When we think of the impact of global warming here in Australia, it is all the down sides of droughts, floods and rising seas. But on the other side of the world in Greenland, global warming is being viewed by many as a godsend. The melting ice there is opening up new territory and new resources including, ironically, the potential to drill for oil. But as Nick Lazaredes found, Greenland's own harsh history with climate change means not everyone is relaxed about the future there.
REPORTER: Nick Lazaredes
Throughout southern Greenland ancient ruins tell of a colony that thrived for almost 500 years. Greenland's Norse civilisation once numbered in their thousands, a flourishing community that populated the rugged hills and valleys here. One of the last official accounts of Norse society was a description of a wedding that took place here, in this church in 1408, but within 50 years,Greenland's Viking Society had vanished, victims of a changing climate.
Evidence recently uncovered by scientists indicates that the Norse most certainly starved to death as the mercury plunged. Now in a reversal of fortune, as temperatures rise and the ice caps melt, Greenland is growing greener, and the warming climate is breathing new life into its once barren turf.
ANDERS IVERSEN, GARDENER: It is very nice to grow things but there are a lot of stones here. It is a kind of marine silt soil, you can see it over here.
Not far from the site of the last Viking settlement, Gardener Anders Iversen is part of a team sowing the seeds of Greenland's exciting future as a food producer.
ANDERS IVERSEN: We do different kind of tests, different kinds of varieties of vegetables, green cabbage, spring greens, broccoli, cauliflowers, all kinds of salads, iceberg and romano lettuce. I make 1500 of these and I sell them to the local shops.
And it is not just vegetables. Livestock and wool production are also part of the effort here atGreenland's Agricultural Research Centre to reap the benefits of climate change.
ANDERS IVERSEN: Climate change here will be for the better. We can grow more of our own food, which today we have to import, for example.
As its glaciers melt and crumble, Greenland's resources are becoming accessible, but ironically, the most lucrative prize is the substance which has the most damaging effect on our changing climate - oil.
JON BURGWALD, GREENPEACE: It is quite a paradox that you have one of the countries in the world that is most suffering from climate change. You see how the ice is melting, you see how it is changing the whole environment, at the same time it starts drilling for oil, which will only increase the risks for climate change.
Deepwater drilling teams are now searching for what some experts believe is an untapped reserve of around 20 billion barrels of oil.
KUUPIK KLEIST, PREMIER: There is a chance in accessibility because of climate change, it is easier to get there, and maybe it will be easier to get it out again.
In mid-May, with the first signs of spring in Greenland's tiny capital, Nuuk, preparations were underway to host some very big players with a keen interest in the Arctic. On a boat tour of Nuuk's magnificent fjord, Hillary Clinton, along with other representatives of what is known as the Arctic Council, are literally blockaded for a pre-arranged photo opportunity.
HILLARY CLINTON: Because the Arctic Council is the organisation that is working for helping to better understand what is happening in the Arctic and taking steps for making sure that we are positioned to protect the Arctic.
Members of this exclusive club, the nine countries that hold Arctic territory, are keenly aware that it may hold the world's largest untapped oil reserves and they are jealously guarding their interests.
HILLARY CLINTON: We have the Prime Minister of the Faroe Islands, the Premier of Greenland, we have the foreign ministers of Sweden, and Norway, and Iceland and Denmark, our host. We have a great team here.
AQQALUK LYNGE, CHAIRMAN, INUIT CIRCUMPOLAR COUNCIL: Mining and oil and gas developers are pressing our government, our institutions very hard.
As the chairman of the Inuit Circumpolar Council, a group representing the Arctic's indigenous inhabitants, Aqqaluk Lynge views the rush to uncover the Arctic's untapped resources with disgust.
AQQALUK LYNGE: What is my life worth? Is it worth climate change? Is it worth destroying the environment? Is it worth destroying the existing but problematic society into something new that we do not know of.
Global environmental groups like Greenpeace are warning that drilling for oil in these remote and pristine waters has the potential to trigger an unprecedented environmental catastrophe.
JON BURGWALD: To have an oil spill in the Mexican Gulf is like getting cardiac arrest in New York, help is always on its way, to have an oil spill in the Arctic waters is like having a cardiac arrest in the North Pole. The only person that can help you is Santa Claus and he is not around.
In May, an oil rig that was being towed to Greenland to begin deep-water drilling for the Scottish company Cairn Energy was stalked and boarded by Greenpeace activists who gave rolling reports to the media.
GREENPEACE ACTIVIST: If a spill happened up here, there would be no way you could deal with it. There would be ice everywhere, and the company I'm afraid, like Cairn which has a handful of supply vessels, is not going to be able to cap an Arctic oil spill.
