You know the country with constantly happy people who are always outdoors hiking, skiing, fishing, or climbing a mountain? The country of fjords and astonishing nature? Yeah, you know what we mean: NORWAY!
Norway is a part of Scandinavia, it’s the area’s largest maritime nation, and hosts the Nobel Peace Prize. So you’d think they’d do anything to protect their nature and the future of humanity, right? Well. Nope. NoWay is Norway doing enough. Here are just five of the ways that they’re failing us.
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Less than 1% of their coastal areas are protected
Norway promised to protect 10% of its coastal areas (in line with scientific recommendations) by 2020, as a part of the “Paris Agreement for Biodiversity”. And, have they fulfilled it? Surprise: they’ve protected less than 1% of their marine and coastal waters. And since they signed this treaty in 2010 it seems very unlikely that they’ll be able to protect the rest in the next two months.
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They’re pushing against a Global Ocean Treaty
It is extremely important that we protect the world’s oceans with a strong Global Ocean Treaty covering at least 30% of all the world’s oceans with a network of Ocean Sanctuaries. Surely Norway and its nature-loving government will prioritise it, since they know we will never be able to stop climate change if don’t?
What do you mean, Norway is one of the governments trying to water down any strong Global Ocean Treaty?! Oh.. so Norway doesn’t support setting a global target of protecting at least 30% of the oceans or any strict mechanisms for preventing oil drilling, seabed mining and overfishing from destroying parts of the ocean ?
Nope, Norway is just pretending to care!
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They’re pushing against all kinds of ocean protection
Instead of supporting a strong Global Ocean Treaty, Norway argues for continuing to manage our oceans in the way they are now – the way that has pushed them to the brink of collapse. Worse, when there have been possibilities to create protected areas, the Norwegian government has been using their power to block them: in 2016, Norway helped block the first protected area from being established in the Central Arctic Ocean. As recently as last year, Norway, together with Russia and China, was responsible for the failure to create the world’s largest ocean sanctuary in the Antarctic.
Yeah, Norway doesn’t have the best track record when it comes to protecting life in the oceans.
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They spend more on funding the oil industry than they do on protecting the ocean
Norway’s oil industry makes it the world’s 7th largest exporter of carbon emissions. In its latest state budget, Norway plans to spend €6.9 million next year on oil exploration, which is a small fraction of the total oil spend, but still 10 times more than the government spends on protecting the ocean. Now the Norwegian government wants to allow drilling for oil in the Arctic! We don’t need to tell you all the reasons that is a potential disaster. But there’s a lot.
Yep, that’s the sound of sea-life dying and the world failing to achieve the Paris Agreement. Thanks for the help, Norway!
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Their Prime Minister keeps making excuses
Norway’s Prime Minister, Erna Solberg, says that ocean protection doesn’t create the jobs we need. As you can tell, Erna Solberg has obviously not listened to all the scientists who agree that life in our oceans will die if large parts of the oceans are not protected from destructive activities. Dead seas are not great producers of jobs either, by the way.
Well, it seems like the Norwegian government needs to read up on the latest science. Maybe we can remind Erna Solberg that every second breath we take comes from the ocean. Even she must agree that being able to breathe is important?
After 7,5 million people have taken it to the streets to demand climate justice and more than 2 million people have demanded a strong Global Ocean Treaty, we would expect a big ocean nation like Norway to lead the way in giving the oceans the real protection they urgently need. Rather than letting oil companies dump their oil rigs at sea.
We don’t know about you, but we think the only thing that should be dumped right now is Norway’s ocean politics. If you agree, please sign here.
Fanny Jönsson is a communications specialist with Greenpeace Nordic