Domestic consumption is tiny in Norway, not least of all because of their small population. They are something like 13th-14th largest in the world for exports, Saudi is about 10x larger at number 1. The planet doesnt care about per-capita, the sooner the environmental lobby figured this out the better, and I mean that sincerely.
Is Norway the New East India Company?
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Re: Is Norway the New East India Company?
#62This article is so quick to blame a national government when the problem is squarely on oil and gas companies. It's not like the oil and gas industries haven't lobbied for decades to cover up climate change evidence so that the world would remain dependent on them. They are the ones who ensure that the biggest polluting nations enact any kind of significant climate change reform.
If I am not mistaken the oil company in Norway - Statoil - is owned by the government. But I guess the argument regarding lobbying still holds.
The difference is that Norway is not replying to internal demand but external demand. They have reduced their own need for fossil fuels. The issue is that other countries are extremely dependent on fossil fuels due to before stated lobbying efforts. The bigger, wealthier countries do not take climate change seriously and continue to consume high amounts of fossil fuel. They need to reduce their dependence on fossil fuels.
Re: Is Norway the New East India Company?
#63Re: Is Norway the New East India Company?
#64Norway is a tiny country, they are largely irrelevant as far as their consumption habits go regarding climate change at large. They are not even a particularly large exporter of oil, outside of top 10 I think. The other countries mentioned are much bigger, not to mention that Nigeria is going to see massive population growth this century. You don't want a country that's projected to have 800 million people to get add…
Norway is the 13th biggest oil producer in the world, and outside the Middle East the 1st per capita. If you were looking for changes from the first world, you'd start there. I agree that non-first world countries are the where you'll see the most growth in oil consumption.
>Norway is the 13th biggest oil producer in the world
So, not in the top-10 even, exactly as the parent noted.
And even if they were in, say, fifth place, such a ranking would tell us nothing about their impact, without knowing the distribution. In a top-heavy distribution, for example, if the top 1 makes 10,000 tons and top 5 makes 100 tons for example, it would still be as if the fifth largest produce doesn't matter at all, impact-wise.
>and outside the Middle East the 1st per capita.
Why would "per capita" production have any relevance at all?
Re: Is Norway the New East India Company?
#65I think getting off of fossil fuels should be a worldwide priority, and expanding fossil fuel exploration is a bad way to spend our time and effort as a species. But I don't understand this line: > Moreover, the government has recently decided to expand exploration and production of gas and oil in one of the areas that the very same government acknowledges are most sensitive to climate change—the Arctic Circle. My un…
Others have pointed out the ecological reasons. It’s also a sizable chunk of oil and gas that’s currently not very well developed. Once the infrastructure of arctic extraction is built up, the marginal costs of extraction would likely decrease making it easier to extract more oil from the region and consequently harder to keep the carbon in the ground. It’s easier to block new extraction than to shut down an existing development that has jobs and investment dollars committed to it.
Re: Is Norway the New East India Company?
#66Norway is perhaps the best run petro state in the history of the world. To avoid Dutch Disease, whereby an economy becomes dependent on a particular commodity, Norway long ago decided to invest its considerable oil wealth in assets located outside of Norway, building a massive sovereign wealth fund that will provide income to Norwegians long after the oil is all gone. Compare this situation to Nigeria, whose similarl…
To accurately compare Norway and Nigeria would require broadening the scope of the history you're providing.
Re: Is Norway the New East India Company?
#67The United States is the world's largest producer. Canada is about fourth. Norway is about 11th. The United Kingdom is about 17th. The "Western world" accounts for a bit over 25% of the world's total production. If they all banded together to stop domestic oil production, that could have a big impact. But maybe other countries would just increase production? And maybe higher prices would spur more exploration? I don'…
How would you cope with food prices rising 10x in cost ? And the famines ? And the breakdown of law and order accompanied with the failure of most industry and the military. ? Please propose a solution along with your oil-ban utopia.
It's not a proposal, it's a thought exercise.
But nobody's actually talking about a 100% ban. They're talking about incentives so that people choose an electric car when they buy a new one. And some higher taxes on the use of fossil fuels. And maybe eventually banning new fossil fuel-powered passenger vehicles.
If it's anything like Australia, the agricultural industry would be exempt from such taxes. And presumably countries won't tax their own militaries.
Whether that's sufficient, I don't know. But it seems like a multilateral agreement, including the US, on both supply and demand side, is the most likely to happen and also have a substantial impact.
Re: Is Norway the New East India Company?
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's also a non sequitur. The Arctic Circle being "most sensitive to climate change", doesn't mean drilling for gas and oil in the Article Circle is a cause or any significant factor to this sensitivity (over drilling anywhere else). In other words: (1) oil and gas can cause/contribute to climate change (2) The Article Circle might be most sensitive to climate change (3) Drilling for gas and oil and thus increasing p…
That’s sort of true. The point was imprecise, but the Arctic is also sensitive to oil spills and is dangerous to operate in.
Yes, that kind of impact it can very well have.
But not a "climate change" related one that's tied to the drilling area (for that only the increased consumption would matter, which would happen elsewhere).
Re: Is Norway the New East India Company?
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
That’s sort of true. The point was imprecise, but the Arctic is also sensitive to oil spills and is dangerous to operate in.
Yes, that kind of impact it can very well have. But not a "climate change" related one that's tied to the drilling area (for that only the increased consumption would matter, which would happen elsewhere).
Increased supply creates its own demand (via reduced prices).
Re: Is Norway the New East India Company?
#70The United States is the world's largest producer. Canada is about fourth. Norway is about 11th. The United Kingdom is about 17th. The "Western world" accounts for a bit over 25% of the world's total production. If they all banded together to stop domestic oil production, that could have a big impact. But maybe other countries would just increase production? And maybe higher prices would spur more exploration? I don'…
From a game theoretic perspective - fossil fuels will be depleted. Even if the US reduced its consumption to zero, other countries, as independent players that want to maximize their benefit will be glad to take over and enjoy the effects of reduced demand and price.
This means that there are two ways to deal with it:
1. Force all countries to reduce use. To make this really worldwide, this can only worked by force, economical or military (i.e. a world cop). Unfortunately, even if we had that, it is not a stable solution since the short term benefits of using these fuels create constant political pressure.
2. Mitigate the emissions, for example by carbon sequestration. I'm a strong believer in technological progress and our ability to reduce the cost exponentially, the tricky part is to make profitable at any cost.
3. Direct the limited fossil fuel supplies towards economical uses that do not have the same negative impact. For example, by encouraging consumption of more plastics. Plastics essentially trap the carbon in the oil into a very stable form, essentially sequestering the carbon in the oil without first going into the atmosphere.