Norway’s parliament voted Tuesday for a bill to allow deep-sea mining in the Arctic waters of the Norwegian Sea. The government has said it plans to move forward with mining of the seabed for minerals sustainably, requiring environmental studies before approving licenses. However, environmentalists have said this practice cannot be done without harming marine life. […]
By Dana Drugmand Norway’s Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled not to overturn the Norwegian government’s approval of new licenses for offshore oil drilling in the fragile Arctic region. The ruling – a culmination of four years of high-profile litigation in a case challenging continued fossil fuel production on climate change grounds — came as a […]
By Johnny Wood What better place to build a Doomsday Vault than the remote, snow-covered islands of Norway’s Arctic Svalbard? Sitting around 1,000 kilometers from the North Pole, the facility is buried in permafrost to protect the precious seed samples housed there. But a freak heatwave is causing the region’s ice to melt. Following several […]
When you want a seat on the UN Security Council, the last thing you need is a teenage activist, practiced at the art of shaming government officials, working against you. However, that’s just what Norway and Canada have. Canada, Norway and Ireland are vying for the two available seats on the UN Security Council. Enter […]
The Cherokee Nation will save seeds from the “three-sisters” crops in the Arctic “doomsday vault,” making it the first Native American tribe to ensure culturally emblematic crops will be preserved for the future, as The Guardian reported. Never before has a Native American tribe received an invitation to store heirloom seeds in the Svalbard Global […]
Norway has urged its companies that actively do business in Brazil to make sure that they are not contributing to destruction of the Amazon rainforest, as Reuters reported. Norway’s Climate and Environment Minister Ola Elvestuen discussed the Amazon fires with representatives of the oil firm Equinor, fertilizer-producer Yara, and aluminum producer Norsk Hydro. The Norwegian […]
By Sue Branford and Thais Borges Ola Elvestrun, Norway’s environment minister, announced Thursday that it is freezing its contributions to the Amazon Fund, and will no longer be transferring €300 million ($33.2 million) to Brazil. In a press release, the Norwegian embassy in Brazil stated: Given the present circumstances, Norway does not have either the […]
By Eoin Higgins Just over a decade after it first opened, the world’s “doomsday vault” of seeds is imperiled by climate change as the polar region where it’s located warms faster than any other area on the planet. The Svalbard Global Seed Vault, which opened in late February 2008, was built by the organization Crop […]
By Andy Rowell The beginning of the end of the age of oil moved a step closer Friday, with Norway’s government recommending that its $1 trillion wealth fund should divest from upstream oil and gas producers. The news that the world’s largest wealth fund, known as the Government Pension Fund Global (GPFG), which is highly […]