The US politician Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted on 25 February 2019 that ‘Climate delayers aren't much better than climate deniers. With either one if they get their way, we're toast’ (Cantor, 2019). Groups that constantly argue postponing the needed action and groups that deny climate science altogether certainly come from two distinct ideological, political and social traditions. But they can co-exist, and even arguably strengthen each other. This is indeed the case in Norway.

The dominant view on oil and gas production in Norway – which I will call the Norwegian fossil ideology – is that Norway can both produce more oil and gas and contribute to saving the planet. This is a Norwegian version of capitalist climate governance. Its proponents acknowledge that climate change is primarily caused by humans, support international negotiations and are deeply worried by every new report from the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The Norwegian fossil ideology is more than anything about delaying into a distant future the one thing Norway needs to do: stop extracting oil and gas.

By contrast, the Norwegian far-right Progress Party (Fremskrittspartiet) comes from a classical denialist position. ¹ However, to be accepted by the Conservative Party as a governing coalition partner it adjusted its position, officially accepting the Norwegian fossil ideology of delay. When in government, between 2013 and 2020, denialism nonetheless remained a strong tendency within the party itself.

Accepting or denying that climate change is primarily caused by human activity are in most respects two very different positions. But in the real life of capitalism and its form of climate governance, such a distinction can become quite blurry. Despite significant differences, the two positions co-existed within the same government and even within the Progress Party. This was only possible due to some important similarities between the positions – and key words here are business friendliness and nationalism – but most important: the two positions are in Norway grounded on more or less the exact same policy for oil and gas extraction. The Progress Party could both enter and leave the government with hardly any changes in Norway's oil and gas policy. Denial and the Norwegian fossil ideology can even provide mutual legitimacy: the climate ideology appears as the ‘sensible’ big brother of denialism, and denialism can flourish where the national fossil ideology for decades has obscured any reasonable climate debate.

The chapter proceeds in five sections. The first describes the Norwegian fossil ideology as a convenient position for climate delayers and the next three discuss developments within the Progress Party: how it originated in climate denialism (#2), how this altered to allow it to join government (#3) and yet how denialism never died (#4). In the fifth and final section we analyse relations between denying and delaying, between climate denialism and the Norwegian fossil ideology, and identify how the different positions can nourish, legitimize and even strengthen each other.

The Norwegian fossil ideology

Contemporary Norwegian fossil ideology was born in the early 1990s. ² During the 1970s and 1980s the official petroleum policy was to extract in a ‘moderate tempo’. The main concern was economic, to avoid the Dutch disease – that is, that an increase in a specific sector could damage the overall economy – and an overheated economy, but even arguments about environmental concerns (about oil spills and birds and fish) were present. This changed from the early 1990s: now the aim became to extract as much as possible, and then invest the money in financial markets and government bonds. Concerns about the Dutch disease were considered ‘solved’ through establishing the Oil Fund (currently named the Government Pension Fund of Norway) in 1990. ³ It is worth noting that Jens Stoltenberg – the then Minister of Industry and Energy, later Prime Minster for the Labour Party in 2000–2001 and 2005–2013 – even indicated that future problems related to climate could undermine the value of Norwegian petroleum wealth. (On the history of Norway's climate policy, see for example Ryggvik, 2010, 2013; Ryggvik & Kristoffersen, 2015; Sæther, 2019.)

The core of the Norwegian fossil ideology is that Norwegian oil and gas is not a problem. This ideology is produced through a series of opportunistic arguments, which are highly flexible and vary over time. There is no space here for a thorough discussion of the content but, based on a critical analysis of public arguments from oil companies, politicians and experts, we can identify eight important arguments.

