As main oil and fuel producers and exporters, Norway and Canada share a particular duty for confronting the planet’s existential local weather menace. Nonetheless, their completely different political, financial and cultural options have resulted in main variations of their local weather coverage monitor information.
General, Norway is a pacesetter in local weather change efficiency and Canada is a laggard. The 2021 Climate Change Performance Index ranks 61 international locations on their progress in decreasing greenhouse fuel emissions, power consumption, renewable energies and local weather coverage. Norway ranked eighth general, whereas Canada was close to the underside in 58th place.
Each international locations face epic challenges in weaning themselves from petroleum dependence — and placing an finish to exporting carbon emissions. Canada is a good distance from winding down the oil and fuel business and implementing a inexperienced and inclusive restoration.
One of many benefits Norway holds is the excessive diploma of equality and inclusivity within the coverage course of, which interprets right into a more healthy democracy than Canada’s. That is one thing Canada can study from and enhance upon.
Canada produces 4.7 million barrels of oil per day — 80 per cent of it from Alberta — and exports 79 per cent to the United States. The carbon emissions from the consumption of these fossil fuel exports are almost four times greater than the emissions produced in their extraction and processing. These emissions aren’t attributed to Canada, regardless that it’s chargeable for making them out there.
Norway produces 1.7 million barrels of oil daily and, because the nation runs primarily on hydroelectricity, exports almost all of it, largely to Western Europe. Norway exports 10 times more emissions than it produces domestically.
Norway’s exit ramp from oil dependence is bumpy. Regardless of some contradictory local weather actions, Norway’s progress exceeds that of just about all petro-states, with Canada trailing behind.
Norway has dedicated to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 50-55 per cent compared to 1990s levels by 2030, largely by means of home actions. Norway is the world leader in electric vehicle sales; by 2025, all new vehicles offered shall be zero-emission automobiles. Solely 3.3 per cent of passenger vehicles sold in Canada throughout the first half of 2020 have been electrical.
Norway participates within the European Union’s Emissions Trading System, the world’s largest carbon market, and has spent billions on worldwide offsets in growing international locations by means of its REDD+ program to take care of and broaden their forests as carbon sinks.
Canada lately introduced legislation to satisfy or exceed a 30 per cent discount in carbon emissions by 2030 in comparison with 2005, partially by boosting its carbon tax, however continues to closely subsidize fossil fuel production. Since early 2020, Canada has allotted US$14.6 billion to assist fossil gas power and an equal quantity on clear power.
Norway additionally spends rather a lot on its fossil gas business — a minimum of US$11.76 billion since 2020. And with an economic system that runs largely on renewable power, it allotted solely US$382 million to renewables.
Neither Canada nor Norway has achieved absolute emissions reductions. Trade in each international locations downplays this actuality, selecting to focus as an alternative on their progress in decreasing carbon depth — emissions per barrel of oil.
Neither nation has dedicated to a manufacturing endgame both. Denmark is the primary main oil-producing nation to decide to terminating state-approved oil exploration within the North Sea and ending all oil extraction by 2050.
Canadian carbon emissions elevated 20.9 per cent between 1990 and 2018, largely pushed in flip by a five-fold growth of oilsands emissions. Canada’s energy regulator predicts oil manufacturing general will develop 41 per cent from 2018 to 2040.
Norway’s emissions increased three per cent between 1990 and 2018, and it continues to sell oil leases for offshore drilling together with within the Barents Sea and the Norwegian Sea. Canada has imposed a moratorium on Arctic offshore drilling.
Canada and Norway’s paths to carbon zero have, for probably the most half, diverged, with Canada falling behind badly.
- In Norway, the state-controlled company, Equinor, and the federal government collectively decide local weather coverage. In Canada, petroleum corporations have more leverage on climate policy because they control their production and investment decisions at home and abroad, and are accountable solely to their shareholders.
- Norway is a unitary state giving the federal government uncontested jurisdictional authority over climate policy. As a federal state with divided jurisdictions, the Canadian federal authorities is in a a lot weaker policy-making place.
- There’s a excessive diploma of political stability on climate action in Norway. Even the right-wing Progress Celebration acknowledges the local weather menace and helps the federal government’s local weather plan. In Canada, broad swings on local weather coverage over the previous 40 years have thwarted sustained advances. Whereas a majority of Canadians now assist decisive motion on local weather change, there are splits along party lines and geography, with most Conservative provincial governments opposing a carbon tax.
- In Canada, particularly beneath Conservative governments, there was little or no session with labour unions and NGOs on local weather coverage, whereas in Norway these consultations are viewed as essential in shaping coverage, whatever the authorities in energy. Moreover, Norway’s lower levels of economic inequality and stronger social safety net reinforce its strong democracy.
- Alberta squandered its oil wealth on low provincial taxes and company giveaways. The province created the Alberta Heritage Fund within the Nineteen Seventies, but it surely presently accommodates solely US$12 billion. Norway alternatively, created a sovereign wealth fund in 1996 to retain the majority of financial hire from the oil and fuel extraction. The fund now holds US$1.3 trillion in global investments, which facilitates its local weather transition. The fund’s return on these investments in 2019 was US$180 billion, and in 2020 it sold the last of its money-losing investments in foreign fossil fuel companies. The Norwegian government is still highly dependent on the petroleum sector, however fiscal guidelines permit it to attract as much as 4 per cent yearly from the sovereign wealth fund returns if internet petroleum transfers fall wanting spending necessities.
There’s loads of room for Canada to extend taxes on the rich and firms. It may possibly additionally strengthen its public investment banks and expand the Bank of Canada’s “quantitative easing” efforts, particularly holding government-issued debt to offer the required assets for an equitable and sustainable transition.
Governing the decentralized Canadian federation is complicated. This places extra weight on political management in all events, in all areas, to acknowledge the reality in regards to the local weather disaster and construct the required consensus to satisfy the problem.
Political management is the artwork of persuasion: studying from the previous, constructing coalitions, taking daring motion. As a serious carbon emitter, Canada should fulfil its international duty in serving to to cease this runaway train.
Denial, delay and division are now not an choice. Management that fails keep away from a cataclysmic future shall be judged harshly by our descendents.
Bruce Campbell, adjunct professor, College of Environmental Research, York University, Canada.
This text is republished from The Conversation beneath a Artistic Commons licence. Learn the original article.
