This week I had the chance to go see the court case against Norwegian government for opening new areas for oil exploration in the Barents Sea.
The case is led by environmental organizations, Greenpeace Norway and Nature and Youth Norway, who argue that the Norwegian government has violated its constitutional environmental law, known as Section 112, that grants every person and future generations the right to a healthy environment. The plaintiffs argue that oil drilling must be stopped for both local and global considerations by emphasizing the contribution of oil drilling to global warming and arguing that the any new oil drilling goes against the Paris agreement.
The court case started on Tuesday (14th of November) and on Wednesday morning, I was lucky enough to go and see the case live. The courtroom was full on Tuesday (I had tried to get in in the afternoon with no luck) but even on Wednesday the room was packed with public, members of the NGOs, journalists and reporters, and even some celebrities. I felt very moved and honoured, and also a bit nervous, after all, we were in a courtroom – however, there was a sense of real excitement, finally, the process had started and the results of the case could be of great importance in terms of fighting against climate change. The results could have significant repercussions across the globe: 90 countries have similar constitutional laws guaranteeing right to a healthy environment and the decision of the court could set an international precedent!
Outside the Oslo District Court.
Here, I wanted to write about few of the points made on Wednesday. The first statement on Wednesday was given by Eystein Jansen, Professor in Earth Sciences/ Paleoclimatology (University of Bergen) and the second by Bjørn Samset, Research Director of CICERO (Center for International Climate Research).
Greenpeace argues that to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement, oil production must be put down. Both of the statements emphasized the need for fast action and measures to reduce greenhouse gases globally. The first point I would like to highlight from the two talks is that the current policies are not by far sufficient, and in order to limit warming 2°C above pre-industrial levels, new and effective measures are badly needed! The graph below is produced by “Climate Action Tracker”, which is an independent science-based assessment, and shows the projections for warming based on pledges and current policies.
Effect of current pledges and policies on global temperature (Source: http://climateactiontracker.org/global.html)
What the graph shows, is that with the current policies as well as the pledges, we are still far from reaching the 2°C goal! The current policies results in about 3.4 °C warming above pre-industrial levels – therefore, there still remains an immense gap between the promises of the governments and the total level of actions that they have undertaken to date. Quick action is needed, but reaching the goals require drastic political efforts, technological measures and social change. Putting an end to drilling for more oil would be one step forward.
Secondly, the statements emphasized the historical responsibility of Norway. Norway is the seventh largest CO2 emission exporter in the world1. The historic emissions of Norway mean that also the greenhouse gas reductions should be higher for Norway. This principle of burden sharing would take the issues of justice and power into account when setting national reduction goals: the countries that have contributed the most to the climate change, should also bear the biggest burden in reducing their emissions. Eystein Jansen emphasized that when considering the historic emissions as well as the technological and financial capacity of Norway, the reduction goal of Norway could be from 3 to up to 15 times higher than the current goal of reducing 21 Mt of CO2 emissions by 2030! The current policies are in no way sufficient to reach such climate targets.
This brings me to my final point: how can we calculate e.g. the global emissions or the needed reduction goals? And how do we treat the massive uncertainties related to these calculations? These numbers are needed for effective decision-making and scientists are doing their best to ensure that these calculations and models are reliable and objectives. However, it’s important to take into consideration, that these seemingly objective processes are in many ways value-laden and characterized by high uncertainties. After all, for example, the choice of the method and the scope of the study may affect the policy outcome – simply put, if we only use calculations that ignore the historical emissions of Norway, we might consider that Norway’s reduction goals of 21Mt of CO2 emissions by 2030 are ambitious and that Norway is slowly but surely on its way to achieving these goals (even with a bit of Arctic oil exploitation), but if we consider that Norway needs to consider also its historical emission and act in a globally just and responsible way, then the story seems a bit more complex. Therefore, even if the calculations themselves provide basis for decision-making, we should acknowledge the value-ladenness as well as the uncertainties related to these calculations. Ultimately, the final decision is a value question, not a scientific one.
1.http://priceofoil.org/2017/08/09/the-skys-limit-norway-why-norway-should-lead-the-way-in-a-managed-decline-of-oil-and-gas-extraction/
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