By Terje Solsvik and Gwladys Fouche<\/p>\n
OSLO, Aug 24 (Reuters) – Norway’s government on Monday asked the country’s supreme court to overturn a lower-court ruling that invalidated permits for three \u200coilfields, in a closely watched case that could reshape how the country approves new \u200cpetroleum projects.<\/p>\n
The case pits environmental groups against Norway’s oil industry, provider of half the country’s export revenue, as well as \u200bthe government whose policy is to prolong the extraction of crude and natural gas for decades to come.<\/p>\n
Two lower courts have ruled in favour of Greenpeace and Young Friends of the Earth since the two groups first brought the case to trial in 2023, finding that Norway failed to properly assess \u200cthe environmental impact from the three \u2060fields.<\/p>\n
“If we win this round, it could change Norwegian oil politics forever,” Haldis Tjeldflaat Helle, leader of Greenpeace Norway, told Reuters outside the court.<\/p>\n
“It means \u2060that Norwegian politicians will have to actually assess how many lives will be lost, how many forest fires will be created and how much ice will melt due to Norwegian oil.”<\/p>\n
The case concerns Equinor’s Breidablikk \u200band Aker \u200bBP’s Tyrving and Yggdrasil fields, of which the first \u200btwo are already in production while \u200cthe third is due to come on stream next year.<\/p>\n
The green campaigners argue that the government failed to consider the climate impact of the burning of the fields’ oil and gas, known as Scope 3 emissions, and that efforts to rectify this at a later stage were invalid.<\/p>\n
ENERGY SECURITY AT STAKE, GOVERNMENT SAYS<\/p>\n
But the lower courts have declined to order a halt to production while the \u200clegal process is ongoing, and have also suggested that \u200bthe government could seek to remedy regulatory shortcomings.<\/p>\n
“The government’s position \u200bis of course that the licences are \u200bvalid,” Fredrik Sejersted, Norway’s attorney general, told Reuters ahead of the hearing.<\/p>\n
“If \u200cthey should be overturned then it will \u200bbe quite complicated,” he said. “Legally, \u200bpolitically and for energy security in Europe.”<\/p>\n
Norway produces around 2% of global oil and became Europe’s largest supplier of natural gas after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, making \u200bit a crucial provider of \u200cenergy.<\/p>\n
The supreme court hearing is set to run for four days, and a verdict \u200bin the case is expected sometime later this year.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Terje Solsvik and Gwladys \u200bFouche; Editing by Stephen Coates and Louise Heavens)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Terje Solsvik and Gwladys Fouche OSLO, Aug 24 (Reuters) – Norway’s government on Monday asked the country’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":151896,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[85],"tags":[71549,1718,157,156,8618,70241],"class_list":["post-151895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oslo","tag-environmental-groups","tag-environmental-impact","tag-norway","tag-oslo","tag-supreme-court","tag-the-government"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/117154051981001534","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=151895"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151895\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/151896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=151895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=151895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=151895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}