Ever since the unimaginable extent of climate change began to sink in with world leaders, we have been obsessed with a crucial question:
Can someone else soon solve this problem? It is both expensive and hard to get used with fossil fuels, and no one wants to be left holding the bag.
Developing countries seem naturally we rich and polluting countries should take responsibility. Rich countries are afraid that we are poor by being environmentally friendly, and that the poor countries are rich and polluting meanwhile. Ordinary people want politicians and business to solve it. The business community wants the politicians to regulate them in a fair manner. And politicians are hoping that businesses will invent solutions that do not require difficult policy choices and invites people to volunteer.
Long thought we had found a kind of solution to the bag game: world leaders should find a global solution jointly. 23 years ago was the major climate convention signed. We should agree on how much pollution we have to cut in order to avoid catastrophic climate change, and distribute the burden between rich countries and poor countries in an equitable manner.
So should the solutions come falling down from up there it international level to the national level, and implemented by each country’s politicians, who would explain to us ordinary people what the new rules are. In those days held 21 climate summit to further develop the agreement.
Do not equally distributed
In 21 years, there has unfortunately been no solution from above. World leaders have neither been able to agree on how much greenhouse gas emissions we should cut, or how the burden should be distributed in an equitable manner. Especially the issue of equitable distribution has made agreement difficult.
The greenhouse gas emissions are in fact not equally distributed. The world’s richest 10 percent account for 50 percent of emissions while the poorest 50 percent account for 10 percent of emissions.
Yet the richest countries made minimal to reduce our emissions. The poor countries, which are least responsible for climate change and who are hardest hit, has not been offered any real help to tackle climate change or fight poverty in an environmentally friendly way.
This is especially frightening because it gets harder and more difficult to manage to avoid dangerous climate change the longer we wait. If you are going to pay off a multimillion-dollar loans over twenty years, it becomes very difficult to manage if you do not start to pay before the last month. Since there is no willingness to make a joint fair deal we can indulge ourselves for, climate agreement has now been turned on its head. “Bottom up” is the new slogan for negotiations.
Instead of finding out what needs to and allocate effort, has climate agreement ended up as a global cost-sharing for countries that come with promises of emission reductions.
The rich countries
When climate agreement does not constitute a common binding agreement that benefits the effort, it means that poor countries lose, while the rich countries win. An internal memo from the coalition of African countries describe their image of the rich countries: The developed countries’ jobs to downgrade the global climate architecture in the kingdom favor. “
The good news is that over 190 countries have come with promises. The bad news is that the promises do not provide any solution to the climate crisis. Although everyone keeps their promises, we constantly get up to 3.7 degrees global warming.
It is hotter than it has been for millions of years, and about the same temperature difference between the ice age and today. This small temperature difference was large enough to cover Norway with kilometer thick layer of ice. 3.7 degree warming could mean the collapse of communities and ecosystems across much of the Earth. It can judge the Amazon rainforest to death, give tremendous rise in sea level, making large areas so hot that they are uninhabitable, give gigantic feedback effects (such as methane emissions from the thawing tundra) and provide an infinite amount of unforeseen consequences.
Optimistic assumption
The most frightening thing is that 3.7 degrees warming is based on an optimistic assumption: that all countries do exactly as they have promised. The hope is that countries will take on even greater obligations later, and cut more emissions in the future.
If we take this even more optimistic assumption, we may manage 2.7 degree warming – increasing far warmer than any climate scientist will call safely. For poor countries there is a desperate situation. We have plundered the planet for fossil energy that has been stored for millions of years. Most of this heritage has squandered over the last few decades. Developing countries received barely join the party, and now they are told to live a little healthier and more frugal of admonishing wealthy countries with confetti in their hair.
Norway is an extreme case. There are few who have been so eager to clear fossil reserves like us.
Just as work began with an international climate agreement, Norway launched a complete deregulation of oil recovery. In addition, we invest big money in the most climate damaging fossil projects abroad, as tar sands in Canada.
Cuts emissions
Unlike our neighboring countries Denmark and Sweden, which have cut greenhouse gas emissions their sharply over the last 25 years, we have increased our. We have cut some greenhouse gases that were easy to get rid of, while we have made CO2 emissions increase by 25 percent.
