Climate Change Policy in Norway

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Summery of the speech.

Introduction:

• The extension of the Artic Sea Ice was at record low in September 2007. Norway observes that early changes in the Artic at our research centre at Svalbard. 
• The Artic is in particular vulnerable to climate change because temperature increase there is twice the global average.
• We need the US to take a leading role to get an ambitious international agreement and cooperation with the US with its eminent human resources is essential to develop new technologies. 
• California is widely known for progressive environmental policy and has been in the forefront in the US. It is therefore very inspiring to visit this state.

Norwegian climate policy:

• Norway started taking global warming seriously quite early with the adoption of a CO2-tax in 1991.
• Since then, a range of additional policy instruments have been implemented to reduce domestic greenhouse gas emissions. Today as much as 70 per cent of Norwegian greenhouse gas emissions are covered by economic instruments setting a price on carbon. 
• Last summer the Government published a white paper on climate change where a broad spectre of national emission cuts is proposed. 
• This month, the Government has come to an agreement with the opposition parties on the further development of Norwegian climate policy. This agreement implies that more than three quarters of the members of the Norwegian Parliament support an ambition climate change policy:
• Norway intends to cut the global emissions equivalent to 100 percent of its own emissions within 2030. This way, Norway will become a carbon neutral nation
• Norway will undertake to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions by the equivalent of 30% of its own 1990 emissions by 2020
• Norway will strengthen its Kyoto commitment by 10 percentage points, corresponding to nine per cent below the 1990 level.
• The Government is pursuing a three-pronged strategy to achieve these targets:
   
  Firstly work towards a more ambitious international climate agreement. 
• Secondly contribute to emission reductions in developing countries and in rapidly growing economies such as China and India. 
• Thirdly intensify efforts to reduce emissions in Norway. Around 2/3 of emission reductions in 2020 will be cuts in domestic emissions bringing Norway on a path to a low carbon society.

International actions:

• At the Bali meeting a new international negotiation process was launched. A process under the auspices of the United Nations Climate Change Convention (UNFCCC), designed to tackle climate change, with the aim of being completed by 2009.
• Norway looks forward to participating and contributing in these negotiations. As we said during the meeting at Bali Norway are willing to finance one of the international meetings scheduled in the process. To reach a successful outcome in Copenhagen in 2009 it is of crucial importance that all countries work hard to reach an agreement.
• A global agreement on climate change has to have a common vision that meet the scale of the challenge. Norway agrees with the European Union that to avoid dangerous climate change, global temperatures must rise no more than 2 degrees above pre-industrial level. According to IPPC this means that global emissions have to peak no later than 2015 and have to be reduced at least by half no later than 2050 compared to 2000. Industrialised nations, such as Norway and US, have to cut emissions by 25-40 percent already in 2020.

Three topics are crucial in Norway’s international climate policy: 

• Inclusion of international aviation and maritime transport in a future global regime 
• Increased efforts to prevent deforestation in developing countries.  At Bali Norway launched that we are prepared to increase our support for efforts to prevent deforestation in developing countries to about three billion NOK (more than 500 million dollars) a year.
• Enhanced action on technology development and diffusion, including technology for carbon capture and storage (CCS).

Norway’s CCS policy:

• Norway believes that by being a big exporter of oil and gas we have a particular responsibility to provide a more climate friendly option for using fossil fuels, including coal, during the transition to a low carbon energy system. 
• According to the International Energy Agency, the use of carbon capture and storage in the industrial, fuel transformation and power generation sectors, can account for 20 to 28% of the CO2 emissions savings. 
• Norway is therefore strongly committed to develop Carbon Capture and Storage technologies, hopefully our efforts will contribute to make this technology commercially viable at a global scale. 
• The Government has decided that all new gas fired power plants shall be based on such technologies. The government strategy to implement such technologies has been to introduce a combination of means such as financial support and regulation (requirements in permits). 
• We are gaining experience with storing CO2. At the Sleipner field we have stored CO2 in the ground offshore since 1996 after separating CO2 from the produced gas. One million ton CO2 pr year is stored. 
• Capturing CO2 from gas power plants at a big scale are more complicated (more expensive). We are also gaining experience in this area. At the west coast of Norway a refinery/gas power plant owned by StatiolHydro will capture 100 000 tons CO2 from 2011, escalating to full scale capturing from 2014.