Story at a glance
- The government announced it decided to stop issuing new licenses for oil and gas exploration.
- Government officials said the price of extraction and impact on the environment is too costly.
- “It is the position of the Greenlandic government that our country is better off focusing on sustainable development, such as the potential for renewable energy,” officials said.
Greenland is scrapping all new oil and gas exploration due to the escalating climate emergency and the high price of extracting the valuable resource, the government announced Thursday.
While the U.S. Geological Survey estimates there could be nearly 18 billion untapped barrels of oil on Greenland’s west coast alone, government officials said the price of extraction and effects on the environment is too costly.
The government said it decided to stop issuing new licenses for oil and gas exploration. The decision is a win for environmentalists but could hinder Greenland’s efforts to gain economic independence from Denmark, which provides the territory an annual subsidy. The yearly grant makes up about two-thirds of the large island’s economy.
“As a society, we must dare to stop and ask ourselves why we want to exploit a resource. Is the decision based upon updated insight and the belief that it is the right thing to do? Or are we just continuing business as usual?” Naaja H. Nathanielsen, Greenland’s minister for housing, infrastructure, mineral resources and gender equality, said in a statement.
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“It is the position of the Greenlandic government that our country is better off focusing on sustainable development, such as the potential for renewable energy,” Nathanielsen said.
Greenland is rich in both oil and mineral resources, and the government said it remains committed to developing its vast mineral potential, although lawmakers are considering a measure to ban uranium mining.
Global sea levels have risen about 9 inches since 1880, with a third of that occurring over the last two and a half decades. The increase is due to the melting of glaciers and ice sheets and thermal expansion of seawater as it’s getting warmer.
Ice loss from the Greenland ice sheet increased sevenfold from 34 billion tons per year between 1992 to 2001, to 247 billion tons per year between 2012 and 2016.
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