I want to kiss Norway on the mouth.

After the rest of the world yapped about making a difference in Copenhagen at this year's Climate Summit of Nothingness, and then returned to their dirty countries and made no real promises at all, NORWAY has come out as a shining hero by announcing that they will indeed meet thier goals for curbing carbon emissions and pledges to CUT  CO2 EMISSIONS by 30% in TEN YEARS.  And that plan includes infrastructure for electric cars, using more biofuels, creating more bike paths, carbon capture, and more.

" ... Here's the clincher--curbing carbon is fully expected to be expensive, as detailed by the report. Government officials estimate that they'll initially spend at least $188 per ton of greenhouse gas emissions avoided. That's 10 times as much as it costs to do so in the EU's carbon trading scheme, and 10 times what a pollution permit would cost under the proposed energy legislation in the US. Also, Norway uses very little coal power, so cutting CO2 is harder and more expensive--it can't just take coal plants offline.


But Norway is cutting carbon anyways. Because they know it's a sound investment. It's that simple. Norway will use tax revenues from carbon to invest in clean projects. They predict that cutting carbon will stimulate their clean energy economy, which will nearly compensate for the costs during the first 10 years. After that, the economic benefits would likely exceed the cost of curbing emissions."

Very smart.  Norway is an OIL-RICH, oil-dependent country, and still they see the benefit in investing in the future of energy.  Bravo.

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