(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
As we all remember from the history lessons at school, the dinosaurs dominated the earth roughly until the Norwegian Vikings came and took over world domination. Bottom line, the Vikings killed the dinosaurs, but why?
Just as it was, the Vikings crept deep into the darkest forests to look for dinosaurs. When they finally spotted a Tyrannosaurus Rex behind a pine leg, they struck. From all sides the Vikings came running with spears and swords as they stuck into the beast. After the dinosaurs were killed, they were buried with large amounts of plants and tassels. The Vikings had found that if plant and animal remains were subjected to great pressure over millions of years, oil could eventually form. To further increase the pressure, the Vikings drained the North Sea over the burial sites.
Thanks to the hard work of many generations, the Norwegian people have thus earned their oil wealth. Therefore, there is no special moral responsibility attached to these savings, based on how they are earned. This view of history has so far formed the basis for Kristin Halvorsen's management of the Petroleum Fund, formally renamed the Government Pension Fund – Global.
The goal of the administration is to maximize the return, but without ugly scratches in Norway's good name and reputation. This was the main motivation that even Siv Jensen suddenly became a supporter of the removal of cluster bombs and nuclear weapons from the fund, following a series of scandal reveals in spring 2002. This all resulted in a set of ethical guidelines, which also says that the oil fund should "promote sustainability. development".
How will the fund, filled by a CO2 cannon, help to promote sustainable development? This is the difficult question Kristin Halvorsen leaves to moral philosopher Henrik Syse at Norges Bank. The magic key word here is active ownership. So far, the bank's work in this area has been far too slow. Syse will have good use of its eloquence unit in explaining how the bank gets a comprehensive impact for ethical considerations by voting at general meetings, when the fund owns about half a percent of the shares in each company.
Following this statement, the Minister of Finance must also provide some answers: Is the active exercise of ownership sufficient to conclude that the Petroleum Fund, all in all, promotes sustainable development, Kristin Halvorsen? You should immediately initiate a study of the possibilities of also using other, more effective instruments, such as positive filtering and theme-based investments in future-oriented, renewable energy, so that the fund can be purpose-integrated (see essay next page). Do not forget where the money comes from.
