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2025-01-30 11:00
If shipping boss Niels Clemensen were to offer any advice to Donald Trump or anyone else trying to get a foothold in Greenland, it would be this: “Come up here and see what you are actually dealing with.”
Sitting on the top floor of his beamed office in Nuuk harbour, where snow is being flung around by strong winds in the mid-morning darkness outside and shards of ice pass by in the fast-flowing water, the chief executive of Greenland’s only shipping company, Royal Arctic Line, says: “What you normally see as easy [setting up operations] in the US or Europe is not the same up here.” As well as the cold, ice and extremely rough seas, the world’s biggest island does not have a big road network or trains, meaning everything has to be transported either by sea or air. “I’m not saying that it’s not possible. But it’s going to cost a lot of money.”
With the potential to slash shipping times between Europe and Asia by thousands of miles – or as much as two weeks – the opening up of the Northwest Passage as the Arctic ice melts is viewed by some as an upside of the climate crisis and one of the main reasons Trump has taken such an interest in Greenland.
With its critical position along the highly coveted route – which passes through the Canadian Arctic archipelago instead of the traditional passage via the Panama Canal – Greenland is likely to have an important role to play in its future.
But the spotlight on Greenland – and, the shifting focus of the world’s superpowers on the Arctic region as a whole – has highlighted just how poorly equipped for the Arctic environment much of Europe and the US in fact is. Nowhere is this more stark than in the lack of icebreakers – the expensive specialist ships vital for operating in the Northwest Passage and the region more generally.
“Opening up the Northwest Passage doesn’t mean the ice is gone,” says Clemensen, whose ships (not icebreakers) are used to import and export across the whole of Greenland. “We’re not talking about an all-year-round free passage. The ice is retreating, but it is still there.”
Denmark, which is responsible for Greenland’s defence, does not have a single icebreaker – having retired its remaining three in 2010. Yet the ownership of these specialist vessels has suddenly become what could be a new front in the fight for dominance between the world’s biggest powers – commanding access to everything from shipping routes to search and rescue and minerals. Such is the attraction of Greenland that Trump has not ruled out using military force to get it.
Since Trump’s renewed advances, Copenhagen has said it is preparing for the fact that it may have to purchase icebreakers for Arctic defence. The Danish prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, recently visited an icebreaker in Finland – a country which has several of them. But even if she decided to order a new fleet now, the ships take several years to build.
Russia is by far and away the icebreaker superpower. It is understood to have at least 50 icebreakers – at least 13 of which can operate in the Arctic and seven of which are nuclear – as well as a substantial network of ports in the region. China is understood to have four that are suitable for the Arctic, while new Nato members Sweden and Finland, as well as the US and Canada, all own their own versions of these specialist vessels. There are also a growing number of icebreaker cruise vessels catering to Arctic tourists.
Commercial vessels wanting to use the passage must have icebreaking capabilities as the ice-free window, if it happens, will be as little as three months long. And even in the summer, polar-coded vessels – those, like Clemensen’s, that are designed and certified to operate safely in the harsh ice conditions of the Arctic – are needed. If Greenland’s mining were to take off then icebreakers would be essential to access minerals in the fjords when they freeze over.
Pointing to a big framed map of Greenland hanging on his office wall, Clemensen says they have the Arctic ice drifting down the east coast which closes together so that it has no gaps during the winter and moves south in summer. “That’s multi-year ice. It’s very hard and it’s big flakes. We pass it, we don’t go in and break it with our vessels.”
Then there is the west ice, which comes from the Canadian side starting in November and building up until it closes down as far as Disko Bay on Greenland’s west coast. “When it hits Greenland then it builds up and you’re not able to pass through. That is the situation we are looking at right now and it could go for two to three months. But it depends on wind and current in the sea.”
While you could get through with an icebreaker, to do so would put the livelihoods of coastal communities at risk who go out on to the ice to fish species that include shrimp, halibut, redfish and cod. The same communities also hunt seals, walrus, reindeer and small numbers of polar bear in winter.
Vittus Qujaukitsoq, a former government minister and chief executive of KNAPK, Greenland’s business association for professional fishers and hunters, says: “Some people think it would be a great help to have icebreakers [in order to help get small fishing boats out on to the water], but not everyone, because they would ruin their way of living.”
Qujaukitsoq says depleting ice and unpredictable weather caused by the climate crisis is already affecting hunting and fishing in Greenland’s rural communities. Carbon emissions are also speeding up the melting of inland ice. “It is affecting our livelihood economically, but also threatening our traditional way of living,” he says. The ice, he adds, must be safe to walk and drive on. “The safety is measured upon the thickness of the ice. In a few short periods we are able to go by car, but most of the traffic is conducted by dog sled and snowmobiles for icefishing.”
If the Northwest Passage were to become busier and icebreakers came through breaking up the ice at inappropriate times, he says it would have a “significant effect” on the Inuit people who live along the shipping route and “pose a threat for our existence long term”.
Johanna Ikävalko, director of the Arctic Centre, says there is “an elevated need for high-performance icebreakers” in the region, but still considers the Northwest Passage a “very risky area for navigating”. If it were to be used to transport oil for example, the ice conditions would pose a “huge risk” even for a routine journey.
She is, she says, fearful for the future of the Arctic, which she predicts will form the basis for which nations become the superpowers of the future. Russia, she adds, has multiple military bases in the Artic near Murmansk which it has been developing for years. “I started to think last summer that the world order will actually start to evolve from the Arctic – and now it’s even more possible.”
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