Norway seeks to end climate injunction against three oilfields

Norway's government will ask an appeals court on Wednesday to lift injunctions against developing three oil and gas fields, part of a wider effort by Oslo to overturn an earlier verdict invalidating their permits on environmental grounds.

A lower court ruled in January that Norway's Energy Ministry failed to fully assess the climate impact from the future use of the fields' oil and gas, so-called scope three emissions, in a lawsuit brought by Greenpeace and its partner Nature and Youth.

At that time, the court also ordered temporary injunctions against the development of the three fields known as Yggdrasil, Tyrving and Breidablikk.

But the appeals court in March put the injunctions on hold giving the government and field operators Aker BP AKRBP.OL and Equinor EQNR.OL leeway to continue working on the fields.

A hearing starting on Wednesday will determine whether the injunctions should be permanently lifted or reinstated until a final ruling is made on the legality of the field development permits at the core of the case.

Norway, Europe's largest gas supplier and a major producer of oil, fears that court-imposed restrictions on the development of new fields could hamper its most profitable industry and cost the country billions of dollars in lost revenue.

The government says that while it seeks to pump hydrocarbons for decades to come it is complying with the Paris climate accords seeking to limit global warming and has set a net-zero emission target for 2050.

Equinor's Breidablikk field started production in October 2023, while Aker BP's Tyrving began production this week, drawing criticism from the plaintiffs.

"This only proves why there is a need to have injunctions on the fields' development," Frode Pleym, head of Greenpeace Norway, told Reuters.

Yggdrasil, which is also operated by Aker BP, is set to start production in 2027.