Norwegian cousins battle over oil, climate policy
Fourteen years on, they now find themselves divided by climate politics: Eriksen is the environment minister in the oil-rich country, while Berg is one of his biggest activist critics.
A militant with the Extinction Rebellion climate group, Berg has vowed to start a hunger strike on Wednesday to press the pro-oil, centre-left government to abandon drilling for the sake of the planet.
The protest will put his cousin on the spot as Norway prepares for a general election on September 8 in which its crucial oil industry will be a key campaign issue.
Berg, 29, and his 33-year-old cousin were at a youth camp on the island of Utoya on July 22, 2011 when far-right sympathiser Anders Behring Breivik went on a gun rampage that killed 69 people.
Breivik also set off a bomb near government headquarters in Oslo that killed another eight.
'It is clear that going through something like that... yes, it marks a relationship,' Berg told AFP in an interview.
But it will not deflect him from his campaign against a Labour government that wants to develop the valuable oil industry further.
'This industry has made us an extremely rich country,' Berg said.
'The problem is the price—potentially the deaths of millions of people because of the ravages caused by this oil and this gas,' he added.
'It is not worth us continuing to make ourselves even richer at this price.'
Norway's oil riches
Several small parties—from the left wing to ecologists and centre-right liberals—back Berg's stance as Norway goes into its election campaign.
But Labour has the support of conservative and hard-right parties in its drive to 'develop, not dismantle' the oil sector.
Norway's offshore oil and gas fields have indeed made it rich.
Its sovereign wealth fund, the biggest in the world, is worth nearly US$2 trillion (RM8.47 trillion) —US$350,000 per inhabitant.
'The big parties make it seem like it's never enough,' said Berg, born in Stavanger, Norway's oil capital, whose father worked his whole life for petroleum giant Equinor.
'It is a huge moral injustice to continue enriching ourselves further while already being among the richest in the world,' he said.
'And that people in other regions, mostly poor, dark-skinned people, simply have to die for us to become even richer.'
Holding cousin accountable
Eriksen has declined to comment directly on his cousin's activism, but spoke to the newspaper Dagbladet in July 2024 after Berg was caught trespassing at Oslo airport in a protest.
'I understand that many people are impatient, and I am too. There is an urgent need to reduce emissions to curb climate change,' the newspaper quoted Eriksen as saying.
'Vebjorn and I, however, have different views on how the transition should happen and the methods for expressing our opinions. For me, broad support is critical for ensuring the transition stands the test of time.'
Berg said he will not vote Labour this year but insisted he and his cousin 'appreciate each other a lot', in his comments to AFP.
'Communication between us is both respectful and affectionate. I try to be as honest and direct as possible with him,' he said.
'I will do what I can to preserve our relationship while continuing to hold him accountable.' — AFP
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Malay Mail
12 hours ago
- Malay Mail
US to reinstall Confederate general's statue in Washington, previously toppled by protesters, says Park Service
WASHINGTON, Aug 5 — The US National Park Service (NPS) announced yesterday that it will reinstall a statue in Washington of a Confederate general that was torn down amid the racial justice protests of 2020. Reinstalling the statue of Albert Pike supports two executive orders issued by President Donald Trump early in his second term, the NPS said in a statement: one 'on Making the District of Columbia Safe and Beautiful' and another on 'Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.' The statue, which honors Pike's contributions to freemasonry, was the only memorial to a Confederate general in the US capital before it was toppled. Statues honoring the Confederacy—which seceded from the United States to preserve slavery, prompting the 1861-1865 Civil War—were a prime target of vandalism during the mid-2020 racial justice movement. Protests broke out nationwide in June 2020 following the death of George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man who was murdered by a white police officer in Minneapolis. Trump, who was president at the time, called the toppling of the Pike statue a 'disgrace.' 'The D.C. police are not doing their job as they watch a statue be ripped down & burn. These people should be immediately arrested,' Trump wrote on Twitter. The NPS said the Pike statue has 'been in secure storage since its removal and is currently undergoing restoration.' It aims to reinstall the statue by October 2025. After losing re-election later in 2020, Trump went on to run again in 2024, winning on pledges to harshly crackdown on illegal immigration and to reverse many of the social justice policies enacted in the wake Floyd's death. — AFP
Free Malaysia Today
2 days ago
- Free Malaysia Today
Bolsonaro backers rally to praise Trump for Brazil pressure
Protesters rally at Copacabana Beach against Jair Bolsonaro's trial over the alleged coup attempt, accusing courts of political persecution. (AP pic) RIO DE JENAIRO : Thousands of fervent supporters of Brazilian ex-president Jair Bolsonaro took to the streets Sunday, showing support for US President Donald Trump's pressure campaign against the trial of his right-wing ally. Bolsonaro is currently being tried in the capital Brasilia for plotting a coup after failing to win reelection in 2022 against leftist Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. 'I am here to defend our people against censorship and judges who act arbitrarily,' Valdeciria Galvao, a stenographer attending a rally in Brasilia, told AFP. Most of the demonstrators were dressed in green and yellow, the national colors of Brazil and Bolsonaro's party, while some held US flags or signs reading 'Thank you Trump.' Rallies were organised in several cities including Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. Bolsonaro, 70, was unable to participate as he has been court-ordered to stay home on evenings and weekends, and not to use social media, as his trial plays out. Accused of conspiring to remain in power despite his electoral defeat by Lula, he faces a heavy prison sentence in the trial, which is expected to be concluded in the coming weeks. On Wednesday, the US treasury department imposed financial sanctions on Brazilian supreme court justice Alexandre de Moraes, who is presiding over the trial and is despised by Bolsonaro supporters for his fight against disinformation, which they say amounts to censorship. That same day Trump, who has branded the trial a 'witch hunt,' slapped cumulative 50% tariffs on several Brazilian imports as he wielded US economic might to punish the country. The tariffs are set to take effect on Aug 6. 'I agree 100%' with the sanctions, said Maristela dos Santos on Copacabana Beach, where Sunday's rally in Rio de Janeiro was taking place. 'Since no solution was found here, it had to come from elsewhere.' Wearing an American flag on her shoulders, the 62-year-old teacher said she is not particularly concerned about the economic impact of the levies announced by Washington. 'What worries me is that Brazil will become like Venezuela and we won't be able to find anything to eat in the supermarket,' she argued, alluding to the serious shortages under Nicolas Maduro's socialist regime in Caracas. Paulo Roberto, a 46-year-old entrepreneur, echoed the sentiment, believing punitive customs duties are a necessary evil. 'Unfortunately you have to take a few steps back in order to aspire to greater freedom and a better quality of life in the future,' Roberto said.
Malay Mail
2 days ago
- Malay Mail
Europe is breaking its reliance on US climate data amid Trump-era science cuts
EU governments prepare to go it alone on some data after Trump cuts Data on sea-level rise and extreme weather events put at risk by cuts to NOAA Efforts builds on 'guerrilla archiving' — a dash by independent scientists to preserve US data BRUSSELS, August 3 — European governments are taking steps to break their dependence on critical scientific data the United States historically made freely available to the world, and are ramping up their own data collection systems to monitor climate change and weather extremes, according to Reuters interviews. The effort — which has not been previously reported — marks the most concrete response from the European Union and other European governments so far to the US government's retreat from scientific research under President Donald Trump's administration. Since his return to the White House, Trump has initiated sweeping budget cuts to the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration, the National Institutes of Health, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Centres for Disease Control and other agencies, dismantling programmes conducting climate, weather, geospatial and health research, and taking some public databases offline. As those cuts take effect, European officials have expressed increasing alarm that — without continued access to US-supported weather and climate data — governments and businesses will face challenges in planning for extreme weather events and long-term infrastructure investment, according to Reuters interviews. In March, more than a dozen European countries urged the EU Commission to move fast to recruit American scientists who lose their jobs to those cuts. Asked for comment on NOAA cuts and the EU's moves to expand its own collection of scientific data, the White House Office of Management and Budget said Trump's proposed cuts to the agency's 2026 budget were aimed at programmes that spread 'fake Green New Scam 'science,'' a reference to climate change research and policy. 'Under President Trump's leadership, the US is funding real science again,' Rachel Cauley, an OMB spokesperson, said via email. European officials told Reuters that — beyond the risk of losing access to data that is bedrock to the world's understanding of climate change and marine systems — they were concerned by the general US pullback from research. 'The current situation is much worse than we could have expected,' Sweden's State Secretary for Education and Research Maria Nilsson, told Reuters. 'My reaction is, quite frankly, shock.' The Danish Meteorological Institute described the US government data as 'absolutely vital' — and said it relied on several data sets to measure including sea ice in the Arctic and sea surface temperatures. 'This isn't just a technical issue, reliable data underpins extreme weather warnings, climate projections, protecting communities and ultimately saves lives,' said Adrian Lema, director of the DMI's National Centre for Climate Research. Reuters interviewed officials from eight European countries who said their governments were undertaking reviews of their reliance on US marine, climate and weather data. Officials from seven countries — Denmark, Finland, Germany, Netherlands, Norway, Spain and Sweden — described joint efforts now in the early stages to safeguard key health and climate data and research programmes. Leaning on the US As a priority, the EU is expanding its access to ocean observation data, a senior European Commission official told Reuters. Those data sets are seen as critical to the shipping and energy industries as well as early storm warning systems. Over the next two years, the senior official said, the EU plans to expand its own European Marine Observation and