When the mining company Energy Transition Minerals (ETM) announced it would take Greenland to court for a whopping 76 billion Danish kroner (US$11.15 billion) in damages – equivalent to four times the Arctic nation’s GDP – Naaja Nathanielsen seemed to be one of the only people in the entire Kingdom of Denmark who wasn’t surprised by the eye-watering sum.1
As Greenland’s minister for raw materials, she had expected nothing less when in 2023 the company filed a claim with an arbitration tribunal in Copenhagen, the Danish capital, arguing for its legal right to be granted a licence to open a mine in Greenland.
The Australian-owned mining company, formerly known as Greenland Minerals, has been embroiled in a long dispute with the governments of Greenland and Denmark over its plans for a mine in Kuannersuit, or Kvanefjeld in Danish. It has been a huge political issue which has sown discontent between Greenland and its former colonizer, Denmark.
Nathanielsen remains convinced that ETM is just trying to scare her government out of a uranium mining ban which
