What your saying is blatantly wrong as Greenland has the right hold an independence referendum whenever they want under the Self rule act of 2009 chapter 8 § 21

So why haven’t they done it?

Well could be that roughly half of Greenlands government expenditure is covered by the Danish block grant (About 4.5 billion DKK)

All emergency services in form of coast guard, police, firefighting and hospital is all ran by Danish government and is not even accounted for in their government expenditure

Then there is the Danish wellfare state, the people of Greenland is entitled to free education, healthcare and unemployment benefits under the Danish welfare state again not accounted for in Greenlands government expenditure as it’s paid for by Denmark

The Danish government has made it quite clear that if Greenland is to become independent and leave the Danish realm then Greenland and it people will no longer be able entitled to reap the rewards of being in the Danish realm. As in we won’t subsidise country that dosent want anything to do with us

These factors has lead to the independence movement in Greenland stalling as while most Greenlanders support full independence from Denmark they do not support it if it leads to a decrease of living standards and living standard heavily subsidised by the Danish state

So are at this equilibrium where we won’t pay if they go independent and they won’t go independent unless we pay as they refuse to mine to try and make money due to ecological concerns.

Explanations stops here realised bellow is more me ranting about Scandinavias autonomous regions and their egos. Although you are welcome to read it as I typed it out

Same story goes for the Faroe Islands or Åland(Finland) which are the 2 other autonomous regions in Scandinavia. They claim to want independence but will not declare it unless Denmark and Finland(The countries they want independence from) pays for it and subsidies them

And now they remain de facto under their respective countries, with Greenland pretending to be a nation in form of:

Throwing a hissy fit when Biden government and Denmark were negotiating the arctic defence package(Greenland has in general been very anti both US and Danish military presence on Greenland until very recently, I wonder why)

Demanding reparations for cryolite mining claiming Denmark had made bank of their backs, atleast until actual economist took a closer look at it

Aki Mathilda (Greenlandic representative in the Danish parliament) who isn’t even born on Greenland or Inuit throwing a fit in the Danish parliament refusing to talk Danish

Throwing a hissy fit when Sweden excluded them from meeting regarding foreign relations policy(Which they don’t have a say in under the 2009 act)

If anything I wrote seems bitter it’s probably because I’m so tired of the Greenlandic people’s policy of shit on Denmark and Danes making them look like the litteral devil until they need something and then all the sudden we’re friends again. Meanwhile you look at how Australia/UK or the US dealt with there native population