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Norway's abundance of resources is the establishing factor in explaining how the North European state ranks among the countries worldwide with the highest standard of living. Indeed, fossil fuels are finite and after their depletion the Norwegian social welfare state should endure. Therefore, a sovereign wealth fund has been founded in the kingdom in 1990, in which the surpluses from the oil and gas industry sales have been invested from that time on. This method should secure the state's ability to act in the post-petroleum era.
At the end of the 1990's the voice of Norwegian society insisted that the sovereign wealth fund should not only be for intergenerational justice, but should also contribute to the implementation of worth and norms of the present country. In the end of 2004 the Parliament (Storting), on the basis of the Graver Report, finally agreed upon ethic regulations for the investment of the sovereign wealth fund. With capital of over 280 billion Euros (figures from 2007), the second largest sovereign wealth fund in the world, they should now only have businesses in their portfolio which adhere to those ethical regulations. In the present paper, the emergence and outcomes of the development of a "Third Way" between maximising profit and sustainability will be illustrated.
The ethical regulations have different dimensions (e.g. no contribution to human rights violations, child labour, serious environmental damages, etc.) to which the present text concentrates on posing the question to what extent sovereign wealth funds could be a new instrument of climate protection policy. For this purpose, the contribution of both main instruments of ethical regulations, "Active Ownership" and the exclusion of businesses, were analysed as well as the actors which have been created for their implementation. The repercussions reach from dialogs with businesses in the USA to stop lobby activities against Congress-planned climate protection laws, such as an emissions trading system, to adjusting to the exclusion of individual firms from the portfolio of welfare states, due to a breach of ethics.
The drawbacks and constraints of a takeover of the Norwegian regulations by other financial actors and its first diffusion effects will be analysed. Finally, this article will deal with the running evaluations of the ethical regulations and Norwegian current and future domestic climate policies.
Der Ressourcenreichtum Norwegens hat die Grundlage dafür geschaffen, dass der nordeuropäische Staat weltweit zu den Ländern mit dem höchsten Lebensstandard zählt. Doch fossile Energien sind endlich, und auch nach ihrer Erschöpfung soll der norwegische Wohlfahrtstaat Bestand haben. Deshalb wurde in dem Königreich im Jahr 1990 ein Staatsfonds aufgelegt, in dem seither die Überschüsse aus dem Öl- und Gasverkauf angelegt werden. Diese Mittel sollen die Handlungsfähigkeit des Staates in der Post-Petroleum-Ära sicherstellen.
Ende der 1990er Jahre wurden in der norwegischen Gesellschaft Stimmen laut, dass der Staatsfonds nicht nur zur intergenerationellen Gerechtigkeit, sondern auch zur Umsetzung der Werte und Normen des Landes in der Gegenwart beitragen solle. Ende 2004 wurden schließlich vom Parlament (Storting) auf Basis des Graver Reports ethische Richtlinien für die Anlagepolitik des Staatsfonds beschlossen. Der mit einem Vermögen von über 280 Mrd. Euro (Stand Ende 2007) zweitgrößte Staatsfonds der Welt soll nun nur noch Unternehmen in seinem Portfolio haben, die diese ethischen Richtlinien einhalten. Im vorliegenden Paper werden Genese und Outcome dieser Entwicklung eines "Dritten Weges" zwischen Profitmaximierung und Nachhaltigkeit dargestellt.
Die Ethik-Richtlinie hat verschiedene Dimensionen (u. a. kein Beitrag zu Menschenrechtsverletzungen, Kinderarbeit, schweren Umweltschäden, etc.), wobei sich der vorliegende Text auf die Fragestellung konzentriert, inwiefern Staatsfonds ein neues Instrument der Klimaschutzpolitik sein können. Dazu werden der Beitrag der beiden Hauptinstrumente der Ethikrichtlinien, das "Active Ownership" und der Unternehmensausschluss, zum globalen Klimaschutz ebenso analysiert wie die zu ihrer Umsetzung geschaffenen Akteure. Die Bandbreite der Auswirkungen reicht dabei vom Dialog mit Unternehmen in den USA, Lobbytätigkeiten gegen vom Kongress geplante Klimaschutzgesetze einzustellen bis hin zur Verbannung einzelner Firmen aus dem Portfolio des Staatsfonds wegen groben Verstößen gegen die Ethik-Richtlinien.
Die Möglichkeiten und Grenzen einer Übernahme der norwegischen Regeln durch andere Akteure der Finanzwirtschaft werden ebenso untersucht wie erste Diffusionseffekte. Schließlich wird auf die laufende Evaluation der Ethik-Richtlinien und auf Stand und Perspektiven norwegischer Klimaschutzinnenpolitik eingegangen.
An sechzehn Strängen ziehen
(2008)
The Gulf countries are largely dependent on exporting oil and natural gas for their national budgets. They mainly use domestic fossil fuels for their domestic energy supply. In spite of favorable geographic conditions, especially for solar energy, renewable energies are still a niche application. Abu Dhabi, besides Dubai, the most important emirate in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), has now started a process of "transforming oil wealth into renewable energy leadership", and has set the long-term goal of a "transition from a 20th Century, carbon-based economy into a 21st Century sustainable economy." This article is a case study about "Masdar City", a planned carbon-neutral town in Abu Dhabi. The article describes the key characteristics of Masdar City, analyses the drivers behind the project, identifies the main actors for its implementation, and seeks obstacles to creation and development as well as the policy behind Masdar City. Finally, a first judgment of possible diffusion effects of the project is done.
Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates are major oil and natural gas producing countries that make up the Gulf Cooperation Council. The six GCC countries fall in the top 25 countries of carbon dioxide emissions per capita and are perceived as the main actors blocking international climate change negotiations. The aim of this article is to discuss from a policy perspective the capacities of the GCC states to switch toward an ecological modernization of their energy sectors. At the beginning of the paper, I analyze the benefits of transforming oil wealth into funding for renewable energy and energy efficiency. After this, I discuss obstacles to such a transformation process based on the rentier states theory. Finally, I investigate governance of the GCC on all levels (international, regional, and local). The article shows that the GCC countries have recently adopted a more pro-active approach toward ecological modernization. This reorientation has not yet resulted in the development of consistent strategies and policies, however. The concluding assumption based on the concept of policy transfer is that pioneering projects such as Masdar City and innovative regulation like the green building code in Dubai will spread within the GCC.
In 1990 a sovereign wealth fund was founded in Norway in which the country invests surpluses from oil and gas industry sales. The fund is designed to secure the state's ability to act in a post-petroleum era. At the end of the 1990's the voice of Norwegian civil society insisted that the sovereign wealth fund should not only ensure intergenerational justice, but should also contribute to the implementation of values and norms of the present country. At the end of 2004 the parliament finally agreed upon ethical regulations for the investment of the sovereign wealth fund. Now the second largest sovereign wealth fund in the world only invests in businesses that adhere to those ethical regulations. In the present paper, I seek to illustrate the emergence and outcomes of this new development in the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund.