US president Donald Trump thrust Greenland to the centre of world politics when he proposed to purchase the huge, icebound island in the beginning of the yr. With the world watching, Greenlandic voters went to the polls on March 11 2025 and delivered a landslide victory for a celebration that advised Trump, “We are not for sale.”
Greenland is an autonomous territory inside the Kingdom of Denmark and its battle for independence is a significant political battleground. Each the right-wing Demokraatit (Democrats), now the most important get together, and the socialist Inuit Ataqatigiit (IA) that they not too long ago decimated are pro-independence. Nonetheless, additionally they desire a slower independence course of than the populist-nationalist Naleraq, which additionally did nicely within the election.
Whereas overseas observers might have had their consideration drawn to Greenland by Trump, they shouldn’t look away now. The end result of this election has made a fossil-fuelled future for Greenland extra doubtless, simply when the escalating local weather disaster calls for an pressing world transition to renewable power.
Essential to Greenland’s future is its base of financial manufacturing. Greenland is estimated to have among the world’s largest untapped oil and fuel sources.
In line with the US Geological Survey, the basin off Greenland’s east coast alone incorporates 31 billion barrels of oil equal and west Greenland about half of that. If this was all recoverable, Greenland may grow to be one of many world’s largest fossil gasoline producers.
However these fossil fuels are extraordinarily troublesome to extract. The unwelcoming terrain – an unlimited ice sheet on land, icebergs at sea – led successive fossil gasoline firms to surrender their hunt for oil and fuel. In the meanwhile, Greenland’s fossil fuels merely are usually not technically and commercially viable to get out of the bottom.
In opposition to this backdrop, IA handed a ban on all fossil gasoline exploration and extraction when it got here to energy after the 2021 election. It was justified by the destructive impacts a fossil gasoline trade would have on the nation’s fragile atmosphere and the worldwide local weather, in addition to home fisheries, which whole 98% of Greenland’s export worth.
The ban matches inside a world motion to chop not simply the usage of fossil fuels, but in addition their provide. The rationale is that extraction of fossil fuels should finish to cease them from additional rising local weather change. After the ban, Greenland joined a bunch of like-minded international locations generally known as the Past Oil and Fuel Alliance, which have all applied related laws.
Different members embody Costa Rica, France and Sweden. Most spectacular is Denmark – the primary vital oil and fuel producer to decide to a phaseout of fossil gasoline manufacturing, albeit by the late yr of 2050. However, world efforts to finish fossil gasoline provide proceed to realize tempo, even when main producers just like the US are moving into the wrong way.
No oil till after independence
Oil was not a significant theme within the 2025 election marketing campaign. Certainly, a brand new get together proposing an impartial Greenland energised by fossil gasoline extraction known as Qulleq (actually “oil”, a reference to Inuit oil lamps) did not win a single seat within the 31-seat parliament, the Inatsisartut.
Chairman of Demokraatit, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, celebrated his get together successful 30% of the vote.
EPA-EFE/Mads Claus Rasmussen
Regardless of Qulleq’s failure, the dramatically remade political panorama will enable vital adjustments to the way forward for fossil gasoline manufacturing. 5 of six events assist reconsidering the fossil gasoline ban, with solely IA sustaining robust opposition. Greater than ever earlier than, oil have to be understood in relation to the prevailing independence sentiment.
Greenland’s sources are usually not owned by Denmark. This ended with laws in 2009 and 2020 which granted the Greenlandic state full management of the territory’s subsurface. Nonetheless, as Denmark continues to pay an annual block grant to assist the Greenlandic economic system, presently round €600 million (£503 million), Denmark is entitled to half of any earnings from pure sources as much as the block grant worth.
Based mostly on pre-election statements by the events, there can be no parliamentary majority to start oil exploration, not to mention extraction, for now. Naleraq and the centre-left Siumut are each open to pumping oil, however solely as soon as Greenland is ready to retain 100% of the revenues, which implies as soon as the Danish block grant is abolished following independence.
Confronted with the troublesome prospect of constructing a post-colonial nation, fossil fuels are a tempting however harmful approach to safe the financial basis of an impartial Greenland. But, within the lengthy shadow of Denmark’s colonial function, solely the folks of Greenland can decide the way forward for the world’s largest island.
What occurs to Greenland’s oil and fuel may have main implications not only for the Greenlandic folks, however for the remainder of the world. As one of many locations most weak to the implications of the local weather disaster, Greenland is already feeling the results of a fossil-fuelled world. If the brand new authorities chooses to make use of extraction as its path to political and financial independence, it can have a devastating influence on your complete planet.
