Svalbard offers Himalayan insight

India is increasingly interested in studying climate change in Norway’s far northern archipelago of Svalbard, which could help Indian scientists better understand changes in the Himalayas. India’s foreign minister Salman Khurshid visited Svalbard this week, enjoying his country’s fresh observer status on the Arctic Council. Along with Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide, Khurshid visited the main [...]

New call for royal rainforest help

King Harald’s recent visit to a village in the Amazon rainforest seems to have inspired more rainforest residents on the other side of the globe to seek royal support. They hope the Norwegian monarch will summon home one of his own subjects, a Norwegian businessman who plans a dam on Borneo that will destroy both [...]

King Harald visits the Amazon

Norway’s King Harald made a secret trip across the Atlantic last week to fulfill what he claimed was a long-held dream: Visiting a rainforest in the Amazon and living for a few days with the locals. The trip was arranged by the Norwegian government-backed fund that aims to offset the country’s own carbon emissions by [...]

Labour goes for the (black) gold

A weekend of hefty internal debate among delegates to the ruling Labour Party’s national meeting in Oslo ended with a majority going along with the party leadership’s plans to actively consider oil exploration and drilling off Lofoten, Vesterålen and Senja. The party’s youth organization AUF vowed to continue the fight against oil activity off the [...]

Spring chill blamed on warmer Arctic

As Norway woke up to yet another chilly, even frosty, morning on Monday, experts were linking this year’s unusually cold spring weather to melting ice in the Arctic. They blame another rise in Arctic temperatures last year, and ice that’s melting at a record pace in places like Svalbard. The sub-freezing weather that continued to [...]

Skiers shot polar bear on Svalbard

Two skiers with dogs said they felt forced to shoot a polar bear on Svalbard Thursday evening when it ran towards them while they were out trekking over a wide-open stretch of snow and ice. They viewed it as an attack, and shot the bear at close range. The shooting occurred at Isbukta, on the [...]

Polar bear shot during break-in

An overly curious and determined polar bear made the mistake of his life when he tried to break into a hytte (cabin) on Svalbard over the weekend. Attempts by the couple inside to scare off the bear failed, and they felt they had no choice but to shoot to kill. “They tried throwing lighted candles [...]

‘Let’s drill off Lofoten this year”

Oil and Energy Minister Ola Borten Moe now wants to open up waters off scenic Lofoten for oil drilling later this year, stirring up a heated debate among government allies, opposition politicians and members of his own Center Party. Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg of the Labour Party rejected Moe’s comments and said the area would [...]

South Pole expedition ends in court

An expedition to the South Pole led by one of Norway’s most famous adventurers, Børge Ousland, continued in an Oslo court this week, after Russian members of the trek sued Ousland claiming delays, deficient equipment and bad food. Financier Igor Grisjkov and his assistant Victor Bobok are demanding compensation after taking part in the expedition [...]

Climate deal OK’d, but disappoints

Government ministers from Norway and Brazil have managed to push through an extension of the closest thing the world has to an agreement to reduce dangerous carbon emissions. It doesn’t include the world’s most polluting countries, though, and few were satisfied when international climate negotiations ended in Doha over the weekend. Bård Vegar Solhjell, the [...]

Norway tackles tough climate job

Norwegian cabinet minister Bård Vegar Solhjell faced a tough job this week when he arrived in Doha to help extend the Kyoto Protocol at the UN’s annual climate talks. Norway and Brazil were chosen to lead international emissions-cutting negotiations that looked difficult indeed, but a battle plan was in the works. “The negotiations will be [...]

Glaciers keep shrinking

Most of the glaciers in Norway are now smaller than they’ve been for several hundred years, according to new measurements taken by the Norwegian directorate for water and energy  (Norges vassdrags og energidirektorat, NVE). Fully 19 of the 28 glaciers in Norway have shrunk again in the past year, while five were unchanged and four [...]

CO2 levels rise again on Svalbard

The impact of global warming has mostly fallen off the front pages of Norwegian newspapers recently, but new evidence from Norway’s far northern archipelago of Svalbard suggests it’s as worrisome as ever. Researchers are distinctly uneasy over the levels of CO2 in the air, and fear global warming is getting warmer all the time. Higher [...]

Arctic drilling plans called ‘immoral’

Environmental organizations were quick to vent their fury over new plans, announced Tuesday by Norwegian oil company Statoil, to dramatically expand oil exploration activity in the northern reaches of the Barents Sea. One activist called Statoil “immoral” while conservation authorities are worried. “Statoil’s Arctic campaign is terribly immoral, and I now think Statoil is one [...]

Calls rise for less oil sector activity

Unhappy oil rig workers aren’t the only ones calling for a reduction in the tempo of oil exploration and production on Norway’s continental shelf. They have the full support of not only environmentalists but also an acclaimed researcher at state statistics bureau SSB, who fears the boom in the oil sector is putting too much [...]

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