Clean energy aid leadership from Norway

September 2nd, 2010 by Chris Milton

Norway has continued to live up to its clean energy reputation by publishing its first annual report on the Clean Energy for Development Initiative. This details nearly $130m worth of funds spent by the Norwegian Government on clean energy projects across the developing world in 2008-9, double the amount budgeted by USAID for a variety of issues including clean energy aid.

Key to the initiative’s approach has been the electrification of small villages in remote areas and over 44% of the money has been spent on building transmission and distribution infrastructure. The largest type of generation deployed has been hydroelectric, with 15% of expenditure going on these projects, some of which have been large scale but many of which have been small and localised.

Other forms of generation considered include wind, geothermal and biomass, each depending upon the particular needs of the country and neighbourhood within which the initiative is operating. Rather pointedly, the report states that it spent 0% of its money on power generation from non-renewable sources.

The initiative was set up in 2007 under the aegis of the Norwegian Foreign Affairs Department and draws together expertise from the Environment and Energy Departments as well as the country’s aid and funding branches of government.

Norway ranks alongside the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia for publicly owned wealth generated from oil revenues and it has consistently set itself high ethical and environmental standards when considering how this wealth should be invested or spent.

In a recent interview Professor Nebojsa Nakicenovic, Deputy Director of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), labelled universal access to sustainable forms of energy as “the missing MDG” and estimated that it would cost up to $40bn in capital per year to provide basic universal access to electricity.

Clearly Norway’s contribution can only scratch the surface of such a massive requirement. It is nevertheless refreshing to find a country which, rather than shouting at the developing world that it can’t use fossil fuels to develop, is rolling up its sleeves and acting as a global citizen by ensuring those countries don’t need to turn to fossil fuels in the first place.

Photo Credit: 400kV transmission line, Mozambique by Hans Terje Ylvisåker, MFA.

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About the Author

Chris Milton is a seasoned sustainability journalist focusing on business, finance and clean technology. His writing's been carried by a number of highly respected publishers, including The Guardian, The Washington Post and Scientific American. You can follow him on twitter as @britesprite, where he's one of Mashable's top green tweeters and Fast Company's CSR thought leaders. Alternatively you can follow him to the shops... but that would be boring.

http://www.britesprite.co.uk Chris Milton

It is indeed one of those interesting things: Norway has a huge sovereign wealth fund from oil, and yet also has the toughest environmental laws around.

Perhaps the answer simply that Norwegians understand and implement responsibility in a way the rest of us hard bitten cynics can only aspire to?
http://siberiantiger1.blogspot.com Siberian tiger

It’s a little paradoxical, given that most of the Norwegian budget is filled by oil companies.