Beyond Oil: The Norwegian Paradox
Welcome to this open breakfast meeting on the Norwegian paradox. The meeting is part of the Beyond Oil: Changing Climate Futures conference.
Norway is celebrated as a global leader in climate action — yet its economy is deeply rooted in oil and gas. Can a country built on fossil fuel wealth truly lead the green transition?
In this breakfast meeting, we unpack the paradox at the heart of Norway’s identity. Swedish journalist Lisa Röstlund, author of The Norway Paradox - An Investigation of the Good Country’s Dark Side, investigates the environmental trade-offs behind Norway’s oil industry — from deep-sea mining to wind power, green salmon farming, climate offsets, and carbon capture.
We’re also joined by Devyn Remme, PhD candidate at the Centre for Climate and Energy Transformation (UiB), who explores the hidden costs of the Nordic electric vehicle revolution. Her research traces the global value chains of lithium-ion batteries — revealing the social and ecological impacts behind the clean energy narrative.
The moderator for this session is Julie Forchhammer. She is co-founder of Klimakultur, a Norwegian non-profit that works to create knowledge and community around the big issues of our time: the climate, nature and justice crises.
This event is open for everyone, no registration necessary. The event is par of the Beyond Oil conference.
Beyond Oil: Changing Climate Futures
Is the world inevitably moving beyond oil?
We are confronted by ecological degradation, social fragmentation, and climate change. Moving beyond oil entails transforming our resource-driven economy, consumer society, and relationship with capital. This moment of change presents an opportunity to rebuild the economy, society, and the world in more sustainable, convivial and equitable ways. Imagining and enacting alternative climate futures is a key element in moving society beyond oil.
Since 2015, the Centre for Climate and Energy Transformation’s biennial Beyond Oil conference has broadened and pluralised understanding of societal futures beyond oil, championing engagement with climate and energy futures. Research at this critical juncture of transition as we shoot past 1.5˚C global warming is pivotal towards redefining and identifying scope for the change in trajectory we so urgently need. How can society move beyond oil? What futures can be made feasible by whom? What societal, political, and economic effects are held in the grasp of possible climate futures? For our 10th anniversary, we invite social scientists and humanists to jointly grapple with these foundational ethical, ontological, and epistemic questions of our time.
Join us in a collective reckoning of the present, informed by the past, and intent on shaping transformative climate and energy futures.