Within the wake of the 2025 Greenlandic elections, we’re revisiting our piece on the Danish fictional drama Borgen: Energy and Glory, revealed initially when the collection first aired in 2022.
Within the eighth episode of the Netflix drama, a big oil discovery in Greenland was the central theme.
Greenlandic 2025 election outcomes and their affect
On Tuesday the eleventh of March 2025, the folks of Greenland went to the polls and delivered a shock end result with the centre-right social gathering Demokraatit changing into the most important social gathering within the nation of lower than 50,000 inhabitants.
Demokraatit political victory
Demokraatit received with a vote share of 30% – a tripling of their leads to the 2021 election the place they solely managed just under 10%.
The professional-business social gathering is now given the primary option to type the following authorities.
Revisiting Borgen: Fiction meets actuality
When Borgen Season 4 aired in 2022, its give attention to Greenland’s untapped sources and political energy struggles felt like an exhilarating political drama. However this week’s 2025 Greenlandic elections have introduced these points into the highlight three years later.
The altering political panorama within the 2025 Greenlandic elections
The 2025 outcomes point out a shift in Greenland’s political panorama which will finally result in a renewed give attention to useful resource growth—together with oil drilling—as a part of a broader financial technique.
Specifically, the success of professional‐enterprise events like Demokraatit (which emphasises a gradual transfer towards full independence supported by a sturdy, market-driven economic system) means that financial imperatives may take middle stage.
The historical past of Borgen – the Danish political drama
Borgen: Energy and Glory was an surprising follow-up to the political drama Borgen, which aired on Danish TV between 2010 and 2013 and gained worldwide fame and recognition.
The solely fictional drama depicts the life and travails of Denmark’s first feminine prime minister, Birgitte Nyborg, portrayed by Sidse Babett Knudsen.
Unintentionally predicting political outcomes
Coincidentally, Helle Thorning-Schmidt was elected as Denmark’s first feminine Prime Minister solely months after the present premiered.
In 2022, the hit TV present returned—albeit with a barely altered title. Whereas creator Adam Value stays in place, the present has a a lot bigger worldwide attain because it’s streaming on Netflix.
Knowledgeable Insights: The Martin Lidegaard interview
The overarching focus of this fourth season is the local weather disaster and the geopolitical tensions it brings. The plot was conceived throughout a dialog between Value and former Danish Local weather and Power Minister (and later International Secretary) Martin Lidegaard, who by the way served in Thorning-Schmidt’s authorities.
Lidegaard has targeted on local weather and vitality all through his profession. Previous to his political profession, he co-founded the inexperienced suppose tank Concito.
Conceptualised on a cooking present
In an interview I did with Lidegaard in 2022 he gave me the total backstory of how the concept happened:
Value, a eager TV chef, had invited Lidegaard onto his cooking present, Spise med Value (Eat with Value), a extremely common Danish programme wherein well-known Danish persons are invited into Value’s kitchen to cook dinner with him. Not one to forgo such challenges, Lidegaard accepted the invitation.
The previous international and local weather minister defined, “On the present, I took the chance to inform him (Value) that I had an thought he is perhaps enthusiastic about. On the time, my thought was not that it must be a brand new collection of Borgen; in my thoughts, it must be a film or a brand new collection,” he explains.
Conceptualising a hypothetical oil discovery in Greenland
The plot within the TV collection centres round a fictitious occasion that many Danish and international inexperienced teams, local weather advocates and safety specialists have feared for years – that of a big oil discovery in Greenland.
Such a discover, in fact, not solely dangers destabilising the local weather additional but in addition challenges local weather targets and the opportunity of geopolitical tensions and clashes between Denmark, China, Russia and the US.
The geopolitical implications of a Greenlandic oil discovery
Subsequently, Value and Lidegaard went to lunch to debate the concept which was based mostly on the eventuality that oil was found in Greenland. How would this occasion form geopolitics, and the way would Greenland, Denmark and the remainder of the world react to it?
Value was within the thought, not simply due to the geopolitical angle but in addition due to the local weather hyperlink, which had turn out to be a sizzling matter round that point.
After that assembly, Lidegaard and Value formulated a fundamental plot and storyline. “Then, after two to a few years, he [Price] got here again and mentioned that Danish broadcaster DR and Netflix had requested him if he wished to supply a brand new season of Borgen.
Value thought our plot would match completely into Borgen and requested me if I might be OK with that,” explains Lidegaard. For Lidegaard, it was not a tough alternative. “To achieve such an enormous viewers and artists was one thing I may solely dream about,” he says.
Borgen’s geopolitical battles
Because the plot of collection 4 of Borgen performs out. Denmark initially opposed the extraction of the Greenlandic oil discovery, creating robust tensions between the Danish and Greenlandic governments.
What makes this problem extra difficult is that attributable to legally binding agreements between Denmark and Greenland – the latter is accountable for its personal pure sources. Nonetheless, Denmark is in control of mitigating international safety points.
To develop or to not develop
We witness Denmark’s authorities altering course a number of instances on whether or not or not the oil must be extracted, the way it must be extracted, and the way a lot revenue Denmark ought to obtain from the oil. The protagonists’ switching positions and deliberations make for entertaining and thought-provoking viewing.
Within the collection, the important thing protagonist stays Nyborg, now the Danish authorities’s international secretary and divorced mom of two. To additional complicate issues, her grownup son Magnus has turn out to be a really proactive and vocal local weather activist whose views don’t at all times align together with his mom’s.
Fast political shifts
Coincidentally, my 2022 dialog with Lidegaard passed off only a 12 months after the earlier Greenlandic election, the place one other seismic shift occurred because the left-leaning Inuit Ataqatigiit (IA) created a political earthquake by beating the ruling social gathering Siumut within the normal election, altering Greenland’s mining and vitality insurance policies and put a cease to all extractive industries.
May the tables flip once more?
With the 2025 election outcomes it’s seemingly tables may flip once more.
In 2022, Lidegaard mirrored on how briskly politics can transfer. He defined that after they wrote the plot in 2018, the Greenlandic authorities was actively looking for oil corporations to discover Greenland’s huge landmass. He added, “It is rather fascinating what the long-term politics on this space will seem like.”
Local weather considerations
As a self-proclaimed local weather activist, Lidegaard worries in regards to the implications of a real-life oil discovery in Greenland. He’s satisfied that if both oil or fuel had been discovered within the Arctic, it could be difficult to forestall that from being explored.
Geopolitical and environmental implications
The newest local weather science is evident: we’re not going wherever close to quick sufficient in lowering emissions.
As well as, Donald Trump’s election for a second time period has seemingly contributed to international locations and firms around the globe scaling again on emissions and clear vitality targets.
Newest Greenland scientific developments and tipping factors
This makes the longer term look very gloomy for the Greenland ice sheet, the most important ice sheet on the planet.
Final month, scientists from the College of Durham revealed knowledge exhibiting that the Greenland Ice Sheet is experiencing accelerated melting and cracking, with crevasses rising sooner than beforehand thought. This contributes to rising sea ranges and doubtlessly a “tipping level” for the ice sheet’s full soften. You may study extra in regards to the examine right here.
Greenland is at present shedding round 270 billion tons of ice yearly. Between 2012 to 2017, Greenland’s ice sheet contributed 0.68 mm yearly to sea degree rise.
Topical storyline
Whereas Borgen’s is a fictional storyline, the themes are very topical.
Many have lengthy feared new oil discoveries within the Arctic. Greenpeace has repeatedly campaigned in opposition to Arctic oil extraction in Greenland and elsewhere within the area. They’re rightly involved in regards to the implications of an oil discovery within the very delicate area.
In 2013, 30 Greenpeace activists had been jailed in Russia for protesting a Russian oil rig working in what had been worldwide Arctic waters.
Editorial notice, additional viewing and studying
Editorial notice: This text was produced with up to date outcomes from the 2025 Greenland elections, related contexts in our 2022 evaluate article of the Borgen: Energy and Glory, and an interview I performed with Martin Lidegaard in 2022.
Disclaimer
It is very important make clear that lots within the article is speculative. We don’t but know what exactly the brand new authorities will do as it’s nonetheless being fashioned. Hypothesis relies on earlier Greenlandic elections and the place Demokraatit stands on the problems.
Learn our 2022 evaluate of Borgen: Energy and Glory beneath:
For those who by no means obtained the prospect to look at Borgen: Energy and Glory you continue to have the chance as it’s streaming on Netflix. Regional availabilities could fluctuate.
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