First, Norwegian governments have been active promoters of the dream of a worldwide market for CO₂ quotas – arguably the mainstay of the resource-economic capitalist climate ideology (see for example Martiniussen, 2013). Secondly, Norwegian oil and gas is supposedly the ‘cleanest’ in the world (e.g. Ryggvik, 2013). ⁴ Thirdly, Norwegian gas will replace coal in Europe (e.g. Sæther, 2019). The fourth argument is based on technology optimism: through ‘CO2-cleansing’ and ‘negative-emission technologies’ Norway can solve its own emissions problem (e.g. Anker, 2018). Fifthly, sponsoring poorer countries to do something: for instance, Norway became the largest contributor to the ‘Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation’ (REDD) mechanism (e.g. Trædal, 2018: 128). Sixthly, that Norwegian energy will globally ‘pull millions of people out of poverty’ (quote from a ‘fact-book’ published by the Oil and Energy Department in 2011 (see Sæther, 2019: 83, 85–91). Seventhly, any critique of Norwegian oil and gas production is disrespectful to workers within these sectors (for examples, see Trædal, 2018: 254). And finally: Norway is only producing the oil and gas, if the world really wants fewer emissions, they should reduce their consumption (see for example Holmgren, 2019).

Malm and the Zetkin Collective argue that capitalist climate governance can be described as 1) postponing any showdown with fossil capital into the distant future; 2) imposing no serious limits on accumulation; and 3) opening up novel opportunities for the generation of profit; or, in short: ‘a form of climate governance that harnesses the energies of capital’ (2021: 29). The Norwegian fossil ideology is a particular expression of this. Through the said arguments, discussions are steered in certain directions, away from larger pictures of global warming and into technicalities: to which degree is Norwegian oil and gas replacing coal; to which degree will Norwegian production be replaced by other countries; to which degree is carbon capture and storage possible or not; how is carbon trading affecting people there and there and there; exactly how energy efficient are production processes in Norway compared with any other country; exactly how cost efficient is it to cut emissions on the supply or the demand side? Not infrequently discussions end on a level with so many technicalities that only a handful of experts are able to really contribute (see also Ihlen, 2009: 57; Ryggvik, 2013: 74; Fæhn, et al. 2017). One core aspect is ‘business friendliness’, but we can also mention pure greenwashing, technological optimism and, not least, the role of nationalism. The idea that other countries and Norway need to cut emissions is seldom on the table. It is taken for granted that if ‘we’ reduce emissions someone – not as stupid as us, most likely an evil dictator – will take the money ‘we’ could have made. In 2019 Johan Sverdrup, a field meant to keep pumping crude oil at least until the year 2070, opened. If Norwegian fossil ideology is so suitable for legitimizing extracting oil and gas decades into the future, is there any need for climate denialists?

The Progress Party: from deniers to delayers on its way to power

The Progress Party has a long history of climate denialism. ⁵ Founded in 1973 by Anders Lange as an anti-tax party, it has always lived in the tension between economic liberalism and conservative nationalism. Immigration rose to the top of the party's agenda in the 1980s, not least in the 1987 election, where the party nearly doubled its share of the vote from 6.3 per cent to 12.3 per cent. The immense focus on immigration continued into the new millennium and always under the leadership of Carl I. Hagen, the doyen of the party and leader for 28 years, between 1978 and 2006. Some polls in 2002 showed the Progress Party as the largest party in the country, and in the 2003 regional elections it became the single largest party in the counties of Vestfold and Rogaland (the latter also being the centre of oil administration in Norway). Opinion polls around 2006–2008 often showed support of over 30 per cent (Vg.no, 2008), and this remained over 25 per cent for much of the following years. The logical next step was therefore to move from being a ‘rebellion’ and ‘populist’ party into a proper governing party. It helped in this respect that Hagen was replaced by Siv Jensen as leader in 2006. But to be accepted as coalition partner in any government, the party also needed a new environmental policy.

When Norway wanted to be an international role model for sustainability in the 1980s (remember Gro Harlem Brundtland), the Progress Party stood out domestically. In 1989 all parties except the Progress Party set concrete targets for stabilizing emissions. The party occupied a maximalist position in both pumping up as much oil as absolutely possible and siphoning even more revenues into the state budget. The term ‘petroleum populism’ became a mainstay of its politics in the 1990s – two decades later the party had earned the nickname the ‘oil party’. The party voted against the first Kyoto Protocol in 2002 when it was ratified in the Norwegian parliament; in 2008 the then centre-left government invited all the opposition parties except the Progress Party for negotiations on Norway's climate policies – which resulted in the Climate Agreement (Sæther, 2019; Ramnefjell, 2017). Chairman Jensen ⁶ argued in 2008 that not all researchers agree that climate change is caused by humans, and that ‘climate scepticism’ could be a new vote magnet for the party: ‘we might lose a bit in the short term, but in the long run I think the question on climate can be just as important [for us] as immigration’ (Jensen, quoted in Nielsen, 2008). ⁷ Two years later Jensen argued that ‘we must not take dramatic measures when it turns out that the basis for the report is not correct’, referring to the climate science (quoted in Nrk.no, 2010). In 2012, Per-Willy Amundsen, the party's climate policy spokesman, argued that ‘climate scepticism’ is inextricably linked to the Progress Party; and that Karl Marx is dead so socialists have found a replacement in ‘the CO2-theory’ (quoted in Vg.no, 2012).

