Greenland's FM Pele Broberg Calls to Act as He Describes Melt Zones Larger Than the City of London

Greenland's newly appointed Minister for Foreign Affairs, Business, Trade and Climate, Pele Broberg has called for the world to act as he described melt zones larger than the city of London. Speaking to Tom Newton Dunn and Sonia Sodha, in an exclusive Times Radio interview, Mr Broberg said;

"It's difficult for me to give you an exact number (of the size of the melt zones) but what I can do is compare it with different British cities, because it's bigger than that. So, the melt zones, well, to put it mildly, if you look at the Greater London area, that will be a small part, compared to just some of the melt zones we have in Greenland, it's a huge area."

He added, living in Greenland, he sees visual evidence of melting glaciers;

"We have been observing the same glacier retracting for the last, from my point of view, 25 years at a rate where you cannot see it anymore. It's not down by the water anymore. It's inland now. So, when I first started seeing it, I think it was around something like 2.5 kilometres out into the ocean. That's gone now, it's inland, way inland now, so we can see how it's changing just the the edge of the eyes, itself. Also when you look at the climate, and we have a lot more a different climate than we had 20 years ago. It's a lot more volatile, if I can put it that way. We have, according to the latest data, a lot more storms, we have a lot more violent combination of wind, rain or snow."

Asked about the lack of any ground-breaking commitments to tackle climate change at the G7 summit in Cornwall, Mr Broberg said;

"We are the only ones willing to combat it, in the Arctic. If no one else is willing to combat the problem, then we will be pretty much left alone and left to ourselves and then it's difficult to combat this problem but of course, if no one wants to step up, we certainly won't be one of the ones to run away with tails between our legs, we will we will pick up the matter."

Commenting on the upcoming COP26 climate change summit in Glasgow, he urged the nations participating to commit to replace fossil fuels "be it, coal, with lasting green energy. That might not solve all problems but it will be a step in the right direction."

Asked about striking a potential trade deal with the UK, Mr Broberg said countries which left the EU should "stick together";

"We put forward an agreement that is not unlike something the United Kingdom has seen before and and we received good good signals from them so far, and also from the All Parliamentary Greenland Group, when we talked to them. There's an interest in doing this. And I think the reason why we haven't done it before is, we are a small economy, compared to European Union, United States, Australia. Still, it's important as a signal for us that countries having left the European Union should also stick together in that regard."

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