Norway's Claims To Climate Leadership Termed As Hypocritical, Europe’s Most Aggressive Explorer Of Oil And Gas Issued Over 700 Exploration Licenses In Last 10 Years

Norway claims to be one of the climate leaders of the world, and was one of the first countries to ratify the Paris Agreement, but follows an aggressive policy of expanding its oil and gas industries, and has ramped up its exploration licensing exponentially over the past 10 years, Oil For Change(OCI), a research and advocacy organization focused on clean energy transition said in a briefing.

In a brief released recently, OCI said that over the last ten years (2012-2022), the Norwegian government awarded as many exploration licenses (700) as in the period from 1965-2012, making Norway Europe’s most aggressive explorer.

Norway as opened up 2.8 billion barrels of new oil and gas resources for potential extraction, almost 3.5 times more than Europe’s second-largest producer, the United Kingdom, OCI noted.

Permitting development of oil and gas fields that are already licensed, but not yet producing, could lead to an additional 3 billion tons of CO2 emissions of CO2 emissions globally, OCI estimated.

"To put this into perspective, this is 60 times Norway’s annual domestic emissions. New licensing could increase these emissions by 80 percent." the briefing stated.

OIC drew attention to the possibility of Norway approving exploration in Wisting field, which is in the ecologically sensitive Arctic region of the Barents Sea. If approved, it is estimated that the exploration and extraction in the Wisting field could lead to emissions of more than 200 million tons of CO2, equivalent to the annual emissions of 50 coal-fired power plants.

"By size of reserves, Wisting could become the largest single Norwegian oil asset approved by the government this decade, whose climate impact could be three times greater than that of the now-paused Cambo oil field proposed in the U.K. " the briefing noted.

Global oil major Equinor is planning to seek approval for the development of the Wisting oil field in the Barents Sea in 2022

OCI pointed out that during his address at the UN Climate conference in Glasgow, COP26, Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre underscore his commitment to climate action.

“This is existential. It is urgent,” said the Norwegian Prime Minister. said during the address. “And it is possible – if we jointly step up our commitments.” Støre also promised to up the country’s ambition and accelerate the transition to clean energy too

Pointing out the hypocrisy in Norway's claims to climate leadership even as it pursues an aggressive policy promoting new oil and gas exploration and extraction , the OCI said that in reality it is a climate laggard and still a fossil fuel pioneer.

"If the current Norwegian government wants to be taken seriously on climate issues, it must review the country’s oil and gas policies and align them with the goals of the Paris Agreement and with the principles of global equity. This briefing recommends the Labour-led government should halt the Awards in Predefined Areas (APA) licensing system and reject Equinor’s bid to develop the Wisting oil field." the briefing concluded.