The race for the Arctic’s critical minerals is heating up

A global scramble to exploit the Arctic’s untapped resources appears to be kicking into overdrive.

In a push to break China’s mineral dominance, countries around the world are increasingly turning to the thawing and sparsely populated northern polar region, seeking to seize its raw materials and benefit from new commercial trade routes.

U.S. President Donald Trump, for example, has repeatedly underscored the importance of Greenland, a vast Arctic territory, calling U.S. ownership of the island an “absolute necessity” for economic and national security reasons.

Canada has recently sought to ramp up Arctic investment as part of a push designed to unlock its resource potential, particularly amid strained diplomatic ties with the U.S.

Russia, which has a sprawling Arctic coastline, has long recognized the region as a strategic priority. Indeed, President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday lauded the construction of a new nuclear-powered icebreaker ship to navigate Arctic waters, saying “it’s important to consistently strengthen Russia’s position” in the region.

“The Arctic is seen as a source of a lot of different raw materials, not only oil and gas, but a lot of strategic materials and rare earths,” Marc Lanteigne, associate professor at the Arctic University of Norway in Tromso, told CNBC by telephone.

“Greenland, right now, is a repository of a lot of base metals, precious metals, gem stones, rare earths, uranium … it’s all there. The problem is that up until recently, it was seen as completely unviable to actually mine them,” Lanteigne said.

“But with climate change and the ability to navigate the Arctic Ocean much more frequently, especially during the summer months, Greenland is starting to be looked at much more carefully as a potential alternative source for a lot of these strategic materials to China.”

Greenland has been transformed by the climate crisis. A major analysis of historic satellite images, published last year by researchers at the U.K.’s University of Leeds, showed parts of the autonomous Danish territory’s ice sheet and glaciers have been replaced by wetlands, areas of shrub and barren rock.

For mining companies, the major ice loss has inadvertently made some of the island’s strategic minerals more accessible.

Tony Sage, CEO of Critical Metals, which is developing one of the world’s largest rare earth assets in southern Greenland, said there has been a notable upswing in investor interest in Greenland in recent months, particularly since Trump returned to office and raised the prospect of seizing control of the territory.

“I remember in his first term, in around 2018 and 2019, he made a big song and dance about the strategic value of rare earths in Greenland, so even back then,” Sage told CNBC by telephone.