Denmark causes international chill by claiming North Pole

Denmark has launched an extraordinary bid for ownership of the North Pole, one of the world’s last untapped sources of oil and natural gas.

In recent decades the remote polar region has largely been left to a few explorers and tourists. Now, however, the effects of climate change have dramatically raised the stakes. Scientists estimate that the ice in the Arctic Ocean is melting at a rate of three per cent a year – in time allowing the economic exploitation of a region that is almost totally unexplored. In the words of one Danish scientist: “The Vikings hope to get there first.”

Telegraph