27
JAN
2025
The Arctic as a whole has long been particularly affected by climate change. Temperatures there are rising much faster than in other parts of the world; some studies estimate that the warming in the region is four times the global average.[ 1] This means that growing parts of the Arctic Ocean are temporarily ice-free; according to current analysis, the first day on which the entire water is free of frozen sea ice could occur before 2030.[ 2] Climate change is also increasingly affecting Greenland. In the capital Nuuk, new maximum temperatures have always been measured for the months of March and April in recent years - 13.2 degrees Celsius in 2016, 14.6 degrees Celsius in 2019 and 15.2 degrees Celsius in 2023. For the north of the island, computer analyses found an increase of 17 to 28 degrees above the usual average. 3] According to a recent analysis by the University of Maine, record temperatures in the fall of 2022 led to heavy precipitation falling as rain instead of snow and washing metals and other elements from thawed permafrost soils into the greenland lakes for the first time. A good 7,500 lakes have exceeded a tipping point; the water quality has been affected since then. The lakes no longer absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, as before, but release it. 4]
The fact that the ice is also melting at a rapid pace in Greenland leads to the fact that large stocks of raw materials are released there - as elsewhere in the Arctic - or access to them are facilitated. Outstanding importance is currently attached to the huge reserves of rare earths, which are mainly located near the village of Narsaq in the south of the island. According to the Kringlerne deposit, around 3,000 tons of rare earths could be produced there per year; this corresponds to about 60 percent of the annual demand in Europe. 5] The second Kvanefjeld deposit near Narsaq promises an even greater yield; there is talk of an "annual production of 3 million tons in open-cast mines". Various attempts by Chinese companies to invest in the extraction of raw materials and the construction of infrastructure in Greenland have been "prevented" by Denmark and the USA in recent years, as current reports confirm. 6] For some time now, the EU has been trying to get into the reduction of resources. In November 2023, it initiated a raw material partnership with Greenland; the Global Gateway Initiative, which was actually launched as a competing project for China's New Silk Road, is to be used to build the necessary - and expensive - infrastructure. 7]
However, the concretization of the EU plans is still delayed. Especially in the case of the Kvanefjeld deposit, it stands in her way that large quantities of uranium are detected there, which is why large-scale mining is likely to cause serious environmental damage; protests are therefore made from the population. In addition, the USA now also registers interest in accessing Greenland's rare earths. However, experts point out that even a comprehensive exploitation of the resources of the Co-Chinese would not free the EU and the USA from their dependence on China. There are large deposits on rare earths, for example, in Australia, Canada, Brazil, India, and even in the USA, according to a study published in October by the Berlin Foundation for Science and Politics (SWP). 8] The fact that the NATO states are currently dependent on supplies from China in terms of rare earths is not due to a "lack of sites", but rather to the Chinese "dominance in processing". Western corporations avoided "expensive and environmentally harmful processing" to this day and delivered the raw materials "to China for processing", the SWP states. Beijing's influence on the supply of rare earths is based on "control over technologies, production capacities, value chains, export quotas and prices".
Apart from raw material issues, the Arctic ice melt is of considerable geostrategic importance, as it uncovers new sea routes that have always been frozen and therefore impassable. In the future, this will probably apply to the Northwest Passage from the Atlantic Ocean west of Greenland and north of Canada through the Bering Strait into the Pacific and for the sea routes across the Arctic Ocean. Already today, at least temporarily, the Northeast Passage is being used, which leads from the Pacific through the Bering Strait north of Russia past the European North Sea and into the Atlantic. In China's strategic plans, the Northeast Passage is called the Polar Silk Road, which is not only shorter than the Maritime Silk Road through the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean into the Mediterranean Sea, but - unlike this, especially in the Strait of Malacca [9] - is difficult to be blocked by the United States. Due to their importance, Moscow and Beijing agreed in April 2023 to cooperate between the Russian border guard and the Chinese coast guard along the route in northern Russia.[ 10] Greenland plays a major role in controlling the mouth of all these sea routes in the North Atlantic. This is especially true for the so-called GIUK gap (Greenland, Iceland, United Kingdom), which warships of the Russian Northern Fleet must pass if they are to enter the Atlantic. 11]
In view of the increasing geostrategic importance of the Arctic, the SWP already advised in October last year that the Bundeswehr, which is already participating in "exercises in the far north" - large-scale maneuvers such as Trident Juncture, Nordic Response and Rapid Viking [12] were called - should "expand its level of ambition to the Arctic" [13]. At the national level, it had already done this in August 2020 with an exercise in which 400 marines had gone "aboard seven mine hunting boats from Kiel beyond the Arctic Circle to Narvik on the coast of Norway". Germany should, it continued at the SWP, "be more active together with the Allied navies in the Arctic"; "Presence and exercises should be stabilized and expanded". The chairman of the EU military committee, Robert Brieger, is now also speaking out in favor. According to the Austrian general, it makes "prety sense" to "consider a stationing of EU soldiers" in Greenland: "That would be a strong signal and could contribute to the stability in the region," said Brieger. 14]
Brieger refers explicitly to the current plans of the Trump administration to bring Greenland under its control in one way or another. The efforts are linked to previous US attempts to incorporate the island, which go back far into the history of the long-standing Danish colony. german-foreign-policy.com reports shortly.
[1] Arctic Sea Ice Dynamics and Climate Change. nature.com.
[2] Céline Heuzé, Alexandra Jahn: The first ice-free day in the Arctic Ocean could occur before 2030. nature.com 03.12.2024.
[3] Ian Livingston, Kasha Patel: Greenland temperatures surge up to 50 degrees above normal, setting records. washingtonpost.com 08.03.2023.
[4] Extreme climate pushed thousands of lakes in West Greenland 'across a tipping point,' study finds. umaine.edu 21.01.2025.
[5] Michael Paul: Greenland's Arctic Paths to Independence. SWP study 2024/S 22. Berlin, 02.10.2024.
[6] Majid Sattar, Friedrich Schmidt, Julian Staib, Jochen Stahnke: The fight for the Arctic. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 14.01.2025.
[7], [8] Michael Paul: Greenland's Arctic Paths to Independence. SWP study 2024/S 22. Berlin, 02.10.2024.
[9] S. The Pax Pacifica (III).
[10] Michael Paul: Greenland's Arctic Paths to Independence. SWP study 2024/S 22. Berlin, 02.10.2024.
[11] S. to this As first in war.
[12] S. Eiskalte Geopolitik (II), Die Zeit der Großmanöver, "Die Dominanz in der Arktis" and Als erste im Krieg.
[13] Michael Paul: Greenland's Arctic paths to independence. SWP study 2024/S 22. Berlin, 02.10.2024.
[14] EU military chief for stationing soldiers in Greenland. rnd.de 26.01.2025.