Norway should start phasing out oil and gas production – now

Large exporter of emissions

Then there’s the even weightier question of Norway’s oil production. In fact, the word"oil" is not mentioned even once in the Norwegians’ contribution. Perhaps this isn’t surprising in light of the fact that 17% of Norway’s GDP stems from oil and gas production. But it is the oil above all that accounts for Norway’s enormous "exported" greenhouse-gas footprint, which if exports were counted in addition to domestic emissions would make it the seventh largest exporter of emissions in the world. This is a spectacular indignity for a little country of just five million people, especially one that calls itself a climate leader.

Are all of the infrastructure and mini-policies of climate-friendly Norway meant to offset the harm of its export footprint? If it is more than a way for Norwegians to feel good about themselves, then more needs to be done. After all, if Norway can’t afford to tighten its belt a little, then what country can?

Oil fields – Norway's Hambach Forest

The contribution’s underscoring of work on Carbon Capture and Storage is not enough. Since it is regularly dangled by coal and petrochemical producers as the solution of the future, one tends to suspect that it is no more than an excuse for the present. But there has been progress recently, so Norway doubling its research resources for CCS and hydrogen technology too would be welcomed. But it has to happen simultaneously with winding down petrochemical production.

As an excellent report from the watchdog group Price of Oil underscores Norway, among other petroleum producers, must begin now to ramp down fossil-fuel production. It calls the way forward "Managed decline," which it defines as "restricting new fossil fuel supply projects and carefully managing the decline of the fossil industry over time, while planning for a just transition for workers and communities. Norway must freeze further leases or permits for new oil and gas extraction projects or transportation infrastructure that would incentivize additional exploration. This path gives us a likely chance of achieving the goals of the Paris agreement and avoiding the worst impacts of climate change."

Price of Oil maintains that Norway’s proposed expansion and projected exploration results would generate 150% more emissions than what is in its currently operating fields.

In Germany recently, protestors, activists and many ordinary citizens chose Hambach Forest in the Rhineland as the location where they were going to say "Stop, no further!" The German energy giant RWE was planning to bulldoze the forest in order to open a new mine for brown coal. There are moments in history when time appears out of sync, when something happens that simply doesn’t make sense in the present. This was the case at Hambach Forest: Germany opening new mines for coal… Huh?!

But, in light of the IPCC report, today Hambach Forest is everywhere coal is being mined and new oil fields are being planned and drilled. Norway’s Hambach Forest are the undersea fields that Equinor and other oil companies are planning to open in the North and Barents Seas. Not only do they harbor vast reserves of gas and oil, but as the Norway contribution to the consultation notes: "more than 1 million tons of CO₂ are captured and stored in saline aquifers under the seabed in the North Sea." So let’s not destroy them – or Hambach Forest’s trees!

It is time for the Norwegians to step up to the challenge if its political parties won’t. Civil disobedience is justified when laws do nothing. Norway could be a world leader in climate protection. It won’t happen though without gradually winding down its fossil fuel extraction industry.