Despite the rest of the world having opted out of the climate frenzy, and CO2 emissions steadily rising as before, the EU empire continues its climate self-delusion towards economic collapse. And the EU’s obedient governors, such as Erna Solberg and Jonas Gahr Støre, continue with climate policy as though no negative results exist. The climate train simply rolls unstoppably onwards, because it was enshrined in law by the Storting in 2019, and now the obsessive thoughts are about to strike Støre’s very money-printing machine: the oil sector.

When Governor Støre presented the revised national budget, it became clear that from 2029 new “climate requirements” will be introduced for operating companies and shipping on the Norwegian continental shelf. The government will force through ships running on batteries, as well as life-threatening hydrogen and ammonia, despite the fact that no such ships exist, all trial attempts are associated with major problems, costs and dangers, and the CO2 cuts have no relevance whatsoever to anyone other than foolish politicians who have adopted them.

Støre wants to implement this coercion through a government regulation. In that case he avoids having to put the matter through the Storting. That would only delay the matter, create more public debate and make it even clearer to the common people how cuckoo, costly and dangerous the climate hysteria actually is.

An industry with adopted climate targets discovers the consequences

Nettavisen reports that these new “climate requirements” have taken an entire industry by surprise. The oil industry is reacting strongly. The Centre Party is asking for the matter to come before the Storting. The Progress Party now promises to examine the legality of introducing the requirements through a regulation. What Nettavisen fails to inform the public of is that all the parties in the Storting voted for the Paris Agreement. And all the private actors who are now complaining have warmly embraced turning themselves into political climate activists through adopted “climate targets”. The whole lot of them.

Everyone who is now “shaken” has themselves supported the climate hysteria, and everyone was warned about what it would entail. (Cf. the book “Climate Anti-Climax”, of which every member of the Storting has received a copy.) Several of the politicians now protesting against climate measures have themselves led the charge for climate measures, but are suddenly deeply concerned about the monster they themselves helped create. The same applies to organisations: the chief executive of the Norwegian Shipowners’ Association, Knut Arild Hareide, claims to be shaken by the proposal and predicts that it will reduce activity on the Norwegian continental shelf. Hareide tells Nettavisen:

– The government is introducing a costly, specifically Norwegian set of rules despite strong opposition from a united industry. This is happening without support in the Storting, and directly contrary to clear signals that the framework conditions on the Norwegian continental shelf are to remain fixed. This unpredictability is impossible for business on the Norwegian continental shelf to deal with.

“Opposition from a united industry”??

This is an utterly incredible statement, because the Norwegian Shipowners’ Association has not merely been aware of this requirement all along: it has actively adopted a position of leading the charge for it. It has had as its goal to ensure that all its members become political climate activists who are to save the planet from plant-food emissions. The Norwegian Shipowners’ Association launched its climate strategy on 18 May 2020, and these are the goals:

– Members of the Norwegian Shipowners’ Association shall cut climate emissions by 50 per cent per unit by 2030 (compared with 2008), and operate emission-free from 2050. The members are focusing on energy efficiency in the existing fleet, green shipping and the development of new technology in order to reach the targets.

Does the head of the Norwegian Shipowners’ Association not read his own resolutions? Did he think they were merely decorative? Did he think internal climate resolutions would be free of charge? The questions pile up, because none of the madness Støre wants to introduce comes as any surprise to anyone: it is 100 per cent in line with what both the Conservative Party and the Labour Party have been saying all along, and what the Shipowners’ Association itself has wanted and adopted. And they are not the only private actors who are about to straddle themselves on their own climate ambitions:

Six years of climate ambitions for the offshore industry

Offshore Norge (formerly the Norwegian Oil and Gas Association) also has a climate strategy. As early as 2020, the organisation adopted its targets of reducing greenhouse-gas emissions by 50 per cent by 2030, compared with the 2005 level. The adopted target is also to reduce emissions of plant food from oil and gas production on the Norwegian continental shelf to near zero by 2050. Without any adopted cost frameworks. And how? Through electrification of platforms, energy efficiency, offshore wind and carbon capture and storage (CCS). The full battery of measures that everyone else copies uncritically.

To Nettavisen, however, the chief executive of Offshore Norge, Hildegunn T. Blindheim, states quite the opposite: that the government “has not listened to the oil and gas industry”. But yes. That is exactly what it has done. Blindheim makes clear that the oil industry is not opposed to climate requirements “on principle”, but believes the matter is about predictable framework conditions. That is a strange statement, given that the climate measures have followed a 100 per cent predictable course ever since 2015. Did she think it was just an April Fool’s joke? Does she not understand that adopting “climate targets” is to checkmate oneself in relation to political power? She tells Nettavisen:

– These specifically Norwegian climate requirements will lead to double regulation and costs in the billions, they will weaken the competitiveness of the Norwegian continental shelf and the international competitiveness of the maritime industry.

A foretold catastrophe, not a surprise

But if the chief executive of Offshore Norge really believes this, why in the blackest, wildest, most absurd world did Offshore Norge adopt its climate targets in October 2020? It is too late to complain now. You wanted this! Støre’s government minions say so as well, because Minister of Climate and Environment Andreas Bjelland Eriksen points out quite correctly to Nettavisen that:

– This climate requirement comes as no surprise. This has been announced for a long time. We are following up a request decision from the Storting, and the industry has long known that emissions from maritime activity on the Norwegian continental shelf must come down. The government is now following up with clear and predictable requirements that are phased in gradually, so that the actors have time and flexibility to adapt.

Note the phrase “emissions must come down”. This obsessive thought recurs everywhere in Norwegian public life. But emissions do not “have” to come down. It has no relevance whatsoever. The government also believes that the requirement for “emission-free shipping” will drive forward “innovation through an ambitious and realistic climate policy”, and that is simply more self-delusion:

Everything in the government’s notorious “Roadmap 2.0 Green Industrial Lift” from 2023 has gone bankrupt, fallen flat on its face, or vanished from the political surface like Jimmy Hoffa. The government’s relationship with actual results, however, is entirely in line with its relationship with climate costs: it is a non-issue. Hush! Everything is going splendidly!!

Norwegian climate policy is a warning, not an example

The only thing Norwegian politicians have actually achieved with their “climate measures” is to create enormous public costs and bureaucracy, ruin everyday life for private individuals and business owners with taxes and regulation, destroy nature, destroy the power system both in Norway and on Svalbard, and undermine the car market and the private investor market with public subsidies. And last but not least: prove that “climate measures” do not work in the way the green nutcases dreamt of in their girls’ rooms.

Norwegian climate policy, with all the hypocrisy, corruption, costs and falsity behind it, has become a warning to other countries – and that warning will only become clearer towards 2030. It is nothing to be proud of, because the grandiose “energy transition” never had the prerequisites to function.