Backbone campaign, April 2015..Wikicommons/Charles Conatzer & the sHellNo! Action Council. Some rights reserved.The prominent climate scientist
James Hansen, who comes to Norway on Tuesday, has called climate change a
“planetary emergency.” This description reflects the consensus in climate
science. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has concluded
that global warming of over two degrees Celsius compared with pre-industrial
levels will lead to a high risk of triggering mass species extinction,
widespread ecosystem collapse, and the destruction of the livelihoods of
hundreds of millions of people. Fossil fuel investments and existing
decision-making processes are currently steering us towards a world that will
be at least four degrees warmer by 2100.

Such an extreme scenario has
direct relevance for Norway’s plans for oil extraction in the Arctic. The
Norwegian government recently opened 57 new ‘blocks’ of petroleum exploration
acreage in waters that stretch to the edge of the Arctic sea ice in a process
known as the ‘23rd licensing round.’ In February 2016, these blocks
will, in all probability, be allocated to operators that have applied for
exploration permits in the Barents Sea.

This is business-as-usual for
Norwegian petroleum policy. But since 1994 – the last time new blocks for
exploration were opened in entirely new areas on the Norwegian continental
shelf – we have gained far better knowledge about the climate. We now know that
at least 70 per cent of the world’s remaining fossil fuel reserves must stay in
the ground if we are to have a 50 per cent chance of keeping within the
two-degree limit.

Which reserves should be left in
the ground – and where? Common limits for fossil fuel extraction are unlikely
to be allocated and regulated through international law for the foreseeable
future. But existing legislation at national level can contribute to clarifying
where the lines should be drawn. A recent academic
article by law professors Beate Sjåfjell and Anita
Margrethe Halvorssen concludes that oil extraction in the Arctic – the area in
the world where petroleum activities will have the worst environmental and human
rights-related consequences, and contribute most to climate change – violates
the Norwegian Constitution.

We support their assessment.
According to the Norwegian Constitution’s Article 112, the state has an
obligation to take measures to guarantee citizens’ rights to a secure climate,
including for our descendants. For a number of years, we have been told that
oil is, in fact, such a measure: a bridge from coal on the road to a
zero-emissions world. This is, at best, fanciful thinking and, at worst,
deliberate disinformation. Oil’s political alchemists, including
Prime Minister Erna Solberg and opposition Labour leader Jonas Gahr Støre, tell
us that Norwegian oil and gas can replace more damaging coal in world energy
markets and thus provide a positive net effect. However, they cannot
substantiate this claim. A 2013 report from
Statistics Norway, the country’s central statistics bureau,
shows, on the contrary, that the most cost-effective way to reduce emissions is
“with supply side measures, that is, reduced oil extraction.”

Today’s aggressive oil policy
lacks an empirical basis. Sjåfjell and Halvorssen also show that the
consequences of the 23rd licensing round have not been properly assessed, and
that citizens have therefore not received the information to which they are
entitled. The Constitution gives citizens the right to information about “the
effects of any encroachment on nature that is planned or carried out,” and thus
the state’s deficient analysis of and information on the climate-related
consequences of oil extraction in the Arctic is itself a breach of the
Constitution.

Norway is not alone in following
an extraction trajectory that threatens civilisation. A long list of states and
actors are jostling for position in the race for the remainder of the world’s
fossil fuel reserves. So far, states have made promises on emissions reductions
from 2020 that, according to a study
conducted by MIT, can only limit global warming to 3.5
degrees. This is two degrees over the level James Hansen and many climate
scientists consider safe. To what extent the pledges made at the coming Paris
climate summit will be delivered on in practice also remains highly
uncertain.  

The international community’s
relative lawlessness when it comes to climate change does not give us a blank
cheque to pursue an ‘anything goes’ policy on the Norwegian continental shelf.
Norway’s domestic emissions are relatively low but, as an oil and gas exporter,
we are the source of around 1.5 per cent of the annual CO2 increase from fossil
fuels in the atmosphere. The giant Johan Sverdrup field alone will lead to
nearly 800 million tonnes of CO2 emissions. Extraction in the Arctic
is further indefensible because it will only be profitable with high oil demand
– that is, in a world without effective climate policy. The twenty-third licensing round is based on the assumption that the international community
will fail to observe the two-degree limit. 

When the state makes long-term
plans on the Norwegian continental shelf that to such a great extent sabotage
Norway’s broader climate targets, it runs roughshod over the limits laid down
in the Constitution and violates our most basic rights. It is therefore
necessary to turn to the courts for protection. A range of Norwegian
organisations and individuals have begun exploring a possible climate civil action against
the Norwegian state. The newly-formed Article 112
Association is now gathering support to prepare a lawsuit. 

Similar initiatives are spreading
across the globe. In June, the Dutch foundation Urgenda had its claim upheld in
court and the Dutch government was ordered to reduce its emissions. Two weeks
ago, a court in Pakistan declared that the state must enforce its own climate
targets after a suit launched by a farmer. Climate lawsuits are planned in
Belgium and Australia, and Our Children’s Trust in the USA is using state law
to limit emissions that are not regulated by federal authorities. Climate
scientist James Hansen is a key player in this work and has also declared he is
willing to appear as an expert witness in the action being prepared in Norway.   

Climate harms are caused by
cumulative emissions, and the responsibility is shared between innumerable
actors and individuals. But the consequences of the coming decades’ priorities
alone, in Norway and across the globe, can be more destructive than any other
wrong committed in human history. The Arctic must be protected as our shared frontline
in the climate struggle. If the Norwegian parliament does not cancel the 23rd
licensing round, a climate lawsuit with broad popular support will be an
important part of a necessary project: to write the beginning of the end of the
fairytale of unrestricted oil extraction in Norway.

You
can sign the petition ‘Stop unconstitutional oil drilling in the Arctic!’ at http://112aksjonen.no/english.

2,500 signatories upwards include authors Karl Ove Knausgård and Jostein Gaarder, musicians like Susanne Sundfør, and a series of high profile Norwegian academics, environmentalists and cultural figures.

This
article is an English translation based on an article published in the Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet.