ICC leader: Greenland moving too fast into oil and gas

Aqqaluk Lynge, the head of the Inuit Circumpolar Council’s Greenland section, said this week that his country’s headlong rush into oil and gas development could produce “a terrible price for our independence.” (FILE PHOTO)

Greenland is racing into oil and mineral development before it’s ready, says Greenland’s Inuit Circumpolar Council president, Aqqaluk Lynge.

The self-governing Danish territory hasn’t properly studied the potential impacts of industry and oil drilling on animals and marine life.

“Freedom from Denmark could be a costly affair for the people of Greenland,” Aqqaluk Lynge said in a telephone interview from Nuuk Monday.

“We have to be careful we don’t pay a terrible price for our independence.”

Oil drilling is set to begin off Greenland’s west coast this summer, while aluminum giant Alcoa is pressing to build a smelter near Maniitsoq, and a hydroelectric dam to power it.

Greenland’s home rule government wants to use the royalties from projects like these to wean itself off the $750 million (Canadian dollars) it gets from Denmark each year as a precursor to eventual independence.

But Lynge, a former member of Greenland’s parliament and government minister, said Greenland lacks the “democratic infrastructure” to handle the looming wave of development.

Unlike Nunavut, Greenland didn’t get control of its environment department when it got authority over minerals, oil and gas, Lynge said.

That’s caused a lack of public consultation and allowed representatives from outside to dominate the debate.

“We need a free, prior and informed consent to go ahead with the planning of this kind of bigger projects,” he said, adding ICC Greenland is in favour of development, but at a slower pace.

Lynge is also concerned about the impact of oil drilling on beluga and narwhal populations in the Davis Strait, which Greenlandic hunters share with Nunavut.

Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. is concerned about that too, although Nunavut’s land claim organization is more staunchly pro-development.

James Eetoolook, NTI’s first vice president, said it’s up to the federal government to enforce regulations and ensure Nunavut has the ability to respond to environmental disasters.

“The sea mammals are very fragile and that’s why we’ve been calling on the federal government to make sure they have a good strategy about safety of any kind of transportation of oil or gas,” Eetoolook said.

Lynge said Greenland and Nunavut must work together to plan for more industry and development in the Arctic, which will bear the brunt of any environmental impacts “on top of the climate changes that are taking place.”

“Whatever happens off of Greenland’s west coast is also something that should have the Nunavut government’s [attention],” he said.