‘The damn thing melted’: climate change sparks scramble for the Arctic

The bit in between could change the world.

Thanks to climate change, the Venta was able to take a short cut over the top of the globe – the first container ship to do so – through the Bering Strait between Russia and Alaska, above the desolate Siberian coast, past worried polar bears, melting permafrost and huge new Chinese-funded gas fields, through Arctic waters that Russia wants to control, and down past Norway, where this week a…

• ‘The damn thing…