Climate change in Norway

[2] Because of the knowledge that their electricity is supplied by renewable sources and its very low cost as it is produced domestically, consumption in Norway is three times higher than the average European.

A significant factor in the recent reduction has been the decreased emissions from car traffic, largely attributed to the increased adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) and the integration of biofuels.

This successful integration of policies has seen electric vehicles widely accepted in Norway and the public even had the chance to discuss and propose ideas for the governments National Transport Plan (NTP).

In an attempt to meet their plan to be carbon-neutral by 2050 (conditional for 2030) Oslo is also converting municipal buses to run on biomethane captured from human waste in order to cut CO2 emissions (saves 44 tons of CO2 per bus per year compared to gas alternatives).

This is pleasing news on a regional and national level but fails to address their huge international fleet as shipping and aircraft regulations where notably absent from the Paris Agreement.

[25] Permafrost is defined as ground, soil or rock, including ice or organic material that remains at or below zero degrees Celsius for at least two consecutive years.

Already the wetland areas of northern Norway (palsas and peat plateaus) have air photo and field analysis showcasing reductions of up to 50% in ground ice cover since the 1950s.

[28][31] This results in a considerable loss of permafrost and may trigger an increased emission of greenhouse gases (positive-feedback mechanism) from previously frozen, but now degrading organic material.

However, glaciations and glacier erosion helped have sculpted mountain areas in Norway, revealing many steep and unstable slopes (i.e. Mt.Nordnes northeast of Tromsø).

A reduction of 2-3 month is estimated for low-elevation and coastal areas in west, mid and north Norway (when comparing current (1961-1990) and future climate data (2071-2100)).

[45] Extreme geostrophic wind speeds are expected to experience a 2-6% decrease over the Norwegian Sea, whereas southern and eastern parts of Northern Europe will see an increase of 2-4%.

[26] Other studies conducted by the NOU Climate Adaptation in 2009 suggest a 40–95 cm rise in sea level in northern Norway up until 2100, corrected for land uplift.

Thus, there needs to be both prolonged autumn and earlier spring to promote longer growing seasons, whilst taking the risk of frost into account.

A temperature increase of 2 degrees Celsius can move the tree line up the mountainside by about 300 m.[33] The Norwegian Arctic is getting warmer and wetter, with large local variations.

[33] This may cause the extinction of coral species as the changing water chemistry makes it increasingly difficult for organisms with calcareous shells to form with calcium.

[26] Over the last two decades Arctic sea ice and Northern Hemisphere spring snow cover has continued to decrease in extent not exhibited in at least the last 1,450 years.

Currently, the Norwegian government has set the main goal of its CCS policy to identify measures that can contribute to technology development and cost reductions.

[58] This was made evident in their recent feasibility studies whereby the Minister of Petroleum and Energy (overall responsibility), Gassnova SF (project coordinator and capture storage) and Gassco AS (transport) identified three potential sites for full-scale CCS projects; a cement factory in Brevik (Norcem AS), an ammonia plan at Herøys in Porsgrunn (Yara Norge AS) and a waste recovery plant at Klemetsrud (Waste-to-Energy Agency in Oslo).

Norway has long pledged to play a leading role in negotiations towards a more ambitious international climate change agreement, using their starting point as limiting the average rise in global temperatures to no more than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels (Figure 4).

[65] The Norwegian environmental activist Bellona Foundation believes that Stoltenberg was forced to act due to pressure from anti-European Union members of the coalition government, and called the announcement "visions without content".

This makes continued investment dependent on the survival of the oil industry, despite the world realizing fossil fuels directly contribute to global warming.

[70][71] This gravely disappointed campaigners who argue it should sell of all investments in the fossil fuel industry as they continue to drive global warming and climate change.

[72] This duality therefore sends a very polarised message to the Norwegian public and may be part of the reason why there is a lack of engagement or enthusiasm currently observed around the issue of climate change.

The scientific community has even debated the sustainability of different climate technological solutions in the press, i.e. carbon capture and storage,[74][75] bioenergy[76] and offshore wind power.

The Norwegian media landscape is also based on public and government-funded broadcasting where high uptake is considered important for citizen's knowledge on political issues.

This is evident by the huge economic interests associated with the oil and gas industry, leading to the popularity of the Norwegian petro-industrial complex and a public discourse around skepticism towards climate science.

[83][84] On the other hand, Norwegians have had a long history of environmental concern given their stunning nature and widespread popular perception of renewable energy affluence thanks to large hydroelectric resources.

[citation needed] However, perceptions started to shift thanks to an emphasis on ‘balanced reporting’, whereby accounts of scientific controversy made the public ambiguous as to the urgency of the issue.

[86] Furthermore, a lack of strong proactive policies by the government has fostered widespread frustration within the public arena, as messages of how to address global warming and climate change are often inconsistent.

[86] This led a study on young people to conclude that individual actions did "not matter much in the global context" and that authorities did not facilitate "contributions from ordinary citizens".

Visualisation of average annual temperature anomaly in Norway, 1901 to 2020.
Figure 1. Illustrates the energy balance for Norway in 2014.
Figure 2. This carbon cycle diagram shows the storage and annual exchange of carbon between the atmosphere , hydrosphere and geosphere in gigatons - or billions of tons - of Carbon (GtC).
Figure 3. The icy cap over Earth's North Pole reaches its summer minimum in September and its winter maximum in late February or early March. Satellite observations since 1979 have shown that amount of ice that survives the summer is getting smaller; declines have been especially dramatic in the past decade. Recently, scientists from NASA and the National Snow and Ice Data Center described another way Arctic sea ice is changing: the summer melt season is getting significantly longer, particularly in the Arctic region.
Representatives from the U.S., U.K., Germany, Norway, and Indonesia announcing funding for the Initiative for Sustainable Forest Landscapes at COP19 .
Figure 4. Highlights Norway's ongoing commitments to international climate change agreements. Norway ratified the Kyoto Protocol (CP1) on 30 May 2002 and became a Party when the Protocol entered into force on 16 February 2005. Furthermore, it ratified the Doha Amendments and second period (CP2) of the Kyoto Protocol on 12 June 2014. Following its willingness to be associated with the non-binding Copenhagen Accord on 25 January, Norway became the first developed nation to ratify the Paris Agreement on 20 June 2016 with a target of a 40% by 2030 on 1990 levels [ 60 ]
Protesters gathered in a square holding banners and Earth-coloured balloons.
Protesters at the 2015 Global Climate March in Oslo .
Temperature change in Jan Mayen and Svalbard 1750–2013