6 ms·

Oil firms forced to consider climate effects of new drilling, rules Norway court

51 points by bo0tzz 3y ago

londons_explore 3y ago
[flagged]
- theappsecguy 3y ago
  We also like making sure there’s sufficient energy to power the world.
  - henriquez 3y ago
    How dare you. We should go back to pre-Industrial Revolution levels of carbon output because mass starvation is a great ideal, also cheaper than Ozempic.
    - MSFT_Edging 3y ago
      The world's carbon output is multiple times higher than it was in the 90s. We keep getting exponentially worse each year so we can have cheap flat screen tvs and email jobs.
      - henriquez 3y ago
        The solution is to virtue signal by restricting Western countries’ output while allowing our manufacturing partners in Asia and third world countries to run roughshod over the environment. /s If climate was actually a priority for anyone in power in the U.S.A. or Europe they would embargo countries that don’t meet emissions standards. All this stuff about shifting blame on to individual consumers is eco theater and equivalent to the TSA taking your toothpaste.
        bee_rider 3y ago
        Some sort of carbon tax with sanctions/embargo against countries that don’t implement the carbon tax seems like it would be the serious response. Some burning of fossil fuels might be necessary, but we shouldn’t perturb the market by allowing companies to externalize their environmental costs on the rest of the planet.
  - londons_explore 3y ago
    Lets be honest, if humans were to put Manhattan project levels of effort in, we could decarbonize everything in a year. Turns out no country wants to put all that effort in when the alternative is using 'free' oil from underground.
    - RandomLensman 3y ago
      Doubtful. Replacing everything part running on fossil fuels within a year, including the infrastructure, is probably just not feasible.
    - Workaccount2 3y ago
      Nobody wants to sacrifice. That's why nothing is changing. The masses have this delusional view that we could decarbonize in such a way that only billionaires feel the squeeze, and their lives improve while also becoming carbon free. If we want rapid change, we have to be willing to make enormous personal sacrifice.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
tomp 3y ago
How weird. Putting all responsibility on the seller. Why not "car owners should consider climate effects of pumping the car with gas" "shoppers should consider climate effects of buying food in a grocery store"
- otikik 3y ago
  Is that so weird? I do all those things that you are quoting.
  - melling 3y ago
    Look up the best selling cars in America. We buy big cars and trucks. Lots of them!
  - henriquez 3y ago
    It’s the science religion’s concept of Original Sin. Everything you do requires penance.
    - otikik 3y ago
      That's one way to look at it. I prefer to think of it as "everything that I do requires me thinking about the consequences". I can see how that can feel like "penance" for someone not used to do it. It's not that bad. It's less difficult than going to the gym.
- rcMgD2BwE72F 3y ago
  >Putting all responsibility on the seller. It's a share responsibility. If the seller is domestic (under local laws), they're responsible and can't sell if sales doesn't follow climate change regulations. But if seller is foreign (not under local laws), then buyer can be help responsible. It's a transaction so both parties should be responsible.
- plastic3169 3y ago
  Haven’t we all done our carbon footprint calculations for 20 years since oil company BP popularized the term[1]? The idea is exactly to diffuse the responsibility to tiny units so that no one is actually doing enough harm to really matter. Handful of companies are doing the producing side of the equation and it’s so much easier to do meaningful actions in that side. Problem is that we really do need oil so it’s easier said than done. [1] https://mashable.com/feature/carbon-footprint-pr-campaign-sham https://mashable.com/feature/carbon-footprint-pr-campaign-sh...
Kon-Peki 3y ago
Call it environmentalism if you like, but there is a strategic advantage to leaving more of it in the ground, ready to be pulled up later on as the need arises. Norway doesn't need the money from additional drilling right now. They might need the money later. Or NATO may need the oil directly later...
- happytiger 3y ago
  My first thought was your last statement. Absolutely spot on Also, oil is pretty good at powering engines but utterly essential for making things. Rotating machinery, linear machinery, turbine oil for wind farms, dielectric oil used in transformers and other HV electronics, cooling oil, cutting oil, gearboxes, almost all plastics, and hydraulics are all essentially oil based processes. The reason machinery can run for any significant length of time? It’s almost always oil. If it moves, it likely has oil in it. People really only think of it as a fuel for vehicles, but it is so very, very much more important for its other roles. As potent as it is for a fuel, we should be focused on not burning it as it’s essential for civilization in ways people do not broadly realize yet.
  - robertlagrant 3y ago
    Burning it in search of its replacements is a decent idea as well, though.
    - rtkwe 3y ago
      We know the replacements for oil for energy, especially electrical demand, we're just unwilling to go through the social changes and costs to get there quickly. The US and Europe could have been on an entirely nuclear and renewable energy mix for electricity a decade ago if the social will had been there to force it but there's a lot of money in the existing industries to lobby against that.
      - robertlagrant 3y ago
        Well, there's a lot of lobbying from Greenpeace that's set nuclear back a few decades. It's not just industry.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
zidel 3y ago
The requirement is for the government to produce an impact statement (including carbon emissions in foreign countries and emissions from e.g. combustion) as part of the plan for development and operations that is presented to parliament for approval. This follows from the Supreme Court decision in 2020. There is also a temporary injunction on further developments and decisions related to these three oil fields until the validity of the plan has been decided. The District Court ruling was appealed by the government yesterday. Edit: Machine translated judgement: https://www.greenpeace.org/static/planet4-sweden-stateless/2024/01/daf4fe59-oslo-tingretts-dom-og-kjennelse-18.01.2024-deepl-en.pdf https://www.greenpeace.org/static/planet4-sweden-stateless/2... Court documents (mostly in Norwegian, some witness presentations in English): https://www.greenpeace.org/norway/dokumenter-fra-oslo-tingrett/ https://www.greenpeace.org/norway/dokumenter-fra-oslo-tingre...
- slashdev 3y ago
  One of the richest countries is considering leaving oil, and by association, money in the ground. If only they could make a deal with Canada to swap these oil fields for leaving tar sands in the ground, that would be even better. Lots of countries are going to have to make this selfless decision if we're going to get a handle on climate change. I don't want to guess what the odds of that are. Technology is probably still our best hope.
  - sfn42 3y ago
    It's bullshit. Us(Norway) not pumping oil doesn't change anything. The problem isn't pumping, the problem is burning. We need to reduce the demand, not the supply. Reducing supply from Norway just causes other suppliers to scale up and the end result is exactly the same. Until they run out and we pump up this oil anyway because the world needs oil and nobody's addressing that part of the problem.
    - doktrin 3y ago
      Yeah but pointless performative self sacrifice is kind of our thing.
daedrdev 3y ago
These rules mainly encourage imports of oil from counties with less strict regulations, who are often less reliable partners as we have seen in recent times. Somehow farming is important enough to require protectionism (despite having large greenhouse gas emissions) but not energy.
thih9 3y ago
How come Norway, literally "the world's largest producer of oil and natural gas outside of the Middle East" [1], responsible for over exploitation of fisheries, is also a pioneer in enforcing rules like these. I'm not complaining, I just find it unexpected, perhaps I'm missing something. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norway https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norway

