Norway's ruling parties delay oil sands vote

Norway’s center-left government effectively delayed a parliamentary vote on Monday on whether majority state-owned oil and gas producer StatoilHydro should withdraw from a $2 billion Canadian oil sands venture.

The oil sands issue has put the government in a bind four months before a general election, with political opponents saying state support for the oil sands project was hypocritical given the cabinet’s self-professed environmental ambitions.
Affluent Norway — the world’s No. 6 oil exporter and third biggest gas exporter — likes to see itself as a champion of green policies and the government even plans to make the country carbon-neutral by 2050.

It is hard to square such ambitions with activist views that producing oil from tar sands damages the environment and produces large amounts of carbon dioxide emissions.

Reuters