A 30-minute stroll throughout New York’s Central Park separates Trump Tower from the American Museum of Pure Historical past. If the US president ever discovered himself contained in the museum he might see the Cape York meteorite: a 58-tonne mass of iron taken from northwest Greenland and bought in 1897 by the explorer Robert Peary, with the assistance of native Inuit guides.
For hundreds of years earlier than Danish colonisation, the folks of Greenland had used fragments of the meteorite to make instruments and searching tools. Peary eliminated that useful resource from native management, in the end promoting the meteorite for an quantity equal to only US$1.5 million as we speak. It was a transaction as one-sided as something the president might now be considering.
Greenland is sovereign in the whole lot aside from defence and overseas coverage, however by being a part of the Kingdom of Denmark, it’s included inside Nato. As with every nation, entry to its land and coastal waters is tightly managed by permits that specify the place work might happen and what actions are allowed.
Over many a long time, Greenland has granted worldwide scientists entry to assist unlock the environmental secrets and techniques preserved inside its ice, rocks and seabed. US researchers have been among the many important beneficiaries, drilling deep into the ice to elucidate the historic hyperlink between carbon dioxide and temperatures, or flying repeated Nasa missions to map the land beneath the ice sheet.
The entire world owes an enormous debt of because of each Greenland and the US, fairly often in collaboration with different nations, for this scientific progress carried out brazenly and pretty. It’s important that such work continues.
The local weather science at stake
Analysis reveals that round 80% of Greenland is roofed by a colossal ice sheet which, if absolutely melted, would elevate sea degree globally by about 7 metres (the peak of a two storey home). That ice is melting at an accelerating price because the world warms, releasing huge quantities of freshwater into the North Atlantic, probably disrupting the ocean circulation that moderates the local weather throughout the northern hemisphere.
The remaining 20% of Greenland continues to be roughly the dimensions of Germany. Geological surveys have revealed a wealth of minerals, however economics dictates that these will most definitely be used to energy the inexperienced transition fairly than lengthen the fossil gasoline period.
Whereas coal deposits exist, they’re at present too costly to extract and promote, and no main oil fields have been found. As a substitute, the industrial focus is on “essential minerals”: high-value supplies utilized in renewable applied sciences from wind generators to electrical automotive batteries. Greenland due to this fact holds each scientific data and supplies that may assist information us away from local weather catastrophe.
Unilateral management might threaten local weather science
Trump has proven little curiosity in local weather motion, nonetheless. Having already began to withdraw the US from the Paris local weather settlement for a second time, he introduced in January 2026 the nation would additionally go away the Intergovernmental Panel on Local weather Change, or IPCC, the worldwide scientific physique that assesses the impacts of continued fossil-fuel burning. His rhetoric thus far has been about buying Greenland for “safety” functions, with some indications of accessing its mineral wealth, however with out point out of important local weather analysis.
Underneath the 1951 Greenland defence settlement with Denmark, the US already has a distant army base at Pituffik in northern Greenland, now centered on house actions. Whereas each international locations stay in Nato, the settlement already permits the US to broaden its army presence if required. In search of to ensure US safety in Greenland exterior Nato would undermine the prevailing pact, whereas a unilateral takeover would danger scientists in the remainder of the world shedding entry to one of the vital vital local weather analysis websites.
Classes from Antarctica and Svalbard
Greenland’s sovereign standing and its governance is completely different to another notable polar analysis areas. For instance, Antarctica has, for greater than 60 years, been ruled by a world treaty making certain the continent stays a spot of peace and science, and defending it from mining and different environmental harm.
Svalbard, however, has Norwegian sovereignty courtesy of the 1920 Svalbard treaty however operates a largely visafree system that permits residents of practically 50 international locations to dwell and work on the archipelago, so long as they abide by Norwegian regulation. Curiously, Norway claims that scientific actions will not be lined by the treaty, to virtually common disagreement amongst different events. Russia has a everlasting station at Barentsburg, Svalbard’s second-largest settlement, from which small ranges of coal are mined.
Not like Antarctica or Svalbard, Greenland has no treaty that explicitly protects entry for worldwide scientists. Its openness to analysis due to this fact relies upon not on worldwide regulation, however on Greenland’s continued political stability and openness – all of which can be threatened by US management.
Whether it is minded to take a radical method, Greenland might develop its personal treaty-style method with chosen associate states by Nato, enabling safety cooperation, mineral evaluation and scientific analysis to be carried out collaboratively below Greenlandic laws.
The longer term for Greenland ought to lie with Greenlanders and with Denmark. The way forward for local weather science, and the transition to a secure affluent future worldwide, depends on continued entry to the island on phrases set by the folks that dwell there. The Cape York meteorite – taken from a web site simply 60 miles away from the US Pituffik House Base – is a reminder of how simply that management may be misplaced.
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