energies Article A Petrostate’s Outlook on Low-Carbon Transitions: The Discursive Frames of Petroleum Policy in Norway Tine S. Handeland and Oluf Langhelle * Department of Media and Social Sciences, University of Stavanger, 4036 Stavanger, Norway; [email protected] * Correspondence: [email protected] Abstract: Norway is a petroleum exporting country that, simultaneously, is at the forefront of implementing ambitious climate policy measures. Through a discourse analysis of official documents that address petroleum policy, this article examines how the Norwegian government justifies a place for Norwegian petroleum in a low-carbon future. Our findings show that the frames used to justify continued petroleum production between 2011 and 2018 remains predominantly stable, despite the growing opposition to this official discourse in relation to climate change and the societal dependence on petroleum revenues. This article highlights the tension that Norway, as a petroleum-producing country, face in an increasingly carbon-constrained world, and how this is handled in the official petroleum discourse. It shows how the official discourse portrays continued petroleum production and exploration as both valid and necessary and how this framing is discursively linked to a strong commitment to mitigate climate change. Keywords: low-carbon transitions; petrostates; discourse analysis; Norway; state imperatives; energy policy goals Citation: Handeland, T.S.; Langhelle, O. A Petrostate’s Outlook on Low-Carbon Transitions: The Discursive Frames of Petroleum 1. Introduction Policy in Norway. Energies 2021, 14, 5411. https://doi.org/10.3390/ ‘The world needs to wind down fossil fuel production’. This is the clear message from en14175411 the Production-Gap-Report [1] (p. 3). The report looks at the discrepancy between the planned fossil fuel production by different nations worldwide and what is seen as the needed Academic Editor: Ignacio Mauleón reduction in order to achieve the temperature goal of the Paris Agreement (2015). What they find, however, is that ‘governments continue to plan to produce coal, oil, and gas far in excess Received: 10 May 2021 of the levels consistent with the Paris Agreement temperature limits’ [1] (p. 3). Accepted: 20 August 2021 Although coal has been a primary target for greenhouse gas mitigation for a long Published: 31 August 2021 time, attention toward other fossil fuels, such as oil, and gas, is clearly increasing. This is partly due to the special report published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate ◦ Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral Change (IPCC) (2018) on the impacts of a 1.5 C temperature increase. The carbon budget is with regard to jurisdictional claims in tightening [2–4], and there is growing concern worldwide about climate-induced financial published maps and institutional affil- risks, such as stranded assets [5–7], as the need for keeping fossil fuels in the ground iations. becomes increasingly evident. Calls to target not only the demand side of fossil fuels, but also the supply side of fossil fuels by adopting fossil fuel restrictions to mitigate climate change are being made [8–14]. However, as Piggot et al. [12] point out, more research is needed to understand the circumstances that influence the adoption of supply-side policies. Copyright: © 2021 by the authors. In this article we use Norway as a case to illustrate how a country that is heavily Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. dependent on petroleum revenues adapts discursively to the increased tension between This article is an open access article the supply of fossil fuels and the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and how distributed under the terms and petroleum exploration and production is justified in a low-carbon transition. The country conditions of the Creative Commons has expanded its oil and gas exploration through several licencing rounds into the Arctic, Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// with no major changes in the framework conditions for the petroleum industry, except for creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ a ‘temporary tax relief package’ for the petroleum industry due to COVID-19 [1] (p. 5). 4.0/). Energies 2021, 14, 5411. https://doi.org/10.3390/en14175411 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/energies Energies 2021, 14, x FOR PEER REVIEW 2 of 17 Energies 2021, 14, 5411 with no major changes in the framework conditions for the petroleum industry, except 2for of 15 a ‘temporary tax relief package’ for the petroleum industry due to COVID-19 [1] (p. 5). The question is, if more fossil fuels are to be kept in the ground, and if the speed of the transitionThe question to a low-carbon is, if more world fossil must fuels areaccelerate, to be kept how in does the ground, a petrostate and ifdiscursively the speed of respondthe transition to the claim to a low-carbonthat petroleum world production must accelerate, needs to how be curtailed? does a petrostate discursively respondUsing tothe the analytical claim that framework petroleum of production Scrase and needsOckwell to be[15,16], curtailed? we aim to bring novel insight Usingto the theNorwegian analytical case framework by illustrating of Scrase how and the Ockwell discursive [15, 16links], we between aim to bringstate novelim- perativesinsight and to the energy Norwegian policy goals case serve by illustrating to strengthen how the the existing discursive policy links regime. between The dis- state courseimperatives on the future and energy of petrol policyeum is goals of strategic serve to importance, strengthen thenot existingonly for Norway, policy regime. but also The fordiscourse other petroleum on the future rich states, of petroleum Europe, isand of the strategic energy importance, transition itself. not only for Norway, but alsoNorway for other exemplifies petroleum a richcountry states, that Europe, is highly and dependent the energy on transition oil and gas itself. revenues, with nearly allNorway of the petroleum exemplifies produced a country being that ex isported. highly The dependent country is on ranked oil and as gasthe world’s revenues, thirdwith largest nearly exporter all of the of petroleum natural gas produced [17]. 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