While such statements sought to undermine the climate science, it soon became clear that the Conservative Party would only let the Progress Party into a government if it accepted this science. Already in 2007 media reported from the national congress that the Progress Party had now got itsself a climate policy. As a first step into new territory for the party, a resolution was approved (with three votes against) that stated there was a difference between ‘raising critical questions’ and ‘rejecting the whole problem’ (Vg.no, 2007). When Kyoto-2 (Doha) was being debated in 2013, the Party's parliamentary group first voted unanimously against the bill, but the party then changed course and voted in favour (Falnes, 2013).

The Party's manifesto 2017–2021 (Prinsipp- og handlingsprogram 2017–2021) is a very crude and unpolished version of the Norwegian fossil ideology. While acknowledging that the IPCC's warnings ‘provide a basis for caution’, the programme also emphasizes how much it respects private property and that the ‘earth is always changing and we still know too little about what causes these changes’. The programme presupposes that Norway will conduct reasonable action to cut emissions of climate gases, both nationally and internationally, but is sceptical of ‘precautionary principles’ and assumes that measures should be results oriented and based on long-term cost–benefit analysis. Further, Norway should not introduce any national rules or tariffs for Norwegian businesses, and a red line for the party would be any climate policies that might ‘weaken our international competitiveness and risk putting jobs in danger’ (Fremskrittspartiet, 2017: 12, 47).

The real secret behind the Progress Party's climate politics – as so often with climate policies – is found not in the chapter called ‘Environment’, but rather in the chapter on ‘Energy’. ⁸ Here it is clear that Norwegian oil and gas politics should be stimulated to continue ‘wealth creation, profitability and competitiveness in the industry’ (Fremskrittspartiet, 2017: 42). The petroleum industry faces challenges because much of its resources are located deeper, in smaller volumes and further from the land – requiring ‘niche and tail production’. This must therefore be made profitable to increase the lifetime of the fields and get the highest possible extraction rates (Fremskrittspartiet, 2017: 42). This new climate policy can be exemplified by the party's reaction to the IPCC report 2018. The parliamentary group became ‘concerned’, and according to Gisle Saudland, MP and environmental policy spokesperson, ‘the climate report is a wake-up call’. The logical conclusion, according to Saudland, was therefore to pump up as much gas as possible as soon as possible from the Norwegian continental shelf (Fjellberg, 2018).

The Progress Party and the Norwegian fossil ideology and policy

The government's policy platform from 2013 said that the new government will pursue a ‘proactive climate policy’ and ‘strengthen the climate agreement’ (Regjeringen Solberg I, 2013: 4). This is a vocabulary very similar to the ‘red-green’ government that it preceded. The Progress Party was now part of a government that emphasized the importance of climate change, but also that met that challenge with the Norwegian fossil ideology: solutions should come within market-based systems; dreams of functioning carbon price mechanisms (Trædal, 2018: 220); a continued support for the EU Emissions Trading System; lobbying the EU to export more gas (Sæther, 2019: 74–75); a strong technology-optimism (although the massive project under the red-green government on developing cost-effective CO₂ capture and storage technologies was cancelled in 2013), as well as continuing with the plan to electrify the shelf (Regjeringen Solberg I, 2013: 61).

