How can Norway meet it’s ambitious climate and energy policy while ensuring sufficient social acceptance?
Norway has ambitious targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions. At the same time Norway aims to provide a secure supply of energy and meet other societal goals. Achieving this, and later targets, will require a massive green transition of the energy and transport sectors. Experiences from the past few years, however, show that introducing technologies and policies to cut emissions has led to repeated conflicts. Advocates for a rapid green transition face off against individuals and organisations that are concerned with possible side-effects such as loss of natural areas or jobs. Despite strong political intentions to promote a transition to renewable energy and significant commitments from companies, the transition has often faced strong opposition. If new energy and transport technologies are to contribute effectively to the green transition in Norway, there is a need for sufficient acceptance for them. We also have to manage the resistance that they may create. This requires deep insights into what drives social acceptance so that we can design appropriate combinations of policies that address several objectives at the same time, such as reducing emissions and securing jobs.
In ENABLE we will study these issues for three key technology areas: Offshore wind power, sustainable transport, and flexibility and grid.