Climate change is making Greenland more accessible for shipping and mining, heightening geopolitical tensions. While opening new opportunities, the melting ice also poses significant dangers to development. Recent U.S. permissions for military bases underscore the island's strategic value.
Greenland, a Danish territory with 90 percent Inuit population and a model of Indigenous self-governance, has gained renewed attention due to warming temperatures. Late this week, President Donald Trump announced that the United States would not need to "take" Greenland, as it had been granted permission to establish additional military bases. Despite Trump's dismissal of climate change as a "hoax," experts note that melting ice sheets are enhancing the island's geopolitical appeal by exposing previously inaccessible land and sea areas.
Sherri Goodman, senior associate at Harvard Kennedy School’s Arctic Initiative and author of the 2024 book Threat Multiplier: Climate, Military Leadership, and the Fight for Global Security, stated, "The fact that it’s more accessible has in some ways made it more attractive."
Retreating Arctic sea ice has enabled new shipping routes, such as the Northern Sea Route along Russia's coast, which Russian and Chinese icebreakers are already using. This path connects Asian and European ports, potentially reducing shipping times by nearly 40 percent and costs by more than 20 percent. In October, Russia and China agreed to develop it as the "Polar Silk Road." If fossil fuel emissions persist, most of the Arctic Ocean could lack summer sea ice by 2050, Goodman added: "I think it’s actually moving faster than we even predicted."
A potential Northwest Passage near Greenland's coasts could soon accommodate average tankers, though increasing icebergs present hazards. The island holds rich deposits of rare earth elements, including praseodymium for batteries, terbium for screens, and neodymium for device vibrations—vital for electric vehicles, cruise missiles, and advanced magnets.
Adam Lajeunesse, a public policy expert at Canada’s St. Francis Xavier University, explained, "They sit at the heart of pretty much every electric vehicle, cruise missile, advanced magnet."
However, extraction remains challenging due to harsh weather, lack of infrastructure like railroads, and high costs—producing 2,000 tons of toxic waste per ton of minerals. Arctic amplification is warming the region four times faster than the global average, leading to thawing permafrost, collapsing hillsides, and torrents from glaciers that destabilize operations.
Geoscientist Paul Bierman from the University of Vermont, author of When the Ice Is Gone, warned, "This is an unstable environment." He argued, "I would argue that mining is getting more difficult, not easier, as climate changes," and criticized the administration's resource focus as "horribly misplaced."
Greenland's ice melt could raise global sea levels by up to 10.6 inches by century's end, compounding these perils.