51 points by bo0tzz 3y ago

londons_explore 3y ago

[flagged]

theappsecguy 3y ago
We also like making sure there’s sufficient energy to power the world.
- henriquez 3y ago
  How dare you. We should go back to pre-Industrial Revolution levels of carbon output because mass starvation is a great ideal, also cheaper than Ozempic.
  - MSFT_Edging 3y ago
    The world's carbon output is multiple times higher than it was in the 90s. We keep getting exponentially worse each year so we can have cheap flat screen tvs and email jobs.
    - henriquez 3y ago
      The solution is to virtue signal by restricting Western countries’ output while allowing our manufacturing partners in Asia and third world countries to run roughshod over the environment. /s If climate was actually a priority for anyone in power in the U.S.A. or Europe they would embargo countries that don’t meet emissions standards. All this stuff about shifting blame on to individual consumers is eco theater and equivalent to the TSA taking your toothpaste.
      - bee_rider 3y ago
        Some sort of carbon tax with sanctions/embargo against countries that don’t implement the carbon tax seems like it would be the serious response. Some burning of fossil fuels might be necessary, but we shouldn’t perturb the market by allowing companies to externalize their environmental costs on the rest of the planet.
- londons_explore 3y ago
  Lets be honest, if humans were to put Manhattan project levels of effort in, we could decarbonize everything in a year. Turns out no country wants to put all that effort in when the alternative is using 'free' oil from underground.
  - RandomLensman 3y ago
    Doubtful. Replacing everything part running on fossil fuels within a year, including the infrastructure, is probably just not feasible.
  - Workaccount2 3y ago
    Nobody wants to sacrifice. That's why nothing is changing. The masses have this delusional view that we could decarbonize in such a way that only billionaires feel the squeeze, and their lives improve while also becoming carbon free. If we want rapid change, we have to be willing to make enormous personal sacrifice.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

tomp 3y ago

How weird. Putting all responsibility on the seller. Why not "car owners should consider climate effects of pumping the car with gas" "shoppers should consider climate effects of buying food in a grocery store"

