Perhaps you have already heard oil corporations are looking for oil in the Arctic seas around Greenland. But also the Chinese show some interest in Denmark, Greenland's mineral wealth especially. Greenland holds untouched resources of uranium which pose a dilemma to the nuclear free kingdom. Recently, Hu Jintao visited Denmark and Danish politicians visited China.
"I hopewe can soonchangethe zero tolerance [towards nuclear industries]and have theuraniumthat we have extracted,insteadof beingan Arcticopen-airmuseum."
- DorisJakobsen, Greenland politician
"Such production will be a game changer for the otherwise non-nuclear kingdom that is uninformed and virginal in this area. It will raise the kingdom's importance internationally because it will be a [world top-10] producer. Historically we've been spared from considering this." - Cindy Vestergaard, researcher at DIIS
"I don't think there are countries eager to obtain uranium for nuclear weapons use. Despite that uranium could still be spread. But countries that would be interested in uranium for weapons have been able to get it all the time." - Per Kalvig researcher at GEUS
Greenland Mining and Energy Ltd looking for uranium in Narsaq, south Greenland.
"We were allowed to talk about Greenland's autonomy to the members of the local [Tibetan] government and Communist Party, and there was great interest from people in Yushu." - Doris Jakobsen, Greenland politician
This week the "Arctic nations" - Canada, Russia, Norway, the United States and Denmark - met in Moscow to agree on territorial claims. (Strangely, I didn't notice any coverage at all in Danish media - while even Al-Jazeera warmed up for it.)
"Serious political and economic interests are indeed crossing over in the Arctic. But I have no doubt that problems, including the continental shelf problem, can be solved in the spirit of partnership. It is well known that it is difficult to survive in the Arctic on your own. Nature itself makes people, nations and states help each other there. Unfortunately we are faced with alarmist predictions of a looming battle for the Arctic. We are monitoring the situation and making responsible forecasts."
- Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin
"No one problem of contemporary Arctic can be resolved by one country alone. So that's why I think that we are doomed to co-operate in the Arctic. And military confrontation especially is completely counterproductive."
- Russian Arctic expert Lev Voronkov
Russia plans to invest 312.8 billion US dollars on exploration and promise extra tax breaks for oil corporations wanting to do business in the Arctic. They have sent a submarine to plant the Russian flag on the sea bed but complain about NATO's presence.
The Arctic is thought to contain 25% of the planet's undiscovered oil and gas, about 200 billion barrels of oil.
"The industry has been around the world discovering easy oil and gas there are only the more difficult and riskier regions left - and the Arctic is one of them"
- Manouchehr Takin, Centre For Global Energy Studies
"It is a reckless prospecting endeavour, trying to find new oil reserves in this fragile and pristine environment"
- Greenpeace protestor
"If governments were serious about climate change [...] they would be putting proposals here at Copenhagen this week to determine which parts of carbon reserves would be left in the ground. [...] they would also be proposing a total global moratorium on all prospecting for new reserves of coal, oil and gas."
We have already found more than enough fossil fuel reserves to cause extreme climate change. We don't need the Arctic reserves to do that. A fact so blindingly obvious since they are only becoming accessible because of the melting ice caps.
This is about neither war nor even a natural resource in demand. It's about a peaceful agreement over changes in nature: As climate change is melting the glaciers defining the borders of Switzerland the government is simply redrawing the European map in collaboration with Austria, Italy and France. Complete absence of trouble, it seems.
But what if the melting glaciers had been the main water source of the neighbourhood? And what if Switzerland had been in less friendly relationships with their neighbours? Such conditions - unfortunately - are less common around the world.
"Elsewhere in the world you see a much more nationalistic attitude" - Dr. Mark Zeitoun, Britain’s University of East Anglia
Namely the Himalayas are melting. This could lead to drastic changes and trouble. First of all an increase in Pakistani-Indian tensions. But ice is melting everywhere; faster and faster.
Arctic melt also leads to conflict as nations make their territorial pissings: armies of Denmark and Canada taking turns planting a flag and a bottle of booze on a icy rock next to Greenland, Russia planting a flag on the bottom of the Arctic sea.
For almost 50 years chemical weapons from two World Wars have been lying at the bottom of the Baltic Sea. Authorities deny they are a danger, but environmentalists are calling for their removal and proper disposal.
