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Norwegians head to the polls on Sept. 13 in a parliamentary election that has centered on the issue of whether saving the planet is worth stopping the fossil fuel gravy train
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- Title
- Norway's Fossil Fuel Reliance Is Going to the Ballot Box
- Published
- Sep 10 2021
3 876 200 Norwegians have the right to vote this election. Yesterday early voting closed with 1 645 913 cast ballots. This means that 42,5 percent of the electorate have already voted. This is a huge record. Usually around 75 percent of the population vote. It's election participation going to be higher this year, or are there pandemic effects at play?
The polls open again Sunday and Monday. Parties in Norway gain access to 19 leveling seats if they gain 4 percent of the popular vote.
There are four parties this year that according to polls are around the exclusion threshold of 4 percent. This means things will be exciting, and can be decided by a small amount of votes.
It appears very likely that we're headed for a change of government. However, what parties will form a coalition, and their relative strengths are very much undetermined. This all comes down to the exclusion threshold.
Norway is a country where you can have a minority government that needs to negotiate with parties outside government to secure majorities for passing their laws and budgets. That's also a situation that may come to pass this election precisely due to the climate and fossil fuel positions this article is all about.
A number of different parties have said they're unwilling to form coalitions with others they've normally been on board with due to differing opinions on climate/oil policy.
Norway now makes more money off the sovereign oil fund where the principal was/is taxes from past production of oil and gas. Today the investment profits are much larger than oil taxes from new production each year.
This makes the situation pretty convoluted politically, especially since a number of "green" parties are opposed to building large wind powerplants on land and at sea due to conflicts with nature/biodiversity.
The oil industry is on the order of 200.000 jobs in a country of 5,4 million people. What's the "new oil" going to be when renewables are so unpopular, even at sea to avoid land conflicts?
Why are renewables so unpopular?
Wind farms in particular are unpopular because they spoil the aesthetic and experience of unspoiled nature. They can also disturb local wildlife as well as (on land, in some areas) herds of reindeer. Although I'm convinced most people oppose them simply because they're ugly and destroy the experience of relatively untouched nature. They can be loud, but most proposed wind farms are relatively far from populated areas, although the right to travel freely in unexploited nature (allemannsretten) is strong in Norway, and any attempt to despoil it even aesthetically is vigorously opposed.
Almost all (99%) of the electric power in Norway is already renewable hydropower, although attempts to build hydropower plants in virgin waterways are also often opposed for much the same reasons.
Another issue is that the new Nordlink power cable connecting Norway to the rest of continental Europe means higher electric power prices for Norwegians. Norway has traditionally enjoyed very cheap power prices due to the abundance of cheap hydropower, but the connection to Germany means power companies (which are generally owned by municipalities) are tempted to sell that power abroad, depleting the water reservoirs and causing higher domestic prices.
I'm not familiar with the seabed conditions of Norway but a lot of offshore wind now can be far enough out that it's barely or even not at all visible from shore and greater surplus of power would push prices down further
Offshore wind too makes a lot of sense. However, the large Norwegian fishing industry is extremely negative to this. They've experienced area conflicts with oil rigs, They fear similar effects where they can't go where the fish is because fish will "hide" under offshore wind installations in time.
I think the argument is getting way too much attention. It doesn't lead to building down even more nature as windmills on land do (the balance between climate change and destruction of nature/biodiversity is much trickier)
This study said where there is protected areas where the fish can't be fished it leads to more fish in surrounding waters in greater quantities than there would have been if you could just fish it all. Hope that's worded clearly.
https://insideecology.com/2021/09/15/marine-protected-area-status-can-boost-fish-populations-by-almost-400/
Article comes from this paper DOI:10.1111/1365-2664.13986