Recent turmoil in Greenland has brought a wide array of environmental issues, such as offshore drilling and global climate change, to the surface of the political arena. Diana Wallis, the vice-president of the European Union, has been a frequent participant in the Artic Council, which is an intergovernmental forum for Artic governments and people. Wallis claims Greenland in particular is already feeling the effects of global climate change. The ice caps in the northern region have melted significantly, and Wallis wants the EU to take a stronger role in safeguarding the country against further detrimental effects.
What is rather interesting, however, is that Greenland’s deputy foreign minister, Inuuteq Holm Olsen, seems to stand in opposition to Wallis. It appears as if the melting of the ice caps has yielded an unexpected benefit to the country in the form of newly discovered oil reserves. A Scottish oil producing company known as Cairn Energy claims that there is proof of an active working petroleum system in the region due to the presence of both oil and natural gas.
Olsen believes that Wallis’s plan to safeguard the region will be at the expense of the economic development that the oil reserves might bring. With the recent Gulf oil spill, and the subsequent moratorium on drilling, Olsen is against formidable odds in pursuing these interests. In addition to a general political climate that stands in opposition to the drilling, members of Greenpeace recently scaled an oilrig owned by Cairn Energy. Greenpeace has lodged numerous complaints that an oil spill in this region would be disastrous to the local environment.
Olsen, Wallis, and environmental groups such as Greenpeace all have valid points on this issue, but is there a course of action that is objectively right for Greenland?
-Evan Aronson, Legal Intern
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