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Oil production in the Arctic - Norway's highest court negotiates climate lawsuit

2020-11-04T14:08:34.429Z


Oil and gas are Norway's most important export goods - and are also extracted in the Arctic. The supreme court of the country is now to decide whether the government is violating the constitution.


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"Goliat" platform in the Barents Sea: The operators Eni and Equinor, formerly Statoil, opened up the world's northernmost oil field with it in 2016

Photo: 

Jan-Morten Bjørnbakk / picture alliance / NTB scanpix

Norway has long been green and sustainable - for example, it has the highest e-car quota in Europe.

At the same time, the country exports oil and gas on a large scale all over the world.

There is increasing resistance to this.

Environmentalists have now gone to the country's highest court to review the approval of new oil wells in the Arctic.

They refer to the so-called environmental paragraph 112 of the Norwegian constitution, according to which the population has a right to a healthy environment.

So it is about the question of whether the Scandinavian state with its most important branch of the economy violates the Norwegian constitution.

In 2016, Norway permitted new oil wells in the Arctic Barents Sea for the first time in 20 years - almost at the same time as the Norwegian ratification of the world climate agreement.

In the same year, Greenpeace, the environmental protection organization Natur & Jugend and two support groups filed a lawsuit.

They were unsuccessful in two lower instances, now they are trying the Supreme Court.

"Unacceptable in times of climate emergency"

"Opening the Arctic to oil drilling in times of climate emergency is unacceptable and the Norwegian government must be held accountable," said Greenpeace Norway's head, Frode Pleym, before the start of the procedure.

It is hoped and believed that the Supreme Court will recognize the significant influence of the Norwegian state on the climate crisis and invalidate the Arctic oil licenses.

The Norwegian state is sticking to the economically sometimes questionable oil and gas production in the Arctic.

Even after the management plan for the entire region that was passed this summer, funding should continue to be possible very far north.

Read about it: Norway is shifting the ice edge.

According to the Norwegian government, the 2016 approvals went through the political authorities, above all Parliament Storting, and are constitutionally compliant.

Both the District Court in Oslo and the Borgarting Court of Appeal had agreed with the state.

Greenpeace viewed the judgment of the appellate court in January 2020 as a partial success because the court confirmed, among other things, that current and future generations have a right to a healthy environment.

On a total of seven hearing days, the court now wants to examine the appeal of Greenpeace and other environmental protection organizations to their climate action until November 12th.

A judgment is expected in December 2020 or January 2021.

The environmental organizations hope that the procedure will set a precedent for climate action all over the world - and that oil drilling in the sensitive Arctic ecosystem will ultimately be banned.

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apr / dpa

Source: spiegel

All business articles on 2020-11-04

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