Climate Change as Disaster or Icing on the Cake?

• Main Author: Jensen, Lars
• Format: Conference Object
• Language: English
• Published: 2014
• Subjects: climate change; Greenland; scramble for the Arctic; sustainability; political agency; Arctic; Climate change; greenlandic; North Atlantic
• Online Access: https://forskning.ruc.dk/da/publications/dcda0c57-66bb-4ea0-9db6-9b07805a68eb; https://hdl.handle.net/1800/dcda0c57-66bb-4ea0-9db6-9b07805a68eb; http://resweb.res.unbc.ca/icass2014/Book_of_Abstracts_2014.05.12.pdf

My paper looks at how climate change has dramatically altered not only the political climate between Greenland and Denmark, but also within Greenland itself. In a book published in 2012 in Danish, Denmark: Rigsfaellesskab, Tropical Colonies and the Postcolonial Aftermath, I looked at how Denmark has understood itself through its relationships with its former colonies in the North Atlantic, the tropics, as a reluctant emerging multicultural society, and through international intervention (development aid). After completing this book, I have turned the gaze to Greenland, to see how it understands its position in an Arctic that has emerged as a focus for neoliberally driven resource extraction, geopolitical power games, and science (climate change, ecology etc). The paper will investigate how climate change is produced as a local, national, inter-Rigsfællesskab, regional and global Greenlandic narrative. My paper looks at how climate change has dramatically altered not only the political climate between Greenland and Denmark, but also within Greenland itself. In a book published in 2012 in Danish, Denmark: Rigsfaellesskab, Tropical Colonies and the Postcolonial Aftermath, I looked at how Denmark has understood itself through its relationships with its former colonies in the North Atlantic, the tropics, as a reluctant emerging multicultural society, and through international intervention (development aid). After completing this book, I have turned the gaze to Greenland, to see how it understands its position in an Arctic that has emerged as a focus for neoliberally driven resource extraction, geopolitical power games, and science (climate change, ecology etc). The paper will investigate how climate change is produced as a local, national, inter-Rigsfællesskab, regional and global Greenlandic narrative.