Realizing Alternative Energy Futures: From the Promise of a Petroleum Future to Imagining Lofoten as the Green Islands

Abstract

AbstractThis chapter examines the 20-year-long oil dispute in Lofoten and the decision to deviate from oil and gas development in the region. Our objectives are three-fold: (1) to better understand how carbon-intensive development pathways can rapidly shift towards decarbonization, (2) to yield insights into how alternative narratives about the future materialize in historically pro-carbon contexts such as Norway, and (3) examining to which extent we can identify and assess potential social tipping events that impacted the decision to deviate from oil and gas development in Lofoten. Drawing on a qualitative framework, we address our objectives by identifying and assessing important events between 2000–2020 that impacted the decision to halt plans for oil and gas development and by examining how alternative visions of an oil free Lofoten emerged and took shape over the last two decades. We argue that the fact that the Lofoten regions remains closed to petroleum development is unusual given the significance of petroleum production to the Norwegian economy and the dominant logic of the Norwegian resource regime. Examining the Lofoten case thus yields insights into conditions and interventions that can both unsettle fossil fuel energy systems and foster lasting transformation towards less-carbon intensive emissions trajectories.