Manager
Resistance to climate action is more important to government than to local self-government.
Oslo 20170116. Call 3 in Storo on Monday morning. Due to low temperatures and stagnant air, a temporary ban on driving diesel cars on municipal roads is introduced. Photo: Håkon Mosvold Larsen / NTB
See more
Manager: It is Dagbladet’s editorial and expresses the newspaper’s vision. Dagbladet’s political editor is responsible for the editorial.
Coming to Oslo Half of the greenhouse gas emissions come from road transport. In Bergen, the figure is 40 percent.
Reducing emissions from road traffic in major cities is absolutely critical, as Norwegian emissions are cut in half over the next seven years.
Fossil cars should then be replaced by public transport, cycling, walking and, not least, cars with no CO₂ emissions.
It doesn’t come automatically. At least not in time. Policy is required.
One of the measures for that Bergen and Oslo city councils could accelerate the transition to long-desired so-called zero-emission zones. You get the chance to close parts of the city center to fossil fuel vehicles.
The City Environment Institute in Oslo is investigating how such a measure would work and recommends an introduction a few years into the future, while providing exceptions for those with reduced mobility and those who already live in the areas in question.
For a long time, the Labor Party also favored such an arrangement. In 2021, the party submitted a proposal to the Storting to allow cities to introduce such zones. On the other hand, the Center Party has been strongly opposed for a long time.
Unfortunately, the central party won the internal tussle in the government. “It is not appropriate for the government to introduce zero emission zones now,” the state secretary of the transport ministry told Aftenposten earlier this week.
Local self-government is definitely only good if the municipalities follow the policies that the central party wants.
For Oslo’s part, it begins It’s annoying. There, local politicians and citizens are now bombarded with programs they don’t like, but which the government is forcing. Like a new, porky subway through the city center, for example.
Cities are welcome to adopt climate policy as long as it is not overly ambitious. That seems to be the government’s message this time.
Raymond Johansson’s re-election as Oslo City Council President means no ban on fossil-fuel cars in the city center, and we don’t know what a zero-pollution zone will look like. But the fact that cities would be barred from introducing it suggests that the centre-party’s ideological opposition to many climate measures is blocking laws on local self-government.
“Music geek. Coffee lover. Devoted food scholar. Web buff. Passionate internet guru.”
