The current government, led by Prime Minister Erna Solberg, Norway’s longest-serving prime minister, has refused to put an end to fossil fuel production, planning for its continuation beyond 2050.
The election campaign period focused heavily on the country’s climate and fossil fuel production, following the publication of a UN climate science report and a heat wave that burned well. part of the country during the summer.
The initial results are not final, but in Norway they give a fairly reliable picture of the actual results.
The Labor Party, led by former Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, is calling for a gradual transition from fossil fuels. However, it will probably need the support of the Green Party, or other such small and climate-friendly equipment, which have been campaigning for a phasing out of the country’s huge oil and gas industries.
“We have three green parties in Norway: the socialist party, the liberal party and the green party,” said Lars-Henrik Paarup Michelsen, the director of the Norwegian Climate Foundation..
“Polls indicate that our next government will be led by the Labor party. However, Labor will need the votes of at least one green party to get a majority in Parliament.
“Everyone expects climate policy to tighten after the election,” he added.
Both the Socialists and the Green Party recorded gains in the elections, according to preliminary results. The Greens were on the verge of winning seven seats in parliament, which was a major gain since 2017 when they had only one. The Socialists seemed to be on track to get 13 seats, two more during the last election
“If this comes close to the end result, it’s a sharp increase for the Greens, it’s a historic result for them and it will give them a much bigger platform,” said Fay Farstad, senior researcher at CICERO, a Norwegian climate institute. interdisciplinary research.
However, Farstad added that the result is more nuanced, given the gains made by the Center Party. “They support Norway’s climate goals and agreements, but where they differ is on the issue of increasing CO2 taxes, they participated in the platform to reject it,” he added.
Norway is Europe’s largest oil producer and the world’s third largest exporter of natural gas. Even with political will, the phasing out of fossil fuels is unlikely to be rapid.
But as the world becomes more aware of the climate crisis and transitions to renewable energy sources, there has been a concerted push in the country against continued exploration of fossil fuels.
“There has been a lot of debate over the last year and a half or two, but when [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] The report came in August, just as the campaign was gaining momentum, it really put climate change in the spotlight, “Ole Jacob Sending, research director of the Institute’s think tank, told CNN. Norwegian International Affairs.
While climate change in itself is not intended for debate in Norway (all major political parties recognize that climate change is real and is already happening), the question of how to manage it is.
“The climate is now one of the main fault lines in Norwegian politics … there are disagreements about what the best policies are and how urgent it is for us to take action,” Sending said.
“Now there’s less of an elephant in the room … there’s a greater recognition that Norway has a challenge.”
But the oil and gas sector remains crucial for the Norwegian economy, which employs 200,000 people (between 6% and 7% of its workforce) and accounts for 14% of GDP and 41% of exports.
Although scientists say emissions should be halved during this decade, largely through the phasing out of fossil fuels, Norway has not set a date for the completion of oil and gas exploration.
The Norwegian Petroleum Directorate said earlier this year that it expected oil production to continue to increase in the coming years, from 1.7 million barrels a day in 2020 to just over 2 million a day in 2025.