Norway's hypocrisy — more oil and gas drilling to sell abroad

While it was expected that the European Union’s anti-deforestation laws would be pushed back a year, there is one planet-saving measure which should not be delayed.

That would be Norway, the most fossil-fuel dependent industrialised democracy in the world, some of whose politicians talk about wanting to pump oil for the next 100 years.

The European Economic Area (EEA) country has currently agreed to follow all the EU’s climate legislation, which aims to phase out fossil fuels.

Yet this year has seen stakes in 53 new offshore oil and gas exploration licences awarded by Norway to 20 companies who are set to invest €22.8bn in yet more drilling — up six percent on last year.

Thanks to fossil fuels, it has the 11^th highest global GDP per capita, according to the World Bank.

At the same time Norway’s electricity grid runs almost entirely on renewables and the country has accumulated a sovereign wealth fund worth €1.8 trillion, which it uses to help other countries cut emissions.

So while it produces 12.8 tonnes of CO2 per person — twice the global average — it has a tiny domestic footprint and is a vocal advocate of international climate treaties.

This is because, under the 2015 Paris Agreement, emissions are counted where fossil fuels are consumed, not where they are extracted.

So that means gas-guzzlers spewing out fumes in countries to which Norway exports all its oil and gas.

Oslo likes to play climate champion but it’s actually a fossil-fuel cheerleader, using its wealth to help other countries become greener while ramping up new oil and gas exploration at home.

It's like a drug baron supplying his users whilst supporting drug-related charities.

Climate hero or carbon villain?

A country which extracts more petroleum per capita than Russia, Iran, North America and Saudi Arabia plays climate hero when in reality it is a carbon villain.

The hypocrisy extends to its biggest customer, the European Union, which in 2019 promised to become the world’s first climate-neutral continent by slashing demand for fossil fuels.

It didn’t foresee the Russian invasion of Ukraine, of course, which would have pushed oil and gas prices to exorbitant levels but for Norway’s supplies.

But this, in turn, has reduced the pressure on the EU to invest in renewables.

Norway, meanwhile, maintains that while there is global demand for oil and gas, the electrification of its industry means its fossil fuels are better for the environment than ‘dirtier’ products from other petroleum countries.

It’s hard to know whether to laugh or cry.

As well as helping developing countries, like Indonesia, cut their carbon emissions, Norway’s huge sovereign wealth fund, derived from the money it makes from fossil fuels, also provides its citizens with a lavish welfare state and gold-plated pensions.

Try telling that to the developing countries from where the EU gets its coffee, cocoa, palm oil, rubber and soy.

Under the now twice-delayed EUDR legislation, these countries will not be allowed to export any commodity which has been the product of deforestation since 2020.

So coffee farmers in the Bean Belt, some of whom make as little as one to three percent of the retail price of their beans, are not allowed to chop down trees to grow more crop because it is bad for the planet.

Of course deforestation must be stopped but why, when a coffee bean farmer is barred from earning a living, are countries in the developed world, like Norway, allowed to make a fortune polluting the planet in the name of ‘energy security’?

In Papua New Guinea, smallholders represent nearly half of all oil palm output, but unemployment remains high and families still live below the poverty line.

The country has the eighth-highest percentage of forest cover in the world and palm oil is the only viable livelihood.

If you say to them, and the cocoa growers on the Ivory Coast,  and the coffee growers in Columbia, you cannot ever expand you are effectively saying to them: ‘Stay poor, stay behind’.

Yes, carbon credits in the developing world are part of the solution but countries in the West also need to start making sacrifices of their own.

For 20 years we have been saying we need oil and gas today but will not need it tomorrow. If we had started in earnest back then we would not need Norway’s new oil and gas fields today.  

We should stop developing them now and live off what the country has found already.

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