So it is good that the regional club, the Arctic Council, is showing promise.
The UK has observer status on the Arctic Council, comprising the states that fringe the region.
Clinton took part in a meeting of the Arctic Council whose eight members have territory in that region.
But Sweden's ambassador to the Arctic Council, Gustaf Lind, rejected the Greenpeace claims that the document was woolly and vague.
For now, the only inter-governmental body with a say over the region is the Arctic Council: its mandate is narrowly environmental.
In 2011 The Arctic Council members signed the Nuuk Declaration that committed them to develop an international agreement on how to respond to oil pollution in the northern seas.
Its leaders are frequent visitors to the region and, like nine other countries, including Japan, Singapore and South Korea, it is lobbying for permanent observer status on the Arctic Council.
It is no surprise then that, during a two-day conference sponsored by the Russian Geographical Society in Moscow last week with many Arctic Council members in attendance, Putin was rubber-stamped as the de facto chairman of all things Arctic.
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The Arctic Council, made up of the United States, Russia, Canada and the five Nordic nations -- Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Iceland -- was set up in 1996 to coordinate policy in a resource-rich but environmentally sensitive part of the world.
"Our opinion is that the countries which have a legitimate interest in discussing Arctic issues must be accepted as observers in the Arctic Council, " Danish minister of foreign affairs, Villy Sovndal, said in an interview when asked about China's bid to join.
Now the permanent observers are being joined by China, Japan, India, South Korea, Singapore and Italy, meaning that all of the key Asian economies now have a seat at the Arctic table, even though they will not have a vote on the Arctic Council.
Begun in 1996 as a body to coordinate Arctic policy, the council was for many years seen as a platform for scientists to swap research on environmental issues.
Canada has so far expressed caution about expanding the council, arguing that increased numbers could complicate its work, reduce focus on the Arctic's indigenous populations and take the meetings away from the actual Arctic.
But Beijing and Chinese businesses have been aggressively courting the council's Nordic members in a bid, analysts say, to get a toehold in the Arctic.
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