Data Network which collects and hosts data on shipping routes, seabed habitats, marine litter and other concerns. The initiative was aimed at 'mirroring and possibly replacing US-based services,' the senior European Commission official told Reuters. Europe is particularly concerned about its vulnerability to US funding cuts to NOAA's research arm that would affect the Global Ocean Observing System, a network of ocean observation programmes that supports navigation services, shipping routes and storm forecasting, a second EU official told Reuters. The insurance industry relies on the Global Ocean Observing System's disaster records for risk modelling. Coastal planners use shoreline, sea-level, and hazard data to guide infrastructure investments. The energy industry uses oceanic and seismic datasets to assess offshore drilling or wind farm viability. In addition, the senior EU Commission official said, the EU is considering increasing its funding of the Argo programme, a part of the Global Ocean Observing System which operates a global system of floats to monitor the world's oceans and track global warming, extreme weather events and sea-level rise. NOAA last year described the programme, in operation for over 25 years, as the 'crown jewel' of ocean science. It makes its data freely available to the oil and gas industry, marine tourism and other industries. The United States funds 57 per cent of Argo's US$40 million annual operating expenses, while the EU funds 23 per cent. The White House and NOAA did not respond to questions about future support for that programme. The European moves to establish independent data collection and play a bigger role in Argo represent a historic break with decades of US leadership in ocean science, said Craig McLean, who retired in 2022 after four decades at the agency. He said US leadership of weather, climate and marine data collection was unmatched, and that through NOAA the US has paid for more than half of the world's ocean measurements. European scientists acknowledge the outsized role the US government has played in global scientific research and data collection — and that European countries have grown overly dependent on that work. 'It's a bit like defence: we rely heavily on the US in that area, too. They're trailblazers and role models-but that also makes us dependent on them,' Katrin Boehning-Gaese, scientific director of Germany's Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, told Reuters. 'Guerrilla archivists' A number of European governments are now taking measures to reduce that dependence. Nordic countries met to coordinate data storage efforts in the Spring, Norwegian Minister of Research and Higher Education Sigrun Aasland told Reuters. European science ministers also discussed the US science budget cuts at a meeting in Paris in May. Aasland said Norway was setting aside US$2 million to back up and store US data to ensure stable access. The Danish Meteorological Institute in February started downloading historical US climate data in case it is deleted by the US It is also preparing to switch from American observations to alternatives, Christina Egelund, Minister of Higher Education and Science of Denmark, said in an interview. 'The potentially critical issue is when new observations data stop coming in,' the Institute's Lema said. While weather models could continue to operate without US data, he said the quality would suffer. Meanwhile, the German government has commissioned scientific organisations, including the center, to review its reliance on US databases. Since Trump returned to the White House, scientists and citizens worldwide have been downloading US databases related to climate, public health or the environment that are slated for decommissioning — calling it 'guerrilla archiving.' 'We actually received requests-or let's say emergency calls-from our colleagues in the US, who said, 'We have a problem here... and we will have to abandon some datasets', said Frank Oliver Gloeckner, head of the digital archive PANGAEA, which is operated by publicly funded German research institutions. About 800 of NOAA's 12,000-strong workforce have been terminated or taken financial incentives to resign as part of Trump's Department of Government Efficiency cuts. The White House 2026 budget plan seeks to shrink NOAA even further, proposing a US$1.8 billion cut, or 27 per cent of the agency's budget, and a near-20 per cent reduction in staffing, bringing down the NOAA workforce to 10,000. The budget proposal would eliminate the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, NOAA's main research arm, which is responsible for ocean observatory systems including Argo, coastal observing networks, satellite sensors and climate model labs. It is also reducing its data products. Between April and June, NOAA announced on its website the decommissioning of 20 datasets or products related to earthquakes and marine science. NOAA did not respond to requests for comment. Gloeckner said there were no legal hurdles to storing the US government data as it was already in the public domain. But without significant funds and infrastructure, there are limits to what private scientists can save, said Denice Ross, a senior fellow at the Federation of American Scientists, a nonprofit science policy group and the US government's chief data officer during Joe Biden's administration. Databases need regular updating — which requires the funding and infrastructure that only governments can provide, Ross said. Over the last few months, the Federation and EU officials have held a series of talks with European researchers, US philanthropies and health and environment advocacy groups to discuss how to prioritise what data to save. 'There is an opportunity for other nations and institutions and philanthropies to fill in the gaps if US quality starts to falter,' she said. — Reuters
