Borgen and Greenland’s 2025 political shake-up – A greener life, a greener world

By Anders Lorenzen

In the wake of the 2025 Greenlandic elections, we are revisiting our piece on the Danish fictional drama Borgen: Power and Glory, published initially when the series first aired in 2022.

In the eighth episode of the Netflix drama, a significant oil discovery in Greenland was the central theme.

Greenlandic 2025 election results and their impact

On Tuesday the 11th of March 2025, the people of Greenland went to the polls and delivered a shock result with the centre-right party Demokraatit becoming the largest party in the country of less than 50,000 inhabitants.

Demokraatit political victory

Demokraatit won with a vote share of 30% – a tripling of their results in the 2021 election where they only managed just below 10%.

The pro-business party is now given the first choice to form the next government.

Revisiting Borgen: Fiction meets reality

When Borgen Season 4 aired in 2022, its focus on Greenland’s untapped resources and political power struggles felt like a thrilling political drama. But this week’s 2025 Greenlandic elections have brought these issues into the spotlight three years later.

The changing political landscape in the 2025 Greenlandic elections

The 2025 results indicate a shift in Greenland’s political landscape that may eventually lead to a renewed focus on resource development—including oil drilling—as part of a broader economic strategy.

In particular, the success of pro‐business parties like Demokraatit (which emphasises a gradual move toward complete independence supported by a robust, market-driven economy) suggests that economic imperatives could take center stage.

The history of Borgen – the Danish political drama

Borgen: Power and Glory was an unexpected follow-up to the political drama Borgen, which aired on Danish TV between 2010 and 2013 and gained international fame and recognition.

The entirely fictional drama depicts the life and travails of Denmark’s first female prime minister, Birgitte Nyborg, portrayed by Sidse Babett Knudsen.

Unintentionally predicting political outcomes

Coincidentally, Helle Thorning-Schmidt was elected as Denmark’s first female Prime Minister only months after the show premiered.

In 2022, the hit TV show returned—albeit with a slightly altered title. While creator Adam Price remains in place, the show has a much larger international reach as it’s streaming on Netflix.

Expert Insights: The Martin Lidegaard interview

The overarching focus of this fourth season is the climate crisis and the geopolitical tensions it brings. The plot was conceived during a conversation between Price and former Danish Climate and Energy Minister (and later Foreign Secretary) Martin Lidegaard, who incidentally served in Thorning-Schmidt’s government.

Lidegaard has focused on climate and energy throughout his career. Prior to his political career, he co-founded the green think tank Concito.

Conceptualised on a cooking show

In an interview I did with Lidegaard in 2022 he gave me the full backstory of how the idea came about:

Price, a keen TV chef, had invited Lidegaard onto his cooking show, Spise med Price (Eat with Price), a highly popular Danish programme in which famous Danish people are invited into Price’s kitchen to cook with him. Not one to forgo such challenges, Lidegaard accepted the invitation.

The former foreign and climate minister explained, “On the show, I took the opportunity to tell him (Price) that I had an idea he might be interested in. At the time, my idea was not that it should be a new series of Borgen; in my mind, it should be a movie or a new series,” he explains.

Conceptualising a hypothetical oil discovery in Greenland

The plot in the TV series centres around a fictitious event that many Danish and global green groups, climate advocates and security experts have feared for years – that of a significant oil discovery in Greenland.

Such a find, of course, not only risks destabilising the climate further but also challenges climate targets and the possibility of geopolitical tensions and clashes between Denmark, China, Russia and the US.

The geopolitical implications of a Greenlandic oil discovery

Subsequently, Price and Lidegaard went to lunch to discuss the idea which was based on the eventuality that oil was discovered in Greenland. How would this event shape geopolitics, and how would Greenland, Denmark and the rest of the world react to it?

Price was interested in the idea, not just because of the geopolitical angle but also because of the climate link, which had become a hot topic around that time.

