How China’s Belt and Road and an Australian mining company could be the deciding issues in the Greenland election

Stretching like a frozen white ocean, Greenland’s ice sheet has long helped stabilise the global climate.

It’s a third the size of Australia and more than two kilometres thick.

But waterfalls now gush in the summer from melting ice, feeding yellow wildflowers and wild thyme, as climate change accelerates.

Greenland has just experienced its two hottest summers on record. During the summer thaw, the odd stray polar bear has ventured off the ice sheet, looking for food.

“Climate change is also changing how we live,” Greenland’s finance minister Vittus Qujaukitsoq said.

“Traditional hunters are finding it harder to make a living, and smaller communities are having a hard time surviving, so more people are moving to larger communities,” he said.