wildlife for food and income.

An Arctic Council was set up in 1996 to discuss issues such as the environment and economic and social development, and foreign ministers of the member states meet every two years.

- Ecosystem threatened -

The Arctic, which is home to some 21,000 known animal and plant species, is one of the last vast regions of the world to remain in a wild state.

But the development of human activities including fishing, transport, tourism and drilling has threatened its fragile ecosystem.

Since the 1990s, climate change driven has pushed up temperatures in the Arctic twice as fast as the world average.

In 2019, the region saw its second hottest year since 1900 and the second smallest ice floe ever registered.

The ice shrank even more in 2020.

Global warming, which reduces the part of the Arctic Ocean that is permanently covered by ice, puts at risk species such as polar bears, bowhead whales, seals and sea birds.

While the melting of the Arctic ice pack in the ocean has no impact on sea levels, the melting of the huge Greenland ice sheet is a cause for concern.

Were it to completely disappear it would lead to a seven-metre (2.1 feet) rise in sea levels.

Other alarming phenomena include the emergence of major forest fires in remote areas and the melting of the permafrost, which houses large quantities of methane, a greenhouse gas much more powerful than CO2.

- Undiscovered resources -

The Arctic is estimated to hold around 13 percent of the world's undiscovered oil and 30 percent of its natural gas reserves.

The melting of the Arctic ice cover has made the region more accessible to shipping as well as oil and gas extraction, making it increasingly coveted by neighbouring and distant countries, including China.

Russia has made the development of the region's natural resources a priority, while Norway estimates that the Barents Sea holds more than 60 percent of the country's untapped oil reserves, although drilling there has so far been disappointing.

Former US president Donald Trump approved oil and gas exploration in the US's biggest wildlife reserve in Alaska in August, but his successor Joe Biden has since blocked those efforts.

Greenland is also attracting interest from mining companies, although the new local government has vowed to stop a controversial uranium and rare earth mineral mine project.

- Territorial disputes -

Alongside interest in resources there has been an escalation of territorial claims in recent years with Moscow, Washington, Ottawa, Oslo and Copenhagen all weighing in with demands to extend their portion of the continental shelf.

The US is still gathering data to potentially make a claim, even though it has not ratified the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.

- Strategic shipping route -

Thanks to the melting ice, Russia is counting on the development of maritime traffic via the northeastern passage of the Arctic linking Europe to Asia. It has opened military and scientific bases there over the past years.

Meanwhile, Canada sees the potential to considerably reduce the distance between the Atlantic and Pacific by using the northwestern passage off its coast.

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