otikik 3y ago
Is that so weird? I do all those things that you are quoting.
- melling 3y ago
  Look up the best selling cars in America. We buy big cars and trucks. Lots of them!
- henriquez 3y ago
  It’s the science religion’s concept of Original Sin. Everything you do requires penance.
  - otikik 3y ago
    That's one way to look at it. I prefer to think of it as "everything that I do requires me thinking about the consequences". I can see how that can feel like "penance" for someone not used to do it. It's not that bad. It's less difficult than going to the gym.
rcMgD2BwE72F 3y ago
>Putting all responsibility on the seller. It's a share responsibility. If the seller is domestic (under local laws), they're responsible and can't sell if sales doesn't follow climate change regulations. But if seller is foreign (not under local laws), then buyer can be help responsible. It's a transaction so both parties should be responsible.
plastic3169 3y ago
Haven’t we all done our carbon footprint calculations for 20 years since oil company BP popularized the term[1]? The idea is exactly to diffuse the responsibility to tiny units so that no one is actually doing enough harm to really matter. Handful of companies are doing the producing side of the equation and it’s so much easier to do meaningful actions in that side. Problem is that we really do need oil so it’s easier said than done. [1] https://mashable.com/feature/carbon-footprint-pr-campaign-sham https://mashable.com/feature/carbon-footprint-pr-campaign-sh...

Kon-Peki 3y ago

Call it environmentalism if you like, but there is a strategic advantage to leaving more of it in the ground, ready to be pulled up later on as the need arises. Norway doesn't need the money from additional drilling right now. They might need the money later. Or NATO may need the oil directly later...

happytiger 3y ago
My first thought was your last statement. Absolutely spot on Also, oil is pretty good at powering engines but utterly essential for making things. Rotating machinery, linear machinery, turbine oil for wind farms, dielectric oil used in transformers and other HV electronics, cooling oil, cutting oil, gearboxes, almost all plastics, and hydraulics are all essentially oil based processes. The reason machinery can run for any significant length of time? It’s almost always oil. If it moves, it likely has oil in it. People really only think of it as a fuel for vehicles, but it is so very, very much more important for its other roles. As potent as it is for a fuel, we should be focused on not burning it as it’s essential for civilization in ways people do not broadly realize yet.
- robertlagrant 3y ago
  Burning it in search of its replacements is a decent idea as well, though.
  - rtkwe 3y ago
    We know the replacements for oil for energy, especially electrical demand, we're just unwilling to go through the social changes and costs to get there quickly. The US and Europe could have been on an entirely nuclear and renewable energy mix for electricity a decade ago if the social will had been there to force it but there's a lot of money in the existing industries to lobby against that.
    - robertlagrant 3y ago
      Well, there's a lot of lobbying from Greenpeace that's set nuclear back a few decades. It's not just industry.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

zidel 3y ago

The requirement is for the government to produce an impact statement (including carbon emissions in foreign countries and emissions from e.g. combustion) as part of the plan for development and operations that is presented to parliament for approval. This follows from the Supreme Court decision in 2020. There is also a temporary injunction on further developments and decisions related to these three oil fields until the validity of the plan has been decided. The District Court ruling was appealed by the government yesterday. Edit: Machine translated judgement: https://www.greenpeace.org/static/planet4-sweden-stateless/2024/01/daf4fe59-oslo-tingretts-dom-og-kjennelse-18.01.2024-deepl-en.pdf https://www.greenpeace.org/static/planet4-sweden-stateless/2... Court documents (mostly in Norwegian, some witness presentations in English): https://www.greenpeace.org/norway/dokumenter-fra-oslo-tingrett/ https://www.greenpeace.org/norway/dokumenter-fra-oslo-tingre...

slashdev 3y ago
One of the richest countries is considering leaving oil, and by association, money in the ground. If only they could make a deal with Canada to swap these oil fields for leaving tar sands in the ground, that would be even better. Lots of countries are going to have to make this selfless decision if we're going to get a handle on climate change. I don't want to guess what the odds of that are. Technology is probably still our best hope.
- sfn42 3y ago
  It's bullshit. Us(Norway) not pumping oil doesn't change anything. The problem isn't pumping, the problem is burning. We need to reduce the demand, not the supply. Reducing supply from Norway just causes other suppliers to scale up and the end result is exactly the same. Until they run out and we pump up this oil anyway because the world needs oil and nobody's addressing that part of the problem.
  - doktrin 3y ago
    Yeah but pointless performative self sacrifice is kind of our thing.

daedrdev 3y ago

These rules mainly encourage imports of oil from counties with less strict regulations, who are often less reliable partners as we have seen in recent times. Somehow farming is important enough to require protectionism (despite having large greenhouse gas emissions) but not energy.

thih9 3y ago

How come Norway, literally "the world's largest producer of oil and natural gas outside of the Middle East" [1], responsible for over exploitation of fisheries, is also a pioneer in enforcing rules like these. I'm not complaining, I just find it unexpected, perhaps I'm missing something. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norway https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norway