Copyright

Anita Dey Nuttall and Mark Nuttall

Published On

2024-04-08

Page Range

pp. 57–66

Language

  • English

Print Length

10 pages

Mining in Icy Worlds

Chapter of: Heavy Metal: Earth’s Minerals and the Future of Sustainable Societies(pp. 57–66)
As the global economy transitions from fossil fuels to renewable energy, the search for ‘critical minerals’ is expanding into the remotest and most extreme environments on Earth, including the icy polar regions at the ends of the earth. This essay discusses how Greenland and Antarctica are at the forefront of geopolitical discussions about resource utilization, environmental conservation and sustainability in an era of rapid climate change. Greenland, a self-governing territory of the Kingdom of Denmark, sees mining as necessary for economic development, while Antarctica is governed by an international treaty system that currently prohibits mining. A changing climate and shifting geopolitical pressures could force an amendment to the Antarctic Treaty in the not-so-distant future. The essay considers how these two polar regions could shape the future economics and geopolitics of global mineral resources as we move towards a carbon-neutral future.

Contributors

Anita Dey Nuttall

(author)
Polar Science and Policy Engagement Officer in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Science at University of Alberta
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2157-0857

Anita Dey Nuttall is the Polar Science and Policy Engagement Officer in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Science at the University of Alberta. She teaches resource management and environmental policy, and researches science policy issues, the history and contemporary nature of national Antarctic programs, and geopolitics, security and sovereignty in the circumpolar regions. She is a member and past Chair of the Canadian Committee for Antarctic Research, and has been involved in several University of the Arctic (UArctic) initiatives. She has also been a Visiting Researcher at the Thule Institute, University of Oulu in Finland, and previously served as Associate Director of the Canadian Circumpolar Institute, University of Alberta, and UAlberta North, an interdisciplinary office concerned with Northern research and community engagement.

Mark Nuttall

(author)
Professor in the Department of Anthropology at University of Alberta
Henry Marshall Tory Chair in the Department of Anthropology at University of Alberta
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1620-3959

Mark Nuttall is Professor and Henry Marshall Tory Chair of Anthropology at the University of Alberta. He has carried out anthropological work in Greenland, Alaska, Canada, Finland, Scotland and Wales. His research examines a range of issues in human–environment relations, including climate change, extractive industries and the political ecology of energy. His recent books include Climate, Society and Subsurface Politics in Greenland: Under the Great Ice, The Shaping of Greenland’s Resource Spaces: Environment, Territory, Geo-security and Anthropology and Climate Change: From Transformations to Worldmaking (co-edited with Susan Crate). He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.