More of the oil profits should go towards green investments

The Norwegians of the future are unlikely to wish that we had maximized the return on the Oil Fund so that our piggy bank was as large as possible. More likely, they will want to have had politicians who did everything in their power to halt the most dramatic impacts of climate change -- even if it went beyond their fortunes.

This consideration makes itself relevant in connection with the climate settlement recently passed in Parliament by Labour, Conservatives and Liberals.

Although the new climate target received the most attention, all parties except Frp agreed on a measure that probably matters more for world greenhouse gas emissions than all other Norwegian measures: an escalation of the Climate Investment Fund.

It is a Norwegian government fund that invests in low- and middle-income countries with the purpose of helping to reduce or avoid greenhouse gas emissions. The Climate Investment Fund's investments have in just three years helped to avoid 17.6 million tonnes of CO_{! 2} in emissions per year, equivalent to 40 percent of Norway's annual emissions. That includes building solar power plants in India and wind turbines in South Africa.

It is therefore gratifying that Parliament has agreed to an escalation. Norway should spend far more on climate finance. The shortage is huge.

A report from the Climate Policy Initiative estimates that roughly $1300 billion a year is needed to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement. That implies a multiplicity from the current level. Needs are particularly great in low- and middle-income countries, which already account for the bulk of emissions today.

Norway's debate over oil and gas has long been marked by an unfruitful dichotomy between develop or discontinue. It's a shame, all the while the history of Norwegian oil and gas is largely a success story. First, when the oil was discovered we decided that it should belong to the people and create growth and jobs in Norway. Then, a generation later we decided we needed a rule of action and an oil fund to avoid Dutch ill.

Now we need a third national compromise: if we are going to do oil and gas, and the realistic thing is that we are going to be doing it for a long time, then a bigger part of the super profits should go to investments in the green shift.

It's not the same as giving away money to good causes. It should be about brave investments in the direction we should be taking the world anyway.

Norway has a special moral responsibility for increased climate finance since our wealth comes from the sale of fossil energy, which is the driver of the climate crisis.

Besides, we are comparably enormously rich. At the latest in 2024, Norway became voted to the world's best country to live in. Only in 2023 increased market value to the Oil Fund, our unique money binge, with over NOK 3300 billion. This corresponds to over 60 Norwegian aid budgets.

Building on our vast wealth and historical responsibility for the world's greenhouse gas emissions, Norway's rightful share of climate finance has been computed to be about four times more than what we give today. It should be a minimum. After all, our 14 billion is less than a third of what we spending on subsidies for Norwegian electric car buyers.

We also have a significant self-interest in mitigating climate change.

It is not only about more frequent natural disasters, more extreme weather or greater refugee flows, but also purely economic: the oil fund makes us very vulnerable to a drastic fall in the world economy. In their own models, they estimate that if the world does not change course, around a fifth of the share values in the fund be lost.

It is not, of course, that Norway can solve the climate crisis on its own. We therefore need mutual international commitments.

At the same time, the climate crisis is not binary. The difference between two and three degrees of global warming is huge. Therefore, it can be of great value to do a little.

After all, we cannot continue with the pointing toy in climate policy. Or as Dag O. Hessen has put it: The greatest threat to the planet is the belief that someone else is going to save it.

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