Norway flaunts its green credentials – so why is it drilling more oil wells?
On my official UN visit to Norway in September, I found inspiring examples of leadership on climate change. I encountered a nearly emissions-free electricity system, the highest share of zero-emission vehicle sales in the world (almost half of all new cars sold are fully electric), and billions of dollars being invested in a Green Climate Fund that provides support to developing countries, as well as a burgeoning Climate and Forest Initiative.
However, Norway continues to explore for oil and gas at a time when the International Energy Agency and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded that meeting the vital 1.5C target in the Paris agreement requires that the majority of existing fossil fuel reserves cannot be burned.
The Norwegian paradox is that its leadership on some aspects of climate action is undermined by its continued dependence on a large fossil fuel industry. Norway, as one of the world’s wealthiest nations and a leading producer of oil and gas, has a responsibility to lead efforts in mitigation, adaptation and, to some degree at least, compensation for the loss and damage caused by those products.
It is this Norwegian paradox that is currently under scrutiny in the court of appeal in Oslo. In a high-profile lawsuit filed in 2016, Greenpeace Nordic and Norway’s Nature and Youth organisation argued that the government is violating the rights of present and future generations to a safe and healthy environment by continuing to issue licences to petroleum companies, enabling them to explore for new oil reserves. In the first week of the appeal hearing, we heard that the Norwegian government challenges elements of established climate science and maintains its argument that Norway is justified in continuing to search for new oil in the vulnerable Arctic region.
In 2018, the district court confirmed that the right to a healthy environment is an enforceable human right protected by article 112 of Norway’s constitution. The government has a legal obligation to respect, protect and fulfil this fundamental human right. However, the judge accepted the government’s claim that Norway has no responsibility for carbon emissions resulting from burning Norwegian oil and gas outside of Norway. Hence the appeal by the environmental organisations.
From a climate change perspective, it is irrelevant where on Earth fossil fuels are burned. The emissions exacerbate the global climate emergency. There is no such thing as clean coal or clean oil, only varying degrees of dirty.
Earlier this year an Australian court recognised this reality in overturning the approval of a new coal mine. The court acknowledged that the government needed to consider not only the climate impacts of digging up the coal, but also the emissions produced eventually by burning it, regardless of where in the world combustion occurred. The judge concluded that the proposed mine was in “the wrong place at the wrong time”.
There is no doubt that major oil producers like Norway are fuelling the global climate emergency and contributing to a wide range of human rights violations across the planet. These human rights impacts fall primarily upon small island developing states and lesser developed countries. It is a staggering injustice that the world’s poorest people, who have made virtually no contribution to causing climate change, are paying the highest costs.
Were it not for the enormous carbon emissions, I would suggest that every Norwegian travel to a nation like Fiji or Dominica to see the damage that has been caused. I visited Vunidogoloa, one of the first communities in the world to be relocated because of rising sea levels, storm surges and salinisation of their water and farmland, as well as impoverished informal settlements
on the outskirts of Fijian cities, populated by people whose homes were destroyed by Cyclone Winston in 2016. These communities lack adequate sanitation facilities, and regular flooding is causing outbreaks of water-borne diseases such as cholera. Winston was the strongest storm ever to reach land in the southern hemisphere, inflicting damage equal to about 31% of Fiji’s GDP. And in Dominica, two hurricanes in the past five years have damaged more than 90% of buildings at a cost of more than three times its GDP.
The Fiji and Dominica examples are the tip of the iceberg of human rights violations caused by the climate crisis. In the future, as global temperatures rise, these violations will only worsen. The Norwegian government must not then ignore its global responsibility for the emissions from the oil and gas it exports. Climate change impacts are even more severe today than in 2016 when Norway became the first industrialised country to ratify the Paris agreement. Time is running out.
The world needs Norway to demonstrate climate leadership by ending exploration for additional oil and gas reserves, stopping further expansion of fossil fuel infrastructure, and protecting the fragile Arctic. By harnessing its immense wealth and ingenuity,
Norway could lead the world in demonstrating how to achieve a just and equitable transition to a fossil-free economy.
• David Boyd is the UN special rapporteur on the environment and human rights