Why the recent Greenland election results are so important

Two days ago, the island of Greenland, mostly covered by an enormous ice sheet crucial for maintaining our ecosystem, delivered a decisive victory for Inuit Ataqatigiit, a separatist and socialist party.

This is important for a key reason: the previous Siumut-led government was considered opening a rare earth metals mine in Kvanefjeld, citing economic growth and job opportunities which if opened will have catastrophic environmental consequences and accelerated the melting of the Greenland ice sheet. Inuit Ataqatigiit opposes the project and any prospect of uranium mining in Greenland. If that ice sheet melts, sea levels will rise by at least 7 metres, meaning that large parts of Europe and the USA will become permanently flooded. Worse still, that will completely divert the Gulf Stream and cause a miniature ice age across Europe for areas that do not become flooded. The Greenland ice sheet is vital to us all. 

IA gained 4 seats increasing its seat total to 12; although this is not enough for a single party majority it will be enough to keep Siumut and the Democrats out. Surprisingly Siumut actually increased its seat total by 1, mainly at the expense of its former coalition partners, the Democrats, who lost 3 of their 6 seats, and the Cooperation Party who lost their only seat. Greenlandic independence from Denmark/unionism with Denmark proved to be as significant a political faultline as ever. Naleraq retained its 4 seats despite losing some support to IA, meaning that pro-Greenlandic independence parties have a majority in the Inatsisartut.

Greenlandic autonomy and protection of its ice sheet is not only vital for the people of Greenland but for protecting the Arctic Ocean and for the maintenance of environmental equilibrium. The Greenland ice sheet and Arctic Ocean need to be left alone to recover.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

My analysis of the Swedish general election of 2022

The Swedish general election of 2022 generated some surprising results, despite also averting pollsters' predictions significantly. The last three years in particular proved to be a rough ride for the Social Democrat led governments of Stefan Lofven and Magdalena Andersson respectively. Although Sweden's laxer approach to the COVID-19 pandemic (compared to most countries in Europe, which imposed lockdowns during much of 2020 and 2021, an approach that arguably caused more problems than it solved) proved effective, Mr Lofven's desire to lift the austerity tax (which only affected a wealthy minority, similar in nature to the wealth tax initiative of former French President Francois Hollande) and to join NATO proved contentious, with two of the Social Democrats' former coalition partners (the Swedish Greens and Swedish Left Party, who had both pulled out of confidence and supply) unsurprisingly voting against Swedish accession to NATO membership (all other parties in the R
Read more

On the 2020 Serbian election: Why a boycott will only worsen things there

First of all, I apologise for the recent hiatus; however elections are still postponed or on hold in many countries, including the UK. Serbia, however, was able to proceed with its 2020 general election amidst this crisis. Its overall result proved reminiscent of Hungarian elections under Viktor Orban's tenure (2010-present), since the leading national-conservative coalition, the SNS (Progressive Party of Serbia) coalition led by Serbian President Aleksander Vucic (Ana Brnabic is the Serbian Prime Minister, and the first woman and openly homosexual person to hold that position), polled 61.6% of the vote, giving them as many as 191 seats out of 250 and a majority of as high as 132, almost unheard of in any country with proportional representation. Press freedom has endured significant curbs since President Vucic first came into power as Serbian PM in 2012 (he became President of Serbia in 2017), as have civil liberties of Serbs in general. Nepotism and corruption in the Serbian
Read more

On the Spanish regional elections of 2023-a warning for progressives

The Spanish regional elections of 2023, especially those in the "Empty Spain" regions far west of the federal capital of Madrid and prosperous yet famously rebellious Catalonia, resulted in a sharp shift towards conservatism and conservative populism. Both Partido Popular (PP, Spain's equivalent of the Conservatives) and Vox (the Spanish equivalent of Reform UK/UKIP) made sweeping gains in all regions, notably taking overall control in Madrid (normally an impossible feat under Spain's PR system), more than doubling their seat total in Valencia to top the poll there, and wresting control of Asturias, La Rioja, and Cantabria from the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE, Spain's equivalent of Labour) and the Cantabrian Regionalist Party respectively. Under the tenure of Pedro Sanchez, the current PSOE-Podemos coalition is floundering and has not done much to ensure Spain's recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic since the last restrictions ended in 2021, and P
Read more