Politicians dispute WWF film on oil around Svalbard

A campaign film by WWF Norway, shot at Tempelfjorden near Longyearbyen, says politicians want to pump oil around Svalbard. Politicians from the Labour Party and the Progress Party and the oil companies' organisation answered that nobody has proposed that, Aftenposten reported on 12 November.

WWF Norway's petition asks Norway to shelve plans to explore for new oil and gas in the Arctic. The film promotes it on the organisation's Instagram account.

In the film, a nature guide hurries two tourists around Svalbard because, he says, climate change is quickly destroying what he came to show them. Near the end he asks whether they know politicians want to pump oil around here.

Mani Hussaini of the Labour Party chairs the energy and environment committee of the Storting, Norway's parliament. He told the newspaper it was disappointing to see WWF spread untruths about Norwegian oil and gas activity. Nobody has proposed activity on Svalbard, he said, and WWF knows this well.

The Storting voted on 26 May on a Progress Party proposal to start collecting seismic data in the northern Barents Sea for oil companies. The proposal fell by 71 votes to 29, and all 29 came from the Progress Party, the Storting's voting record shows.

Kristoffer Sivertsen of the Progress Party, a member of the same committee, said his party has in no way called for pumping oil around Svalbard. The party is talking about areas off Finnmark and Nordland that could connect to existing infrastructure, he said. He called the campaign misleading. "I have been in Northern Norway, and there are no polar bears there," he said.

Karoline Andaur, secretary general of WWF Norway, said the critics are clutching at straws. The campaign presents a fictional guided tour in an Arctic setting and uses humour to bring out how fast the climate is changing there, she said. She pointed to how vulnerable Arctic ecosystems are and how serious an oil spill there could be.

Offshore Norge, the employers' and interest organisation for companies on the Norwegian continental shelf, said it expects WWF to stick to the facts.

Oil companies get licences in an area only once the Storting has opened it, after an impact assessment. The northernmost production on the Norwegian shelf is the Johan Castberg field, about 640 km southeast of Longyearbyen. The Wisting oil discovery lies about 583 km southeast of the town.

Equinor and its partners plan to decide towards the end of 2026 whether to continue the Wisting project. An investment decision is planned for late 2027, Equinor said on 22 October.

Coverage: Aftenposten