OSLO - When Norway’s largest political party decided that the Lofoten Islands in the north should not be opened up to oil exploration, a chill ran down the spine of the energy industry.
“Climate comes before cash,” said Simon Sand, 16, demonstrating in front of Parliament during a recent climate protest inspired by Swedish teenage activist Gretha Thunberg. Indeed the youth wings of seven out of the nine parliamentary parties in Norway call to either restrict or to completely phase out petroleum activities, according to a Reuters review of the programs of the youth organizations.
“Every responsible government, on the left or on the right, will need to balance the budget and they will have to rely on revenues from oil and gas,” said Frode Alfheim, the leader of the top trade union for oil workers, Industri Energi. “It will be hard for us to provide enough for the oil companies in the next five years,” Egil Tjaaland, head of the Department of Geoscience and Petroleum at NTNU told Reuters.
“When Europe stops using oil and gas and switches to other energy sources, and that is happening very fast, it would affect us ... I’m really concerned that we will have high unemployment in 20 years if we don’t make that plan now.”Ada Johanna Arnstad, leader of the youth wing of the agrarian Centre Party, questioned how Norway could maintain high oil and gas output if countries met their carbon emissions reduction goals under the Paris climate accord, leading to falling demand for fossil fuels.
“Let’s face it, the increased pressure and higher expectations are not only coming from narrow political groupings, and activists, as they used to,” Equinor CEO Eldar Saetre told oil executives in Houston last month.
Yes there is, they don't want anything to do with us.
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