When in government, which positions did the Progress Party aim for? It was neither the Ministry of Culture nor Climate nor Environment. It was the Ministry of Petroleum and Energy: with Tord Lien (2013–2016), Terje Søviknes (2016–2018), Kjell-Børge Freiberg (2018–2019) and Sylvi Listhaug (2019–2020) as ministers. All four were adamant that Norway should expand its production of oil several decades into the future. Lien reproduced the fossil ideology when arguing that ‘the entire resource base will be exploited, as far as it is socio-economically profitable’ (quoted in Trædal, 2018: 191). Søviknes – dubbed the ‘lobby minister’ for his cosy relations with Norwegian Oil and Gas – called the closing of the oil spigots a ‘utopia’ (Fremstad, 2017). ⁹ Freiberg dismissed critics as ‘climate romantics’ (Thanem, 2018), but it was his successor, Sylvi Listhaug – leader of the party since 2021 – who made most headlines. Listhaug had previously argued that all this talk about CO₂ emissions was ‘first and foremost an excuse to introduce more taxes and fees’ (Welander, 2020). And as Minister of Agriculture (2013–2015) she combined anti-Muslim and anti-climate politics by demanding more pork on the menus in Norwegian prisons (Vojislav Krekling, 2018). When Listhaug was inaugurated as Minister of Petroleum and Energy, Erna Solberg, the then Prime Minister, needed to clarify at a press conference that Listhaug was not a climate denier. Only minutes later this became less clear, when Listhaug herself explained to the media that climate change was also due to human action, but did not want to answer journalists’ questions of how much.

In power, the Progress Party continued the path laid out by, primarily, the Labour Party since the early 1990s. To some degree it even accelerated the pace. The ‘red-green’ coalition (2005–2013) they succeeded consisted of the Labour Party, the Socialist Left Party and the Centre Party. One of the few victories for the environmental movement (and thus the Socialist Left Party) under this government was that areas outside of Lofoten, Vesteralen and Senja – known together as LoVeSe – should not be opened for exploitation. These areas have remained untouched by extraction activities as they are home to unique ecosystems, being, for example, the spawning grounds for the largest cod stock in the world and one of Europe's largest nesting areas for sea birds, with incredible nature with much tourism. Not even the Progress Party managed to open these areas for extraction under its time in government, and author and politician for the Green Party, Eivind Trædal, noted that the largest victory for the Socialist Left Party was no more significant than the Progress Party could accept when it entered government (Trædal, 2018: 190). ¹⁰ Accepting this with one hand, the Progress Party continued with the other to argue for searching for oil outside LoVeSe as well as Møreblokkene, and areas in the far north, such as Jan Mayen and Barents Sea north, considered especially vulnerable. The Progress Party wanted to send in the rigs and the drills ‘as soon as possible’ (Fremskrittspartiet, 2017: 42; see also Ryggvik & Kristoffersen, 2015). Or, as the leader of the parliamentary group formulated it at the party congress in 2017: ‘We will pump up every last remaining drop’ (Ramnefjell, 2017).

The number of new licences awarded to new petroleum explorations increased with the Progress Party in government (Bang & Lahn, 2020: 6). In 2019, a record high 88 oil and gas fields were operating (NTB, 2019). Such a record could indeed have happened even without the Progress Party in government, but the party did not miss the opportunity to brag about ‘its record’. In 2018 it was pleased to announce in a press release that the ‘expansion of exploration areas is the second largest ever and the largest ever in the Barents Sea’ (Fremskrittspartiet, 2018b; see also 2018a, 2018c). ¹¹ The main reason why the Progress Party could fairly smoothly shift its position from climate denialism to a ‘proactive climate policy’ is because the hegemonic fossil ideology already provided enormous possibilities for extracting oil and gas.

Denial that never died

Climate denial is seemingly not needed to legitimize the fossil sector in Norway. Nonetheless, there is a lot of it. A survey from 2011 covering 51 countries showed that Norwegians were second-least concerned about climate change – only after Estonians (Nielsen, 2011). One international poll published in 2019 compared denialism in 28 countries, and put Norway at the top, together with Saudi Arabia (Smith, 2019). A recent study shows that more than 36 per cent believe climate change is happening but disagree that human activities are the main cause (Krange et al., 2021: 4). ¹² Another survey has shown that no less than 45 per cent of those voting for the Progress Party partly or totally disagree that climate change is caused by humans – to which Carl I. Hagen responded that ‘I was hoping it would be many more’ (see Cosson-Eide & Hirsti, 2017). Before the election in 2013, 18 of 19 top candidates from the Progress Party believed there were doubts over the UN Climate Panel's claims that climate change is largely due to human activity (Sandvik et al., 2013).

When the former leader Carl I. Hagen launched a comeback in national politics in 2016 it was with climate scepticism as the core issue. He argued, ‘the climate hysteria is pure fraud. There is no appreciable correlation between CO₂ emissions and temperatures’; it was also warm in the Viking age when ‘nobody drove diesel cars’, and that the ‘IPCC … holds closed meetings, deceiving world leaders’ (quoted in Solvang & Skjelbostad Yset, 2016; see also Ramnefjell, 2016). When the party leadership accepted the fossil ideology in order to remain in control of the Ministry of Petroleum and Energy, Hagen proposed in 2016 the following sentence for the party programme: ‘The Progress Party considers climate change to be caused by natural variations, and distances ourselves from the claim that climate change is caused by humans’ marginal emission of climate gases’. This did not win a majority, which according to Hagen was because people were ‘mobbed into silence’ by the ‘elite’ within the party (Nettavisen, 2016). Hagen also expressed support for Trump for withdrawing from the Paris Agreement and argued that if the truth came out, ‘a lot of people [would] lose their income because what they do is totally unnecessary’ (quoted in Zachariassen, 2017).

Another high-profile denialist in the party, Christian Tybring-Gjedde, argued at thenational congress in 2019 that the party should focus on two main topics: critiques against environmental science and Islam:

Christian Eikeland, a regional leader, wrote on Facebook that much of what the socialists are doing today reminds him of what Hitler did, and he mentioned ‘monopolies, power and propaganda (climate)’. To explain the latter, he argued ‘there is a massive propaganda on climate, a climate hysteria’ (Skybakmoen, 2019; for more quotes from prominent politicians, see Lia Solberg, 2018).

It should come as no surprise that Greta Thunberg and the Fridays For Future movement are particularly disliked in these circles. ‘Sad for children’, Hagen commented, ‘who are brainwashed to believe that the life-giving gas CO₂ has any negative impacts on the climate!’ (Skybakmoen, 2019). When Thunberg decided not to accept the Nordic Council Environment Prize she was awarded in 2019 as a protest against the lack of national climate action – Thunberg mentioned explicitly the high ecological footprint in Nordic countries and that the Norwegian government had given a record number of licences for oil exploration – the denialist far right launched an attack. Gisle Saudland's critique was in a more pragmatic tone: ‘The rejection shows how radical and uncompromising parts of the environmental movement have unfortunately become.… I do not think the climate debate benefits from that’ (Henden, 2019). Where Saudland wanted to educate Thunberg on how to be an environmental activist, Hagen came with a different tune: ‘The 16-year-old girl [Norwegian: jentungen] Greta Thunberg is now being listened to as an outstanding climate scientist. Absolutely incredible, and this should make every adult person think’ (quoted in Prestegård & Fyen, 2019). Hagen then referred readers to the Breitbart news platform to show that climate research is simply wrong.

The connections that Malm and the Zetkin Collective (2021) identify between racism and climate denialism can be recognized within the Progress Party: the more racist and national-conservative, the more climate denialist. The uncompromising critique of the environmental movement was problematic for those concerned about losing support in cities and especially among young people. Previous State Secretary for the Progress Party, Kai-Morten Terning, responded by saying that while scepticism towards unreasonable climate action is a good thing, Hagen's attack on Thunberg ‘was embarrassing to read’. He followed up with a rhetorical question: ‘is the person who posted this aware that the Progress Party is in government?’ (quoted in Prestegård & Fyen, 2019). The Progress Party left the government in January 2020. The triggering cause was the government's decision to bring home from Syria a woman suspected of affiliation to the Islamic State and her two children – one being seriously ill. One underlying reason – at least according to the national-conservatives within the party – was that popularity decreased because the party had become more ‘responsible’. Interestingly, leaving the government had nothing to do with petroleum policy. Sylvi Listhaug replaced Jensen as leader in 2021, which signalled a move towards increased focus on ‘anti-environmentalism’ and immigration.

Denialists in Norway pick up international discourses, convert them and become part of them – references to Trump and Breitbart show this explicitly. Already from the few quotes included in this chapter we can easily recognize many of the known ingredients from international discourses. We find conspiracies (e.g. researchers avoid telling the truth as it will cost them their jobs), the ‘anti-Marxism’/’anti-left’ rhetoric (CO₂ is needed to raise taxes; climate replacing communism), the well-known anti-feminism (e.g. Hagen's jentungen [‘little girl’] in Norwegian is highly patronizing) and connections to racism (especially from ‘hardliners’ like Tybring-Gjedde).

Internationally, the history of climate denialism is often associated with large corporations hiding facts or simply lying, with fossil industries being allied with (far-)right movements and conservative think-tanks (see for example Klein, 2014: ch. 1; Oreskes & Conway, 2010: ch. 6). This remains very much the case, even though some companies have shifted more towards greenwashing and capitalist climate governance (cf. Malm & the Zetkin Collective, 2021: ch. 1). Here the Norwegian story is slightly different. The major Norwegian oil company was founded by the state, or, more precisely, Statoil (later Equinor) was founded in 1972, from day one with close ties to the Labour Party. ¹³ In contrast to fossil ideology, denialism has always been a fringe phenomenon in Norway.

Nevertheless, denialism indeed is prominent, and continues to be a vital public discourse. The fossil industry can apparently function well without denialists, but did also seem pleased with having them in government. That deniers and delayers so easily can co-exist makes it necessary to further examine relations between them. ¹⁴

Fossil ideology meets climate denial: differences and connections

The fossil ideology and climate denialism constitute two different ideologies which draw legitimacy from different social relations. The former is state sanctioned. For everyone who thinks Althusser's (2014) concept of the Ideological State Apparatus is too rigid and deterministic: have a look at how the fossil ideology has been produced in Norway: backed by top economists and the largest Nordic company (Equinor); developed over decades in collaboration among politicians, state managers and the fossil fuel industry; a massive sponsorship of art, culture, sport and research; and a massive PR apparatus (Trædal, 2018: 253; on culture, see for example Jacobsson, 2016). ¹⁵ The social forces behind denialism in Norway are very different. These are found more on Facebook groups than in teaching at top universities. It is the delayers, not deniers, that have direct connections to fossil fuel industries. ¹⁶

The two positions differ concerning knowledge. Where deniers need to maintain and fabricate lies and fake news, delayers in Norway articulate arguments that are edgy, partly true, always questionable and certainly convenient for their own political-economic interests. Rather than manufacturing lies, this is a selected and cynical use of the truth. In blunt terms, where the deniers seek to alter the truth, delayers seek to hide it.

We can also identify differences between deniers and delayers when it comes to conflict. Advocates for the fossil ideology seek to mute and hide conflicts; denialists seek to intensify them. Equinor, for example, wants to discuss openly with the climate movement and climate scientists; a form of communication that indicates that, after all, we are all in the same boat. ¹⁷ Conflicts are then mitigated through apparently neutral questions like ‘technology’ or ‘market mechanisms’ but always firmly within an eco-modernist framework that seeks to neutralize highly political questions. In sharp contrast, proponents of denialism have a rhetoric that seeks to amplify conflicts: confronting environmental activists, scientists or ‘the left’, so often in combination with anti-feminism and racism.

As proponents of the fossil ideology argue they are contributing to keeping global warming below 1.5 degrees, we can say they certainly plan to fail. Denialism, on the other hand, is an offensive political campaign to crush feminism, cultural Marxists, ‘scientists’ and others. In this sense they plan to win.

Despite said differences – where climate delayers seek status quo and deniers seek war! ¹⁸ – climate delayers and deniers in Norway live easily together, and can even nourish, legitimize and strengthen each other. We can identify three important connections.

First, the fossil ideology and far-right denialism are – with minor exceptions – based on the same policy for oil and gas extraction: that is, extracting as long as it is profitable. This is why the Progress Party notoriously supported the petroleum policy of the Labour Party and the Conservative Party even before it became ‘responsible’ enough to join the government. ¹⁹ Together, these three parties have formed a solid majority in Parliament over decades. ²⁰ What unites them is ‘business friendliness’, understood as defending the interests of the fossil industry. It is worth noting that the Progress Party has historically not been included in broad ‘climate agreements’ (e.g. in 2008) in the Norwegian Parliament, but has always been part of the majority concerning petroleum policy. And to no surprise: petroleum policy trumps environmental policy. Tensions that existed between deniers and delayers both within the government (2013–2020) and within the Progress Party were easily manageable because they had a common petroleum policy.

Secondly, the two discourses both imply that we do not have to change our way of living. Denialism is discursively a reaction to (real or imagined) transformations; a defence against those who – openly or in conspiracy – want to ruin ‘our’ way of life. The fossil ideology is a heterodox set of ideas, but one common denominator in proposals like trading schemes, carbon markets and the REDD mechanism is that Norway can pay its way out. When the Norwegian state bought 1 million climate quotas in Bangladesh to subsidize new kitchen ovens for some of the absolute poorest people on the planet, it was clear that it is people in the Global South that must change their everyday life in order to save the planet (Martiniussen, 2013). One difference between the two main discourses is that delayers can argue that climate change should be mitigated through consumption-side policies. It is within this framework that we must understand the irony that an oil nation like Norway is world leading in electrifying its car park. These changes are meaningless compared to the transformations that would have to occur if the country shut down its production of oil and gas.

Thirdly, the two approaches share a nationalist view on oil and gas in particular, and on climate policy in general. For delayers, Norwegian oil and gas is cleaner and better than other nations’ fossil fuels. For the deniers, climate science is a direct attack on Norwegian interests. Norway is a force for good, but operating in a cruel world where everyone else simply defends their interests.

Deniers and delayers might even strengthen each other, not least through providing mutual legitimacy. Deniers legitimize delayers as the Labour Party and the Conservative Party become ‘reasonable’ and ‘accountable’ in contrast to the far-right conspiracists. Even those within the Progress Party that for pragmatic reasons ‘accept’ the science appear sane compared with someone who doesn't believe in it. Proponents of fossil ideology can be shocked and upset over conspiracy theories and denialism from the far right. The Norwegian fossil ideology can then present itself as the reasonable older sibling of denialism.

Delayers also give legitimacy to denialists. Proponents of fossil ideology have over decades contributed to degenerating and obscuring any reasonable debate on oil production and climate in Norway. It is reasonable to believe that the high levels of climate denialism have been nourished by this fact. Equinor, Norwegian Oil and Gas, the Labour Party and the Conservative Party, as well as leading experts and economists, and others, have for decades avoided questions of how severe the climate crisis is, blurred relations between oil and climate change, constantly repeated arguments that are part-truths, hidden information and steered conversations in certain directions. As a consequence, the climate discourse in Norway has been seriously damaged. With unclear arguments, ²¹ postponing of deadlines ²² and always avoiding the one measure that would mitigate climate change – reducing production – it is no wonder that people think that climate change might not be that urgent after all.

Both delayers and deniers will need to acclimatize to a changing setting as the planet gets even warmer. For proponents of the Norwegian fossil ideology, it will indeed be a challenge to come up with new complex, rational and technocratic arguments for why more Norwegian oil and gas leads to less emissions globally; especially as temperatures keep rising, heatwaves and wildfires intensify, and flooding and storms progress. One could imagine that denialists will face even greater challenges as the consequences of global warming become all the more visible. After all, they are so wrong! However, that climate denialists are ‘wrong’ is also the very currency of the position. It will arguably become harder to deny that the world is actually getting warmer, but coming up with ‘false’ arguments for why this happens, and with what consequences, is not necessarily harder in a warmer world than it is today. Blaming immigrants, feminists or cultural Marxists might surely be absurd, but it is no more or less absurd in an even warmer world. Where delayers must articulate new ‘rational’ arguments, the deniers can simply intensify their position. In this respect, the future might come with greater challenges for delayers than deniers, as fabricating the truth might be easier than constantly coming up with new and ‘plausible’ arguments for expanded production of fossil fuels in a burning world.