With plummeting oil prices, impacts of Russian sanctions and changing weather patterns, those hunting for Arctic oil have never been under more pressure. Combine that with the growing global resistance and the repeated failures from oil companies to prove themselves capable to drill safely on the top of the world, the future looks dim for highly risky and controversial Arctic oil.
In Greenland, this has been especially evident with a complete lack of exploratory drillings since 2011 and even a bare minimum of seismic testing. Oil companies are closing their offices and when the grand round of licenses in the icy waters of Northeast Greenland ended, the government was left disappointed, with no interest for the vast majority of the area.
Today, the biggest defeat so far for the Greenlandic oil hunt was announced. Three oil companies (French GDF Suez, Norwegian Statoil and Danish DONG) have handed back their licenses in West Greenland. They did this despite the Greenland government bending backwards to keep the companies in the fold and offered to prolong the initial license round without any further obligations or costs.
These strings of defeats for the reckless oil hunt in Greenland should be the cause for reflection and not for despair. Arctic oil should not be seen as the path to development for Arctic states nor Peoples, but instead as the huge risk it poses – not only for our climate, but also for the nature and oceans, which are so crucial for the livelihood in the North.
As we witnessed with Shell's drillings North of Alaska, it will only be a matter of time before Arctic oil exploration and extraction would result in potentially irreparable and devastating destruction. This is not a plea for a standstill in the Arctic region – the Peoples living there have every right to development. It is however, a plea to use the obvious problems, which the oil companies are facing in the Arctic, to make a sound assessment of which development paths bear too great a risk and which paths can create a lasting and sustainable future for the benefit of the Peoples and the nature.