No applause for Norway’s ‘double standards’ on climate and nature
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Loading... - Barrios Derise
- 24 Mar 2023
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On the day after flying home from his latest UN summit on climate and nature preservation, Norway’s government minister in charge of climate and the environment ordered the shooting of 21 more wolves. Last week he overturned state regulators’ ban on construction of a new motorway through a nature reserve near Lillehammer. Climate and environmental advocates are furious, and warning more civil disobedience to protest what they call the Norwegian government’s ongoing “nature-unfriendly double standards.”
The man now targeted is Espen Barth Eide, a veteran politician for the Labour Party who has served as defense- and foreign minister in earlier Labour-led governments. Since the fall of 2021, when Labour formed a now-troubled minority coalition with the Center Party, Eide has served as its climate- and environment minister. He traveled the globe last year attending and speaking at various high-level gatherings aimed at cutting carbon emissions, protecting the environment and, most recently in Montreal, reaching an international agreement on preserving 30 percent of the world’s nature.
Eide was among those praising the agreement, and taking part in another standing ovation for it after lengthy negotiations just before the Christmas holidays. The problem is that Norway, which for years has paid other countries to cut carbon emissions to help offset those from its own oil and gas industry, isn’t applying the 30 percent rule to itself. Despite all the platitudes in Montreal and at other UN summits last year, Norway won’t be practicing at home what it preaches abroad. Read More…
