WASHINGTON — Greenland’s government is actively pursuing oil and mineral extraction as a source of revenue to use climate change to its advantage, Premier Aleqa Hammond said Wednesday, but some experts said it may take longer than Hammond’s estimates.
“The fact is that Greenland has to do something about our economy now,” Hammond said at a forum hosted by the Brookings Institution.
It has long been believed that the country holds potentially profitable resources such as diamonds, gold, iron, uranium and oil. With global warming contributing to melting arctic ice, some of these elements may now be more accessible for exploitation.
Greenland gained legislative and executive autonomy from the Kingdom of Denmark in 2009, after voters passed the Self Government Act. This legislation gave the nation control of sub-soil resources, as well as a new motivation to find the economic tools to become completely independent from Denmark.
Greenland’s annual block grant from Denmark is still disbursed but is frozen at 2009 levels. This in combination with increasing emigration to Denmark for jobs and an aging population leaves the country urgently needing to find new sources of revenue, according to Kevin Foley, a doctoral student of government at Cornell University and an author of the report.
Hammond projects three to five mines operating within her country within the next five years.
“Status quo is not an option,” she said. “We have to have a new income in Greenland.”
However, a report released Wednesday by the Brookings Institution said that Greenland’s endeavor into natural resource extraction may be farther off than Hammond hopes.
“The timeline for development […] may be over-ambitious,” said Charles Ebinger, director of the Energy Security Initiative at Brookings Wednesday. “(Mining) investors are going to be reluctant […] given the uncertainty of global demand.”
Minik Rosing, a chairman at the University of Greenland and professor of geology at the University of Copenhagen, noted that experts may have “jumped the bandwagon” and said that climate change may have only a marginal effect on the accessibility of minerals.
However, despite obstacles, Ebinger predicted that eventually there will be large-scale mining in Greenland.
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