Permafrost as Planetary Memory: From Environmental Threat to a New Form of Capital

Abstract

The global discourse on permafrost has up until now been built on a narrative of disaster: melting ice, methane emissions, and the destruction of infrastructure. In this essay, we propose a fundamental reconsideration of this paradigm. Namely, that permafrost is not just frozen soil that threatens global destabilization. It is the planet’s largest biological archive, a thermodynamic reservoir of value, and an untapped foundation for a new class of civilizational assets. Drawing on the principles of bioeconomics, the thermodynamic theory of value, and emerging tokenization mechanisms, the author argues that permafrost conservation is not a cost to be minimized, but an investment opportunity in the range of 1 to 10 trillion euros that is uniquely positioned for BRICS+ countries as a new platform for global growth.

1. An Error of Categorization: Permafrost as a Problem vs. Permafrost as an Asset

Modern climate economics views permafrost through the lens of scarcity, laying out the costs of thawing: damage to infrastructure (estimated at $67 billion by 2050 in Russia alone), methane emissions (equivalent to 1400 gigatons of CO₂), and disruption to ecosystems in the circumpolar North. While the risk assessment is accurate, framing it the issue this way is a fundamental error of categorization, as it views permafrost as nothing but a liability in the planetary balance.

Let us consider an alternative framework. Permafrost covers 23 million square kilometres, which is approximately 17% of the Earth’s total land area. This frozen matrix contains the planet’s largest reservoir of organic carbon: around 1500 gigatons, which is twice as much as is currently found in the atmosphere. But carbon is just the headline stealer. Permafrost also preserves ancient microbial communities, the genetic material of extinct species, paleoclimate records spanning hundreds of thousands of years, and soil ecosystems of exceptional complexity.

It is not frozen waste. It is planetary memory – a biological archive of civilizational significance. We are not talking simply about how to prevent its loss; we are talking about how to recognize, value, and invest in its preservation as an asset class.  

2. Thermodynamic Value: A New Economic Foundation

Traditional economics measures value through market transactions: prices, GDP, trade flows. But permafrost exposes the limits of this framework. The “cost” of keeping 1500 gigatons of carbon frozen has no market price because there is no market. Climate economics attempts to address this problem through concepts like the “social cost of carbon,” but these remain abstractions, disconnected from investment mechanisms.

We propose a different foundation – a thermodynamic theory of value, where value is understood not as a social agreement on prices, but as a physical state, an organized, low-entropy configuration of matter and energy that ensures future optionality. Permafrost in this understanding is a thermodynamic battery: it stores, in addition to carbon, organized complexity accumulated over millennia.

When permafrost thaws, this organized complexity dissipates irreversibly. The carbon, meanwhile, is released into the atmosphere. Microbial communities die or are transformed. The paleo-climatic record is thus erased. This is more than simply “emissions” – it is the production of entropy, the irreversible loss of civilizational optionality.

The thermodynamic theory of value provides a conceptual basis for pricing what markets are currently unable to see: the preservation of organized complexity as a civilizational asset.

3. The Bioeconomic Framework: From Extraction to Stewardship

Bioeconomics – economic activity based on biological resources, processes, and systems – offers a practical way to operationalize the value of permafrost. The Russian bioeconomy sector, coordinated through institutions such as the Russian Biotechnology Society (founded in 2003, it currently has over 3000 members in 59 regional branches), provides the institutional infrastructure needed for this transition.

The bioeconomic approach to permafrost is fundamentally different from extractive models. Instead of asking “what can we extract from this territory?” it asks “what value does this territory generate if it remains untouched?” This changes the economic logic from exploitation of resources to stewardship of the ecosystem – a shift that is already happening in the forestry, fisheries, and agricultural sectors of BRICS+ countries.

This shifts economic logic from resource exploitation to ecosystem stewardship—a shift already underway in the forestry, fisheries, and agricultural sectors of BRICS+ countries.

Key bioeconomic services of untouched permafrost include: carbon sequestration, estimated at $50–150 per tonne (1500 Gt × $50 = $75 trillion potential liability upon release); the preservation of genetic resources for pharmaceutical and agricultural biotechnology; climate regulation services for the entire Northern Hemisphere; and the storage of freshwater in permafrost-fed river systems.

4. Tokenization: Making Invisible Value Visible

How do you invest in something when there is no market for it? The answer lies in tokenization – the process of creating standardized, tradable digital units that represent rights to underlying assets or services. Carbon credits have set the precedent, but permafrost tokenization will take this further.

