Energy revolution now!

Climate. At a time when rainforest conservation abroad is threatening to overshadow the need for rich countries like Norway to reduce their own greenhouse gas emissions, it is almost necessary to remind ourselves that the burning of oil, gas and coal is the main reason why the globe boils. Long before the climate crisis made its mark, we knew full well that these are fossil, non-renewable resources, which we must at some point make ourselves independent of. So you have been puzzling with some renewable energy there, and some energy economy here, while the renewable society remained science fiction. Even many decades later, with an acute climate crisis hanging over us, the big change of pace in the transition has not gone away. The seriousness is too great and the time is too scarce: It's time to revolutionize the way we produce and use energy.

It's all about choosing between fossil and renewable. Unfortunately, we still choose fossils at too many crossroads, here too at home. Today there are three unclean gas power plants in Norway, at Kårstø, Mongstad and Melkøya. It is technically possible to clean all these power plants within a few years, but at Mongstad the fate of the purification project is left to an unknown majority, and at Kårstø and Snøhvit, purification is entirely in the blue. Capture and storage of CO₂ is the bridge that can lead us safely to a renewable society, while reducing emissions sufficiently and quickly enough.

Also on the shelf and along the coast we still choose fossil rather than renewable. The rate of recovery on the shelf is constantly increasing in higher yields, through extensive allocations of new areas every single year. Not only do we facilitate emissions increases in Norway for many years to come, but we export enormous amounts of climate pollution to the rest of the world. This is despite the fact that we know that 75 percent of the remaining fossil fuels must remain in the ground, if the goal of preventing a warming of more than 2 degrees is to be avoided.

If the political will to limit the fossil industry is still too weak, one could at least hope that it was easier to focus on renewable energy. Not once. The development of wind power in this country is speeding. Soon Norway and Sweden will establish a common green certificate market, a rights-based market system to provide predictable frameworks and increased pace of development. The environmental movement has been working for such a market for years, and it seems that the wish is being fulfilled. Unfortunately, the market tends to be technology-neutral, and equals wind power and hydropower. The consequence is that we will be subsidizing already profitable, environmentally-friendly hydropower in Norway, instead of environmentally friendly wind power.

Some seem to think so that Norway does not need to develop renewable energy. After all, the Norwegian electricity grid contains essentially emissions-free hydropower. Unfortunately, this is hopelessly unhappy. Energy consumption in Norway consists of much more than just the electricity grid: The cars on the roads and the oil platforms on the shelf use huge amounts of energy, and this energy consumption is fossil. If we look at the entire Norwegian energy consumption, we find that about half of it is fossil. We must utilize the enormous wind potential that exists both onshore and offshore to electrify both the shelf and the fleet.

In 1789, the French demanded freedom, equality and brotherhood and beheaded the royal. In 1917, the Russians demanded peace, bread and land, and stormed the Winter Palace. The most important task of our time is to revolutionize the way we produce and use energy. Last week I spent with 180 youth from all over the country at the summer camp for Nature and Youth, who work on this task every day. Our winter palaces are each an oil field, each a gas power plant and each a highway. ■