After that meeting, Lidegaard and Price formulated a basic plot and storyline. “Then, after two to three years, he [Price] came back and said that Danish broadcaster DR and Netflix had asked him if he wanted to produce a new season of Borgen.

Price thought our plot would fit perfectly into Borgen and asked me if I would be OK with that,” explains Lidegaard. For Lidegaard, it was not a difficult choice. “To reach such a huge audience and artists was something I could only dream about,” he says.

Borgen’s geopolitical battles

As the plot of series four of Borgen plays out. Denmark initially opposed the extraction of the Greenlandic oil discovery, creating strong tensions between the Danish and Greenlandic governments.

What makes this issue more tricky is that due to legally binding agreements between Denmark and Greenland – the latter is in control of its own natural resources. Still, Denmark is in charge of mitigating foreign security issues.

To develop or not to develop

We witness Denmark’s government changing course several times on whether or not the oil should be extracted, how it should be extracted, and how much income Denmark should receive from the oil. The protagonists’ switching positions and deliberations make for entertaining and thought-provoking viewing.

In the series, the key protagonist remains Nyborg, now the Danish government’s foreign secretary and divorced mother of two. To further complicate matters, her adult son Magnus has become a very proactive and vocal climate activist whose views do not always align with his mother’s.

Rapid political shifts

Coincidentally, my 2022 conversation with Lidegaard took place just a year after the previous Greenlandic election, where another seismic shift occurred as the left-leaning Inuit Ataqatigiit (IA) created a political earthquake by beating the ruling party Siumut in the general election, changing Greenland’s mining and energy policies and put a stop to all extractive industries.

Could the tables turn again?

With the 2025 election results it is likely tables could turn again.

In 2022, Lidegaard reflected on how fast politics can move. He explained that when they wrote the plot in 2018, the Greenlandic government was actively searching for oil companies to explore Greenland’s vast landmass. He added, “It is very interesting what the long-term politics in this area will look like.”

Climate concerns

As a self-proclaimed climate activist, Lidegaard worries about the implications of a real-life oil discovery in Greenland. He is convinced that if either oil or gas were found in the Arctic, it would be challenging to prevent that from being explored.

Geopolitical and environmental implications

The latest climate science is clear: we are not going anywhere near fast enough in reducing emissions.

In addition, Donald Trump’s election for a second term has likely contributed to countries and corporations around the world scaling back on emissions and clean energy targets.

Latest Greenland scientific developments and tipping points

This makes the future look very gloomy for the Greenland ice sheet, the largest ice sheet in the world.

Last month, scientists from the University of Durham published data showing that the Greenland Ice Sheet is experiencing accelerated melting and cracking, with crevasses growing faster than previously thought. This contributes to rising sea levels and potentially a “tipping point” for the ice sheet’s complete melt. You can learn more about the study here.

Greenland is currently losing around 270 billion tons of ice annually. Between 2012 to 2017, Greenland’s ice sheet contributed 0.68 mm annually to sea level rise.

Topical storyline

While Borgen’s is a fictional storyline, the themes are very topical.

Many have long feared new oil discoveries in the Arctic. Greenpeace has repeatedly campaigned against Arctic oil extraction in Greenland and elsewhere in the region. They’re rightly concerned about the implications of an oil discovery in the very sensitive region.

In 2013, 30 Greenpeace activists were jailed in Russia for protesting a Russian oil rig operating in what were international Arctic waters.  

Editorial note, further viewing and reading

Editorial note: This article was produced with updated results from the 2025 Greenland elections, relevant contexts in our 2022 review article of the Borgen: Power and Glory, and an interview I conducted with Martin Lidegaard in 2022.

Disclaimer

It is important to clarify that a lot in the article is speculative. We don’t yet know what precisely the new government will do as it is still being formed. Speculation is based on previous Greenlandic elections and where Demokraatit stands on the issues.

Read our 2022 review of Borgen: Power and Glory below:

If you never got the chance to watch Borgen: Power and Glory you still have the opportunity as it is streaming on Netflix. Regional availabilities may vary.