Inspiring article on Open Democracy about how the new eco-socialist government of Greenland is severing with its old commitments to extracting oil, gas and rare minerals from its territories - and is now in the forefront of climate activism.

As recently as 2016, the Greenland government was welcoming the appointment of Exxon’s Rex Tillerson as US secretary of state. Now, after May’s election which has brought the eco-socialist party Inuit Ataqatigiit to power and made its 35 year old leader Múte Bourup Egede Prime Minister, the new government has  banned all future oil and gas exploration from Greenland’s territory. They stated in July:

The price of oil extraction is too high. This is based upon economic calculations, but considerations of the impact on climate and the environment also play a central role in the decision.

Greenland also has large quantities of uranium, and the world’s second biggest reserves of rare earth minerals. As the article states, demand for these “has soared in recent years because of their use in batteries for electric cars, computer chips and other tools of the high tech, low carbon economy.”

Yet again, the new government is taking a strong stand:

“We must listen to the voters who are worried. We say no to uranium mining,” Egede told the KNR. His party also promised to ban all explorations of radioactive deposits, and, while it does not oppose the mining of rare earth minerals in principle, it insists it must be better regulated.

The OD article fleshes out the political context of all this:

In the recent election, the party, known as IA, centred its campaign on its opposition to an international mining project by Greenland Minerals, an Australian-based and Chinese-owned company that is seeking to extract uranium and neodymium from the Kvanefjeld mine in the south of the country.

Neodymium is a crucial component of a broad range of technologies, from some kinds of wind turbine to electric cars, because it can be used to make small, lightweight, but powerful and permanent magnets, while uranium is used for both nuclear power and nuclear weapons.

There is now a bill being debated in the Greenland parliament to ban the uranium mining project and all mining that contains radioactive by-products.

According to Mark Nuttall, an anthropologist at the University of Alberta and the head of the Climate and Society research programme at the Greenland Climate Research Centre: “This [election] has sent shivers down the spine of many mining executives as to what kind of future mining would take place in Greenland.”

Under the direction of Egede, the IA-led government has also taken several significant steps in recent months to curb fossil fuel production.

Last week in Glasgow, Egede announced that Greenland will be joining the Paris Agreement. In 2016, under the leadership of Siumut, Greenland had invoked a territorial exemption to the climate agreement when Denmark joined.

Greenland, which is technically a self-governing territory of Denmark, claimed at the time that the country was dependent on its oil, gas and natural mineral reserves for its economy.

“The Arctic region is one of the areas on our planet where the effects of global warming are felt the most, and we believe that we must take responsibility collectively. That means that we, too, must contribute our share,” Egede said last week.

Egede’s government also pledged to develop its renewable energy capability, especially hydropower: “Greenland has hydropower resources that exceed our country’s needs. These large hydropower resources can be utilised in collaboration with national and international investors who need large amounts of cheap and renewable energy.”

The article concludes with this overview:

Greenland often appears in discussions about climate change – usually in the context of films of starving polar bears, adorable Arctic foxes and rutting muskox; or melting glaciers diverting the Gulf Stream and raising global sea levels, flooding cities across the planet.

Ice cores from Greenland, like those of Antarctica, help us understand historic variations in the composition of our atmosphere and in our climate, and have been vital for scientists’ understanding of the science of climate change.

These things are all true, and each Arctic species being pushed to extinction by the warming of the world is a tragedy.

But what’s also true is that Greenland is home to tens of thousands of people, with their own history and culture, politics and organisations; a people who, after a thousand years of colonisation, are starting to assert both their independence from Denmark and their sovereignty in the face of the global market.

And, who, along with other indigenous communities around the world, are starting to lead a fightback against the industrial, extractive capitalism that’s killing the planet.

More here.