The world is facing a seismic shift in environmental conditions, opening Arctic trading routes and making rare Earth minerals easier to access beneath the ice.
Analysts have been speaking non-stop about Donald Trump’s demand for the US to take control of Greenland. And many argue that the move has less to do with protecting the West from China and Russia, and reinforcing American dominance across the hemisphere than it does getting access to resources considered vital for new renewable, future and digital technologies. No matter what the President keeps telling us.
According to the International Energy Agency, critical minerals sitting untapped beneath the surface of Greenland are ‘essential’ for transitioning to green energy. Many are also crucial in the production of devices such as smartphones, and specifically the lithium-ion batteries needed to power these products. The market is predicted to reach a value of €6.4 billion this year, a figure which then grows exponentially in the coming decade.
Currently, the US is entirely reliant on imports for 12 minerals deemed critical to national security and continued economic dominance, as per the US Geological Survey. Therefore, it’s entirely plausible that the push for Greenland is driven by this need and the prospect of taking ownership of one of the largest reserves on the planet.
This would help rebalance supply at a time when China is responsible for processing more than 90% of these minerals, which scientists suggest will become easier to access as ice thins. However, others point to the fact that Greenland is not the only territory with vast, untapped critical mineral reserves.
‘I would strongly argue that minerals are not the driving force in the US quest for control and acquisition of Greenlands,’ Nick Bæk Heilmann, Senior Associate at Kaya Partners, a business consultancy in Greenland, told Euronews. ‘That’s because Greenland is open for investments and mining. In Greenland there’s general social licence to mine, which is very important. The US does not need to acquire Greenland.’
There is also the question of new shipping routes opening in the Arctic region – something which is now considered inevitable due to the decline in the spread of sea ice and size of glaciers. In a 2022 analysis, Hakai magazine calculated that warming waters and melting permafrost posed an incredible opportunity for freight and logistics. Near-future-routes through the far north of the planet could slash distances between Asia and Europe by 9,000 km compared with using the Suez or Panama canals.
In both cases, observers have pointed out that Trump’s interest in Greenland could be considered a concession that climate change – something the US President and his administration have been actively trying to delete from academic study, government policy and public discourse – is underway. John Conger, adviser to the Center for Climate Change, told the New York Times that: ‘[his] fixation on Greenland is an admission that climate change is real.’
‘We cannot fully understand this dynamic without regarding global warming and the impact of the green transition on the global economy,’ said Jakob Dreyer, a researcher in Climate and Security Politics at the University of Copenhagen, in another interview with Euronews. ‘With the Arctic warming three to four times faster than the global average, rising temperatures could open new shipping routes and lower barriers to extraction as Greenland’s ice sheets melt.’
Image: Dylan Shaw / Unsplash
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