The reason that emissions have gone up in Norway, is essentially oil recovery spring. Emissions from the oil industry have increased by over 90 percent since 1990. The other main source is transport. Emissions from Norwegian cars, planes and other vehicles has increased by over 30 percent. These sources account for over half of Norwegian greenhouse gas emissions. While helping the oil industry to enormous greenhouse gas emissions abroad. Johan Sverdrup field, which was opened in summer, contained as much CO2 emissions in the form of oil and gas as 18 years of Norway’s greenhouse gas emissions.
The idea of the big international solution that should come from above, has been a clammy hand over Norwegian climate policy.
Every time someone has hinted ahead as to reduce oil production, driving and air travel, we have been told that soon there will be a new international agreement that we must wait for, or that this will solved by paying other countries to cut emissions. There is no doubt that Norway has “played an active role” in the international climate change agreement. The main goal has been to our secure us to redeem us from our own emissions, and avoid doing anything with our own pollution.
This policy has been criticized by the environmental movement, but also from our own Prime Minister. Erna Solberg stood for election to reinforce the bipartisan climate compromise in the Parliament, where parties agreed to cut greenhouse gas emissions in Norway. Erna was tired of the coalition disclaimers. On the Conservative national convention in 2014 told Erna Solberg what she thought of the coalition use of unsafe carbon credits from UN: “[they] do not remove one gram Norwegian CO? Emissions, and there is a climate pledge on the cheap.”
Erna turned
After only two years, Erna flipped: This year, she suggested to use over a quarter of a billion in just ‘climate lift on the cheap “- much more than Labour had proposed – and recently she acknowledged that government will hardly be able to meet the climate compromise that she would strengthen. Thus creeps Erna to the same false solution which she criticized last year: Norway is to use oil money to get other countries to cut emissions.
If quotas had only been “climate lift on the cheap”, we had at least made a good deal . Unfortunately, there is reason to believe that large parts of the UN quotas does not even contribute to climate cuts. Thus, it is not just a worrisome politics – it’s a waste of money. If Erna will make dubious bargains abroad, I have a deed to the Eiffel Tower she can get at a very competitive price. It may seem strange that Norway will spend hundreds of millions on this, but measures seem primarily to be a domestic political investment. As long as we can show to international agreements, quota markets and cheap-emission cuts made in China , we can continue to improve oil recovery, driving and flying, and reject those who would do something so expensive and stupid as to cause a real climate policy.
While the international community has given up a real solution from the top down, the Norwegian politicians become so dependent on climate cuts abroad that they have turned up the rhetoric. Erna Solberg speaks warmly about a “global carbon price,” which also will come falling down from the sky.
Even Este Statoil also speaks warmly about this carbon price. It is not so surprising, since a price on carbon is totally unrealistic, and thus little threatening for Norway’s largest producer of CO2. To wait for a global carbon price is about as optimistic as to drop and invest in defense because we are waiting for a global ban on war.
No ready-solution
The most important thing we can learn from this climate summit is that we can no longer wait for someone else to cut emissions for us. There is no ready-solution from above. We need to make changes themselves.
Norway must slimmers, we are deadly obese and gluttonous in our own children’s expense. It is not enough to just do as the government recommends – eating a carrot after swallowed three bags crisps. It does not help to build a railway if building a major highway next. We have to make priorities.
Many people will dismiss this as “symbolic politics”. But when we can no longer hope for a global effective deal, the world needs desperately just leader, showing that a welfare state that Norway can exist in more than one generation. We have yet to prove. Meanwhile, we have good experience with conducting climate work this way – from major Norwegian cities.
Hamar, not Hong Kong
In Oslo Right, the Christian Democrats and Left already helped make the city a green pioneer in several areas. The new city council with MDG, Labor and SV have made headlines around the world, from China to Canada, to increase the ambitions even more. While world leaders arguing in the main hall in Paris, meet large cities to more peaceful gatherings on the sidelines, to exchange experiences and inspire each other to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Unlike nations, not competing cities with each other. But it does not make calls unimportant. Already live over half the world’s population lives in cities. The government can learn from the big cities if we want to play an important role in future climate summits – not by trying to find new ways to redeem us, but by showing off what we have accomplished. Norway is perhaps better equipped for this than some other countries. We are a safe, well educated rich country with large amounts of capital to invest. And we have made major changes before.
When climate fight will take place from the bottom up, it is easy to see how climate solutions must come: down here, not up there. Here at home, not there. In Hamar, not in Hong Kong. But first, of course Norway get a real climate policy.
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