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An oil platform in western Norway (archive photo from 2017)
Photo: STAFF/ REUTERS
Climate activists have successfully sued in Norway against the approval of three oil and gas fields in the North Sea.
The Oslo District Court declared the permits for the Breidablikk, Yggdrasil and Tyrving fields invalid.
According to the verdict, the state violated conditions when it came to permits.
The plaintiff environmental organizations Greenpeace and Nature and Youth were right in their argument that the state had violated the conditions of the country's highest court because the climate impacts were not examined when the fields were approved.
"This ruling shows that the Ministry of Energy's interpretation of the Supreme Court's ruling was wrong," said the head of Greenpeace Norway, Frode Pleym, on radio station NRK.
"The climate has won a devastating victory against the state in the district court." Pleym demanded that the verdict must have immediate consequences, namely the halting of production in one field and development in the other two fields.
The verdict can be appealed within one month.
The lawsuit represents a continuation of a legal dispute that climate activists have been fighting in the oil nation Norway for years.
In a similar lawsuit in 2016, they accused the state of violating Article 112 of the Norwegian constitution, known as the “environmental paragraph,” according to which the people have a right to a healthy environment by allowing oil drilling in the Arctic.
They hoped that the proceedings would not only lead to a ban on oil drilling in the Arctic, but also set a precedent for climate lawsuits around the world.
The case went through three courts, all of which ruled that the state had not violated environmental regulations by allowing new oil drilling.
kim/dpa