Mining in Greenland - Just Sustainable Transition or More Colonial Extraction?

Russia’s war in Ukraine, US threats to take over Greenland, and a rising need for critical earth minerals to power the green transition are fueling a huge international interest in mining in Greenland. Can Greenland power a just green transition? Or will it fall prey to colonial extractivism? Keira Dignan reports from the Nordic Circular Summit in Nuuk, Greenland.

Last week, I sloshed across a rocky beach on the edge of Nuuk, Greenland’s capital. As the rain lashed at my face, I wiped my phone screen dry to google - is this normal? Spoiler: it’s not. 

Greenland is one of the fastest-warming places on earth. And for a country with a permanent ice coverage of 75%, that means melting. The Greenland ice sheet is now approaching a critical tipping point. Once this threshold is crossed, the ice sheet will no longer be able to fully recover, spelling disaster for its diverse arctic wildlife and the people that depend on it. 

However, the melting of the ice sheet is also making new ground accessible - new ground that contains critical minerals used in the manufacturing of solar panels, wind turbines, and batteries. For example, Greenland contains 18% of the global reserves for neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium, and terbium. Scientists estimate the island’s deposits could meet a quarter of the global demand for rare earths. 

I was in Greenland for the Nordic Circular Summit 2025, where policy-makers, businesses and investors were discussing how to convert our linear economy into a circular one in the Nordic region. One of the leaders there was Malene Vahl Rasmussen, the 30-year-old Mayor of a southern Greenlandic municipality. Rasmussen has been approached by three mining companies proposing three different mining projects in her region. 

“They want the mines to be up and running as fast as possible. If I get three mines up and running in my municipality, I need to get the energy to power them. I need to make sure the ports are ready to take them. I need to train people to work there.” - Malene Vahl Rasmussen

Rasmussen also explained how important it is for her communities that the mines are environmentally sound. There is no such thing as a “zero-impact” mine, but there are ways that pollution and disruption to wildlife can be reduced.

Nuuk, the capital of Greenland. Credit: Ken Mathiasen, Serge Taeymans, Sergey Omelchenko

The real sticking point in Malene’s negotiations so far, she explains, has been the use of fossil fuels. Greenland banned the extraction of fossil fuels from its territory in 2021, and Malene is not about to start building out large infrastructure to support the mines.

“We want to be a part of the green transition. Extracting minerals for renewable energy, using renewable energy”, Rasmussen explains.

But that infrastructure will take investment and time to build, and so far, the mining companies are unwilling to cough up the cash. They want to burn oil instead.

All of this - the ice, the higher cost of workers, and the need to build renewable energy in order to power the mines - makes mining for critical minerals in Greenland much more expensive than importing from China or Congo. 

But as Luca De Lorenzo, Head of Sustainability at the Nordic Investment Bank, explained to me on my “Locally Rooted” panel, the geopolitical fractures of the present have also fractured governments’ religious faith in global markets, and may open up the opportunity for more just and less environmentally destructive mining in Greenland.

At the Nordic Circular Summit in Nuuk: Keira Dignan, representing the youth voice of ReGeneration 2030, Malene Vahl Rasmussen discussing mining in Greenland, Luca De Lorenzo analysing the effect of recent geopolitical tensions in trust in global markets. Credit: Nordic Circular Hotspot.

Can Greenland be a part of a just green transition? Or will it fall prey to the extractive pressures of our current global economy, with big corporations drawing out profits and leaving the environmental mess for others to clean up?

As the debate intensified in Nuuk, the rain continued to splash against the windows. If we keep burning fossil fuels at their current rate, more and more of Greenland’s ice sheet will calve into the sea, where it will raise global sea levels and slow down the currents that keep our region from freezing over. 

So one thing is for sure - Greenland’s future is all of our future. 

Want to join a squad of Nordic and Baltic Sea youth using international platforms to fight for a just green transition? Join the ReGeneration 2030 Slack and message Advocacy Coordinator Jannat to join our Advocacy Working group.