The Permafrost Preservation Token (PPT) will represent verified maintenance of permafrost integrity in specific territorial units. Unlike carbon credits, which measure the amount of emissions avoided or reduced, PPTs will measure the level of thermodynamic stability maintained – the continued low-entropy state of the permafrost system. The verification process will combine satellite thermal monitoring (which the European Space Agency and Roscosmos can already do), ground-based sensor networks, and periodic biogeochemical sampling.

The market potential is significant. Conservative estimates of permafrost conservation services range from 1 to 10 trillion euros over the period 2030–2050, depending on carbon pricing trajectories and the inclusion of co-benefits (biodiversity, genetic resources, climate services). This positions permafrost tokenization as potentially the largest natural asset class in human history.

5. The Strategic Advantage of BRICS+: Why this Platform Belongs to the Countries of the Global Majority

Permafrost is distributed unevenly. Russia accounts for approximately 65% of the global permafrost area (11 million square kilometres). The Qinghai–Tibet Plateau in China contains the world’s highest permafrost. Kazakhstan, Mongolia, and other BRICS-aligned countries possess significant amounts of permafrost. The geographic concentration creates a unique strategic opportunity.

Western financial systems have historically controlled the mechanisms of global value creation – reserve currencies, commodity pricing, and credit ratings. The tokenization of the permafrost provides the BRICS+ countries with the opportunity to create a new value architecture from the ground up: standards that they can develop; verification systems that they can oversee; and financial instruments denominated in currencies of their choice.

The New Development Bank (NDB) and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) can provide the institutional platforms needed to coordinate this development. Discussions on a potential BRICS currency offer a natural integration point for permafrost-backed instruments. Most importantly, the bioeconomic expertise concentrated in Russian institutes – especially in Siberian research centres with decades of experience monitoring permafrost – provides the scientific foundation that cannot be replicated elsewhere.

6. The Path to Implementation: From Concept to Market

Phase 1 (2025–2027): Establishment of a scientific and institutional foundation. This includes the formation of the BRICS+ Permafrost Monitoring Consortium, the development of standardized protocols for measuring thermodynamic stability, and the piloting of verification systems in identified areas of Russia, China, and Kazakhstan.

Phase 2 (2027–2030): Launch of the tokenization infrastructure. This includes the creation of a permafrost register, the development of a legal framework for territorial stewardship rights, and the issue of the first tranches of permafrost conservation tokens through the NDB or a specially created BRICS climate finance institution.

Phase 3 (2030–2040): Scaling to global significance. Integrating permafrost tokens into carbon markets, sovereign wealth fund portfolios, and climate finance mechanisms. Confirmation of permafrost conservation as a recognized contribution to global climate goals under successor instruments to the Paris Agreement.

7. Economic and Social Effects

The economic effects extend beyond the direct value of tokenized assets. Stewardship of the permafrost creates jobs in monitoring, research, and land management in some of the world’s most economically marginalized areas. Indigenous peoples, who have been the custodians of these lands for millennia, are becoming recognized partners in value creation, rather than obstacles to development.

The social benefits include the preservation of traditional environmental knowledge, the development of new scientific and technical competencies in participating countries, and the confirmation that environmental protection and economic development are not opposing forces, but rather complementary aspects of civilizational progress.

The geopolitical effect has the potential to be the most significant: the BRICS+ countries will establish themselves as more than simply raw materials exporters or manufacturing hubs, but rather as stewards of global systems – a role that lends moral authority to debates about global governance.

Conclusion: A New Platform for Global Growth

The question posed here is: “What approaches and projects will be most effective in shaping a new platform for global growth?” And it invites us to think beyond conventional categories. The solution we have proposed in this paper is unconventional, but it is rooted in physical and economic reality.

Permafrost is not a problem that needs solving. It is an asset to be valued. The preservation of the permafrost is not a cost that should be skimped on. It is an investment opportunity of civilizational proportions. The countries that recognize this first – the ones that create the institutions, standards, and financial instruments to capture this value – will shape the economic architecture of the 21st century.  

This is not wild speculation. It is the logical continuation of trends that are already emerging: the growth of carbon markets; the spread of ESG investing; and the growing recognition that natural systems provide economic services. Permafrost tokenization simply applies these principles to the largest, most significant natural system that remains outside the marketplace.

The BRICS+ countries own this asset. The question is whether they will recognize its value before it melts away, and build a platform for global growth that follows from that recognition.