Norway to cut its emissions by 40 percent

After the United Kingdom which pledged to cut its greenhouse gases emissions by 34 percent by 2020 and Japan by 25 percent, Norway is another country to pledge to drastic emissions cuts.

Meanwhile, the European Union still clings to cuts from 20 to 30 percent if other major emitters join them. It would be nice if our elected representatives increased their efforts on this most important matter.

More and more countries – including Brazil, China and India – are acting more on climate change. It’s time some richer nations follow their example and answer the call of endangered nations.

As James Kanter note on the Green Inc. blog from the New York Times :

This week, the Norwegian government said that by the end of the next decade, it would cut emissions as much as 40 percent from 1990 levels.

Norway would make the cut “if this can contribute to achieving an ambitious climate agreement where the major emission countries take on concrete emission obligations,” according to a statement from the governing coalition that was sent to Green Inc. by a spokesman for the environment ministry.

The Norwegian offer goes significantly beyond that made by the European Union, which has agreed to cut emissions 20 percent and could go to 30 percent.

But Norway is unique in some important ways when it comes to questions of climate policy and energy. It is a European country, but it stands outside of the European Union’s trade bloc.

Norway also is one of the world’s top oil exporters, but it puts the revenue into a centrally managed petroleum fund, which sets it apart from petro-states with spendthrift tendencies.

The result is that Norway can make more ambitious pledges than other nations, and then dig deep into its plentiful public savings to buy up larger amounts of international credits to offset its carbon footprint.