Beneath Greenland’s Ice Lies a Climate Solution—and a New Geopolitical Battleground

Still, wherever there’s mining activity, there’s potential for spills. There’s also potential for a lot of noise: Ships in particular fill the ocean around Greenland with a din that can stress and disorient fishes and marine mammals, like narwhals, seals, and whales. For vocalizing species, it can disrupt their communication.

There’s a lot at stake here economically and politically, too: Fishing is Greenland’s predominant industry, accounting for 95 percent of the island’s exports. Rare earth mining, then, is the island’s play to diversify its economy, which could help it wean off the subsidies it gets from the Danish government. That, in turn, could help it win independence.

Thus far, the mining business has been a bit rocky in Greenland. In 2021, the government banned uranium mining, halting the development of a project by the Australian outfit Greenland Minerals, which would have also produced rare earths at the site. (Greenland Minerals did not respond to multiple requests to comment for this story.) The China-linked company is now suing the Greenland government for $11 billion—potentially spooking other would-be prospectors and the investors already worried about the profitability of mining for rare earths in the far north.

“When we talk to them, they understand the situation, and they’re not afraid,” said Hammeken-Holm. He added that Greenland maintains a dialogue with mining outfits about the challenges, and prospects, of exploration. “It is difficult to get private finance for these projects, but we are not alone,” he said. “That’s a worldwide situation.”

The growing demand and geopolitical fervor around rare earths may well make Greenland irresistible for mining companies, regardless of the logistical challenges. Hammeken-Holm says that a major discovery, like an especially rich deposit of a given rare earth element, might be the extra boost the country needs to transform itself into an indispensable provider of the critical minerals.

Both Exner-Pirot, of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, and Lajeunesse, the public policy expert, say that Western powers might get to the point where they intervene aggressively in the market. Like China’s state-sponsored rare earths industry, the US, Canada, Australia, or the European Union—which entered into a strategic partnership with Greenland in 2023 to develop critical raw materials—might band together to guarantee a steady flow of the minerals that make modern militaries, consumerism, and the energy transition possible. Subsidies, for instance, would help make the industry more profitable—and palatable for investors. “You’d have to accept that you’re purchasing and developing minerals for more than the market price,” Lajeunesse said. “But over the long term, it’s about developing a security of supply.”

Already a land of rapid climatological change, Greenland could soon grow richer—and more powerful on the world stage. Ton by ton, its disappearing ice will reveal more of the mineral solutions to the world’s woes.

Tom Vaillant contributed research and reporting. This story is part of the Grist series Unearthed: The Mining Issue, which examines the global race to extract critical minerals for the clean energy transition.