Leaning on Uncertainty

The document argues that Norway's climate strategy relies on uncertain land-sink removals and international offsets rather than feasible domestic emission reductions. It identifies systemic deficiencies in impact assessments, a lack of separate LULUCF targets beyond 2030, and a conflict of interest where geological storage sites are evaluated based on their potential to interfere with future petroleum activity. While some industrial removal projections are cautious, the report notes a lack of binding limits on international credits and significant gaps in biomass sustainability evaluations.

• Norway lacks separate targets for the land use, land-use change and forestry (LULUCF) sector beyond 2030, despite recommendations from the Norwegian Environment Agency and the Climate Change Committee to disaggregate emissions and removals from the land-use sector.
• The Norwegian government intends to use international carbon credits under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement to meet its 2035 target, estimating a need equivalent to 3-8% of 1990 emissions, but has established no binding limits on their use.
• There are systemic deficiencies in Norway's impact assessments, with the Norwegian Environment Agency reporting that current regulations lead to a lack of knowledge bases for overall plans and poor quality of assessments.
• Norway's evaluation of geological CO2 storage sites includes a criterion that prioritizes future fossil fuel extraction, as sites are assessed for their "potential for conflicts with future petroleum activity".
• Projections for industrial removals are inconsistent across documents; the Biennial Transparency Report estimates -0.2 MtCO2eq per year from bio-CCS and DACCS (2030-2040), while the Environment Agency's 2025 Knowledge Base report suggests a theoretical potential of 2.4 MtCO2eq by 2035.
• There is a significant lack of evaluation regarding biomass supply for bio-CCS and biochar; the Ministry of Climate and Environment indicates that most biochar will likely be imported, and domestic production would require approximately 3.5 million m³ of wood.

APA

Orth, D. (2026). Leaning on Uncertainty. Carbon Market Watch. https://carbonmarketwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Leaning-on-uncertainty-Norway.pdf

Chicago

Orth, Daniel. Leaning on Uncertainty. Carbon Market Watch, 2026. https://carbonmarketwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Leaning-on-uncertainty-Norway.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Orth |first1=Daniel |title=Leaning on Uncertainty |publisher=Carbon Market Watch |date=April 2026 |url=https://carbonmarketwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Leaning-on-uncertainty-Norway.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{orth2026leaning, author = {Orth, Daniel}, title = {{Leaning on Uncertainty}}, institution = {Carbon Market Watch}, year = {2026}, month = apr, url = {https://carbonmarketwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Leaning-on-uncertainty-Norway.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }