[porpoisely]

Considering all the money norway got to pay indonesia came from selling oil, this is really nothing more than a billion dollar PR exercise. Not to mention that in a globalized world, the deforestation will ultimately get shifted somewhere else.

Just like europe loves to pretend it is lowering emissions when it's just shifting manufacturing to china, norway loves to pretend to be environmenally friendly with its oil money.

If europe or norway truly cared about emissions or the environment, they'd end global trade and drilling for oil, but they aren't going to give up their luxurious first world lifestyle are they?

Edit: To everyone downvoting, how about this scenario. We give norway $1 billion for them to shut down their oil rigs? Surely norway will sacrifice their economic wealth and prosperity to help the environment right? Or do we only expect that from poor countries?

[geezerjay]

You've missed the whole point of the carbon payment system.

The whole point is that it isn't realistic to assume that it's possible to quit oil overnight, buy it's very possible to mitigate its effect by converting some externalities to a concrete price tag and thus creating incentives to abandon the use of at least some fossil fuels and to compensate those who contribute to invert the tendency.

[porpoisely]

But the "externalities" got shifted from indonesia to somewhere else.

How about this, if indonesia told norway to go to hell, cut down their forests, got rich and then in 20 years paid Laos $1 billion to spare their forests. Would we celebrate indonesia as great environmentalists? Of course not. We'd call them hypocrites, especially when the deforestation just moved to cambodia instead.

At the end of the day, this exercise is just wealthy european neocolonialists trying to feel better about themselves as they keep a underdeveloped country poor. While norway gets to destroy their and other countries resources to enrich itself, they use that ill gotten wealth to dupe poor countries to stay poor.

How about this, lets shift wealth instead. Tax all of europe X amount of money and shift that wealth to indonesia and ASEAN to achieve an equal living standard? This way, indonesia and ASEAN won't touch their forests or resources and their living standard will be equal to that of europe? Now that would make a real difference.

Of course it would mean europeans living standard would have to decline, but europeans (especially norwegians) are such environment loving saints right? They are willing to sacrifice right? Or are they greedy like the rest of us and want others to sacrifice while they themselves enjoy the good life?

Or how about this, we give norway $1 billion to shut down their oil industry? Do you think the norwegians would agree to that? Of course not.

[rebornshellfish]

>Tax all of europe X amount of money and shift that wealth to indonesia and ASEAN to achieve an equal living standard?

You're literally the most evil person I have ever seen on the internet. High IQ Europeans, who have secular values, who have the greatest respect for human rights, who invest a lot in their children, and who already suffer under an excessive regulatory/tax burden, do not owe the rest of the world anything.

[dang]

We've banned this account. Obviously, if you've read the guidelines, you can't comment on HN like this.

If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email [e-mail] and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[porpoisely]

I think you are misreading what I wrote. Obviously I'm not advocating for all of europe to be tax and the wealth shifted. It was an example to highlight my point of Europe minding its own business and Indonesia minding its own business. Norway shouldn't get to tell Indonesia what to do with its own resources and vice versa. Hope that clarified any misunderstanding.

[vegardx]

The only take-away from this is that Norway should just sit back and relax, no matter what you do, it will be wrong.

Less than half of the exports from Norway are oil. It accounts to less than a quarter of revenue. See: https://www.norskpetroleum.no/en/economy/governments-revenue...

[porpoisely]

No. The take away is that norway isn't doing anything but buying publicity with their little neocolonial effort. They lost nothing by this. They only gained. If norway really cared, they should stop drilling oil immediately and turn over their entire $1 trillion wealth fund over to nuclear and clean energy companies. But they'll never do that because they use their money for their own political self-interests.

Nevermind that half of a nation's export or a quarter of a nation's revenue from a single source is a ridiculous amount, the money norway uses to play neocolonist comes from their sovereign wealth fund(s) which come entirely from oil.

Also, indonesia ( and ASEANs ) problem is poverty, education and economic development. That $1 billion is nothing in the greater scheme of things. Heck it probably made things worse because deforestation went elsewhere, indonesia's development was slightly stunted and indonesia will probably deforest at a greater rate in the future.

Maybe if norway truly cared, they will force netherlands to pay reparations for colonization to indonesia and hand over the assets of the largest oil company in the world ( royal dutch shell ) to indonesia so that indonesia could develop faster. The dutch got rich stealing oil from indonesia. Maybe return some of that back?

Or buying $1 billion in advertising for self-congratulatory purposes while making things worse is better.

What has fundamentally changed? Nothing. It's like a billionaire tossing a homeless man $1 and being celebrated for their charity. Especially so if the billionaire caused a financial crisis that cause the guy to lose his job, home and become homeless in the first place.

I'm sure the indonesians living in poverty are ecstatic that wealthy norwegians are using their oil money to toss them some crumbs.

[rebornshellfish]

You realise that Indonesia has 15x the population of the Netherlands, right? And that Norway is tiny, literally like 2% of the population of Indonesia? Maybe if Indonesia was more careful with birth control and didn't have babies that it can't afford, it wouldn't have such a problem with poverty. Having babies is not a debt on other people.

[porpoisely]

Indonesia might has 15X more people, but it's also geographically 50X bigger than the netherlands. The netherlands is far more overpopulated than indonesia. Also indonesia's poverty is a legacy of more than a century of dutch colonization and exploitation and its inability to develop due to other considerations.

I think we are mostly agreed but you seem to have been misreading my comments. My point is let indonesia do whatever it wants with its land to develop and get itself out of poverty. Norway should mind its own business. Considering your other comment, I think we can both agree on that.

[rebornshellfish]

You realise that Europeans invented economic development, right?