ARCTIC: EU’s Efforts to Protect Greenland & more – 28th Jan 2025

Góðan daginn from BA! This is the Rorshok Arctic Update from the 28th of January twenty twenty-five. A quick summary of what’s going down North of the Arctic Circle!

As climate change creates a greener Arctic, there have been hopes this will absorb more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. But according to a thirty year study published on the 21st by scientists from the Woodwell Climate Research Center, the Arctic’s tundra, forests and wetlands have revealed a critical environmental tipping point. Due to warm winters no longer freezing carbon and methane in the ground, a third of the region has shifted from carbon sinks into emission sources.

This research marks the first-ever documented reversal of an environment from a carbon sink to a source of greenhouse emissions. The study suggests the Arctic is now entering a feedback loop where, as more Arctic carbon is released, more warming occurs, leading to further carbon release.

The Arctic is about to undergo a fundamental change not only because of climate change, but because of US President Donald Trump. On Monday the 20th, he was sworn into office and immediately issued a series of Executive orders. The Arctic has been targeted by many of these orders, with a document published entitled Unleashing Alaska’s Extraordinary Resource Potential. Trump has rescinded former President Biden’s environmental protections for the Alaskan Ocean and coastlines, opening them up for oil and gas drilling.

However, the Executive orders are expected to be legally challenged, following a similar pattern to Trump’s first term when he rolled back environmental protections in Alaska’s Bering Sea, only for environmental groups to win a lawsuit preserving the ban on oil drilling.

To see how Trump plans to change Alaska, take a look at the link in the show notes.

President Trump’s first week in office didn’t stop there: his second attempt to purchase Greenland was also unsuccessful. On Saturday the 25th, senior EU officials told the Financial Times that Trump called Mette Frederiksen, the Danish Prime Minister, last week and that his tone was aggressive and confrontational. Trump reportedly threatened Frederiksen with targeted economic tariffs if she doesn’t relinquish Greenland to the US.

Speaking onboard Air Force One on Saturday, Trump said that Greenlandic people want to become a part of the US and that the US will make Greenland a free country.

The EU is taking the threats to Greenland seriously. Robert Brieger, the top European Union military official, told German newspaper Welt on Saturday the 25th that he believes the EU should station a permanent military force in Greenland. The US has an air force base on the island, but with the US and EU suffering a breakdown in trust under President Trump, Brieger thinks it makes sense for Europe to maintain security in Greenland through its own armed forces.

Other European nations have been increasing their Arctic security too. On Thursday the 23rd, Norway and France signed a letter of intent on improved defense cooperation, emphasizing the need for a heightened military presence in the far north. Norway’s vast ocean territory across northern Europe makes the country key to European security. This agreement between Norway and France continues the Norwegian military’s integration into the defense strategies of the UK and EU.

Russia is also bolstering its Arctic military presence. The Finnish Military Intelligence published its bi-annual security report on Friday the 24th, which concluded that Russia is planning on significantly expanding the number of active troops stationed on the northern borders with Norway and Finland after ending the war in Ukraine.

The report predicts that the military force located in Russia’s Kola peninsula, which is neighboring Scandinavia, will increase from 30,000 to 80,000 troops and be reformed into a fully modernized army and navy. The Kola peninsula is home to, or provides key access to, many of Russia’s most valuable oil and gas deposits. This report makes it clear that Russia sees the Arctic as an area of huge strategic significance.

Over in Scandinavia, the Indigenous population has a new leadership. The Sami Parliamentary Council functions as a parliamentary cooperation body for the Sami Parliaments of Norway, Sweden and Finland. The Finnish Sami parliament has been the chair of the Council since twenty twenty-three, but on Monday the 20th the council announced it has transferred its rotating leadership from Finland to Norway for a new sixteen month term.

Silje Karine Muotka, the President of the Sami Parliament in Norway, has been elected as the new chair of the Sami Parliamentary Council. Muotka has announced that she will focus on improving cooperation between Scandinavian governments on Sami issues to improve access to education, strengthen Sami presence in the EU, and combat racial discrimination.

Sweden’s government has used a power not seen in almost forty years to force the creation of a new mine in the Arctic. On Thursday the 23rd, the Swedish Ministry of Trade announced that it has forced the local government of Sweden’s northern Kiruna municipality to allow the construction of a graphite mine which it had been blocking on environmental grounds. The national government has the power to overrule its local governments on matters of national importance, but hasn’t done so since nineteen eighty-seven. The Ministry of Trade says that graphite is a key resource for Sweden and the EU, with the mineral crucial for battery and electronics development, and the environmental concerns are not strong enough to block the mine’s construction.

Battery construction is on the mind of Indigenous Canadians too. On Monday the 20th, the Tłı̨chǫ Government signed an agreement with Fortescue, an Australian mining company, to look at the potential for lithium mining on Tłı̨chǫ lands in Canada’s NorthWest Territories. Current lithium stocks on their lands are unknown but the agreement allows Fortescue to conduct geological surveys in the hope of finding significant lithium deposits and building a mine to extract it.

Lithium has become an extremely valuable resource for its importance in building rechargeable batteries, and any discoveries could reshape the financial fortunes of the Tłı̨chǫ people.

There is relief on the way for Canadian Inuit families that may be struggling. On Tuesday the 21st, Nunavut Tunngavik, the legal representative of the Inuit of Nunavut, voted to spend about $20 million US dollars on the distribution and expansion of food security programs across Nunavut’s Inuit communities. The current food security programs were due to end this year, but this funding should ensure that any Inuit in Nunavut can access food supplies for the next three years.

There’s emergency funding on the way for rural Icelandic farmers too. The twenty twenty-three to twenty twenty-four winter in northern Iceland was the coldest in decades, with farmers losing significant crops, livestock and money as a result. On Thursday the 23rd, the Icelandic Ministry of Food and Agriculture announced it is awarding over 1 million US dollars in National Disaster Relief Funding to about ninety farms in northern Iceland to help these farmers recover from the damages they have suffered.

In addition to these payments, the Disaster Relief Fund is reviewing damages from other weather events in twenty twenty-three and twenty twenty-four, showing that the increasingly erratic weather in the Arctic is having serious impacts on the daily lives of those who live there.

The funding for Arctic people doesn’t stop there. The Nordic Council of Ministers, an intergovernmental collaboration between the governments of the Nordic nations, announced on Friday the 24th that on Monday the 27th it will announce its tenth Nordic Arctic Program. The program will run for the next three years and will provide funding of about $4 million US dollars to small communities in the Arctic that have projects which support social, economic, and environmental resilience. Previous programs have supported the creation of valuable events such as the Arctic Youth Conference, and the Nordic Council hopes its tenth edition will lead to more prosperity and strength among northern communities.

Aaand that’s it for this week! Thank you for joining us!

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