Norway, Europe’s oil power, decides when to end oil extraction

Norway, Europe’s largest producer of oil and gas, goes to the polls on Monday to elect a new government and, above all, to elect a key date in the future of the country, that of end of oil extraction.

Conservatives and Liberals, in the current government, do not want to set a deadline. Social Democratic favorites do, despite being open to negotiation. Its likely partners, the environmentalists, say they will only support a coalition if that date it does not go beyond 2035.

Environmentalists repeat what United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said when the world organization presented the latest report on climate change in August: “We must stop all further exploration and production of fossil fuels”.

The Conservatives have found an allegedly environmental argument to defend that they continue to search for new wells to develop. They claim that Norway produces hydrocarbons cleaner than other producing countries and that if it stops producing, others will produce more.

The Social Democrats would prefer a government that would take over the one that the current NATO Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg, led until 2013, and that they formed with two small parties: the agrarian left and the socialist left, a smaller formation and something more to the left than social democracy. But they may also have to hang on to environmentalists.

Even though it is the leading European producer of hydrocarbons, its weight on the world market is relative. Norway produces 2% of the oil and 3% of the gas the planet consumes. The Conservatives believe that the suspension of this production “It will not solve the climate crisis”, as Tina Bru, Minister of Energy and Petroleum in the current Conservative government, said during the campaign.

Contradiction

Norway is the leading hydrocarbon power in Europe. The country lives in contradiction massively sell gas and oil and at the same time feel that it must follow its ecological trends. The climate crisis was the focal point of the election campaign, above other issues that had dominated previous elections, such as economic policy or immigration.

National Petroleum Fund

Norway also knows that part of its well-being (its poverty rates are residual and its social services very generous) is due precisely to income from the sale of hydrocarbons. These, in addition, feed the largest sovereign wealth fund on the planet, which already adds 1.17 million euros.

The Norwegian economy has successfully made the ecological transition. The vast majority of the oil and gas it extracts is not used in Norway, is exported. 95% of the electricity used by Norwegians is produced from of hydraulic power stations. Seven out of ten new cars are electric.

Hydrocarbons, on the other hand, assume 40% of total export earnings, employ more than 200,000 people (7% of the total) and feed this sovereign fund which is a sort of retirement fund for the future.

Norway sees Denmark take the lead. Its small neighbor, whose production is much less and counts less in its total exports, will no longer prospect looking for new gas wells and will stop mining it in 2050.

3.6 million Norwegians are summoned to the polls on Monday to elect the new Parliament and with it the future government coalition. Polls in recent weeks suggest that Social Democracy will be the driving force again, but this time it will succeed, after eight years of governments under conservative Erna Solberg, in forming an executive that could be joined by another small party from left and environmentalists. .

The Social Democrats have never been in power for so long since the 1930s. His return to government would also bring together four left-wing governments in Norway, Finland, Denmark and Sweden. If he manages to form a government, the next prime minister will be Jonas Gahr Store.

Brussels, special

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