Lofty Pledge to Cut Emissions Comes With Caveat in Norway

Last year, as United Nations scientists were warning of the perils of man-made climate change, this small country of fjords and factories reacted with an extraordinary pledge: by 2050 Norway would be “carbon neutral,” generating no net greenhouse gases into the air. Then, in January, the Norwegian government went a step further: Norway would be carbon neutral by 2030, it said.

But as the details of the plan have emerged, environmental groups and politicians — who applaud Norway’s impulse — say the feat relies too heavily on sleight-of-hand accounting and huge donations to environmental projects abroad, rather than meaningful emissions reductions.
That criticism has not only set off anguished soul-searching here, but may also come as a cold slap to the many countries, companies, cities and universities that have lined up to replicate Norway’s example of becoming carbon neutral — with an environmental balance sheet showing that they absorb as much carbon dioxide as they emit.

Many signed on not only to set an example of their own but also for a kind of public relations boon, or to pre-empt or get out ahead of government regulations they feel are probably inevitable. In the past year, the Vatican announced that it was carbon neutral, and companies like Wal-Mart say they are aiming for that goal.

But their claims — like Norway’s — all require asterisks, like home-run records buoyed by steroids. And as the Norwegian plan shows, achieving a carbon-neutral state, for now, often depends as much on how you make the calculation and how much money you spend, as it does on hard work, sacrifice or even innovation.

“We’re a nice little selfish country of petroholics, and that has made us lazy,” said Frederic Hauge, president of Bellona, Norway’s largest nongovernmental environmental organization. “The move from 2050 to 2030 is a sign of good intentions, but unless I see action, I’ve heard it all before.”

Despite its pledges, seen from the perspective of its smoke-spewing rigs producing billions of barrels of oil a year — Norway is the third largest exporter in the world — industrial Norway does not look like a poster child for environmental friendliness.

Climate Ark/NYT