REPORTER: If you had a deep-water disaster here tomorrow though, you could not cope with it, could you?
KUUPIK KLEIST: Of course we have limited resources and not at least limited experiences. We do not claim that we ourselves would be able to do a full clean-up, for instance. We do not claim that we are experts yet, and also we do not claim that there is no risk.
Throughout Greenland's capital, signs of its deeply troubled society are difficult to ignore. Rows of Soviet-style apartment blocks which Innuit people were forcibly relocated in the 1960s have become urban ghettos, where social problems fester. With unemployment here and elsewhere inGreenland running as high as 50%, it has had a devastating human impact.
JETTE EISTRUP, SOCIAL WORKER: What you can see in the small communities in the north, is that their living conditions are changing, there are fewer fish and many men are not able to provide for their families.
But the effects of global warming are even more profound in Greenland’s south, the town of Narsaq was once a thriving local economy built around fishing but as fish stocks declined, due in part to climate change, the fish factory closed and more than half the population lost their jobs.
EMIL LYBERTH, LOCAL RESIDENT: In our little town, it is as if nothing happened, everyone is losing their jobs because there is nothing to do.
For a young local resident Emil Lyberth, and others like him, without full-time work only the creation of new industries and jobs can break the cycle of trouble.
EMIL LYBERTH: There is nothing to do. I have tried to get a job in the city, our town, but I cannot work anywhere. I need to drive a cab to make some money.
But as well as oil there or other riches now becoming accessible with the melting of Greenland's ice, including the discovery in the mountains behind Narsaq of elements vital to modern technology known as rare earths. Rare earths are used in everything from iPhones to laser-guided missiles, and China now controls 95% of the world's supply with enormous security implications.
This desolate plateau is what all the excitement is about, and it has the potential to fundamentally shift global markets. It's called Kvanefeld and the experts say that up to 23,000 metric tonnes of rare earths could be extracted here, each year, for the next 23 years. The problem is that rare earths are often laced with uranium, and with uranium mining being such a divisive issue here in Greenland, the Australian company that wants to start operations here has already met with some fierce opposition.
FINN LYNGE, AUTHOR: So this is a country where the environmental concerns are put in the hands of industry, international industry and people don't care because they don't understand.
One of country’s best known authors Finn Lynge is despondent about the future for Southern Greenland. For several years, Finn spearheaded anti-mining campaigns aimed at blocking controversial projects like the one at Kvanefeld, which he claims do not have enough environmental safeguards.
FINN LYNGE: When the Australian company - time and again - talks about the environmental side of it and say that there will be no problems here and there and this has been examined, yes, examined by them, but it has not been examined by those in our own system who've been asked to do so.
What bothers Finn the most is the extreme nature of the risks mining poses to the township ofNarsaq in the valley below. The pristine mountain streams bursting with melt-water pour into the fjord, carrying what Finn believes is an unacceptable risk of contamination from a uranium tailings.
FINN LYNGE: The stupidity of it! I'm glad I'm not going to see the Greenland that comes.
Greenland’s Premier Kuupik Kleist likes nothing better than being out on the water in Nuuk’s long winding fjord.
KUUPIK KLEIST: Dried fish, whale meat, whale blubber.
REPORTER: Sounds very tasty.
KUUPIK KLEIST: Very tasty.
REPORTER: It's an absolutely pristine environment out here. Kuupik, are you worried at all about the possibility of an Arctic Oil spill?
KUUPIK KLEIST: Of course and this illustrates why we have to be worried. We live mainly off the sea, and we would be rather stupid not to worry about it – about how it can ruin the environment.
As climate change rapidly transforms his country, Kuupik Kleist is keenly aware that Greenlanders are at a turning point.
KUUPIK KLEIST: Climate change did a lot. When you decide to stand on your own feet you have to take the battles it brings with it.
As the quest for oil and mineral resources begins in earnest, it seems that the fight for Greenlandis well underway.
FINN LYNGE: People here have no way of visualizing what the invasion of big industry means. It’s a battle, not a struggle, it’s a battle going on in our type of civilization and you have to be aware of it and you have to choose your side.
MARK DAVIS: Nick talks more about the harsh realities of life in Greenland in this week's behind-the-scenes report on our website.
Reporter/Camera
NICK LAZAREDES
Fixer/Translations
ALEX NORDAL ANDERSEN
Producer
VICTORIA STROBL
Editor
WAYNE LOVE
Original Music composed by VICKI HANSEN
Additional footage courtesy of Greenpeace