Berit Kristoffersen

UiT The Arctic University of Norway · Department of Sociology, Political Science and Community Planning

A climate-positive COVID-19 recovery can accelerate the energy transition away from fossil fuels. Yet, current assessments of recovery stimulus programs suggest that the most fossil fuel producers are more likely to take on a ‘dirty’ recovery path out of the pandemic than a ‘green’ one. Such a path will postpone climate action and entrench fossil f...

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions has generally been approached through demand-side initiatives, yet there are increasing calls for supply-side interventions to curtail fossil fuel production. Pursuing energy transition through supply-side constraints would have major geopolitical and economic consequences. Depending on the criteria and instruments...

In this paper we explore how post-petroleum security is continually shaped by both the micropolitical practices of everyday life as well as the changing geopolitics of energy landscapes. We focus in particular on the two-decade long struggle over access to hydrocarbon deposits outside the Lofoten, Vesterålen and Senja archipelago groups (LoVeSe), a...

This chapter investigates Arctic imaginaries embedded in the sustainable development discourse and discusses various potential conceptual and political meanings of the concept in an Arctic context. The chapter thereby identifies and assesses complementarities and inconsistencies between three prevailing imaginaries of the Arctic as a ‘resource fron...

This paper explores how ‘ice’ is woven into the spaces and practices of the state in Norway and Canada and, specifically, how representations of the sea ice edge become political agents in that process. We focus in particular on how these states have used science to ‘map’ sea ice – both graphically and legally – over the past decades. This culminat...

Being concerned with responsible whale tourism, we have argued that we need to understand how whales are enacted in multiple ways. To do so, we describe a series of knowledge practices or ontologies through which different whales are enacted and the relations between these. We argue that there are multiple versions of the whale in northern seascape...

In this chapter Helge Ryggvik and Berit Kristoffersen argue that even if Norway avoided the classic symptoms of the oil curse, it nonetheless has been deeply affected, first by the sheer wealth, then by the power of its own national oil company. Political realism in Norway includes fossil fuel dominance—economic and political. Voices are being hear...

This book presents a new perspective on adaptation to climate change. It considers climate change as more than a problem that can be addressed solely through technical expertise. Instead, it approaches climate change as an adaptive challenge that is fundamentally linked to beliefs, values and worldviews, as well as to power, politics, identities an...

Developing off-shore energy resources have been central to North Atlantic socio-economic development, continues to do so and is highly likely to remain so in coming decades. Norway has amassed great wealth through off-shore oil and gas exploration, which has affected Norwegian society profoundly during the last four decades. Norway has combined the...

Based on over 60 interviews and fieldwork in Lofoten, Norway, over a five-year period (2008 – 2013), this paper argues that local identity is a ‘missing link’ with significant explanatory value when analyzing the contested matter of whether to open for oil drilling in this region. Through a Giddensian approach to ontological security, we identify a...

In this paper, we explore how ‘peak oil’ anxieties are woven into the spaces and practices of the state in Norway and the consequences of this for environmental justice and the public sphere more widely. We focus in particular on an ongoing struggle over access to hydrocarbon deposits in the Norwegian Arctic, the so-called ‘Battle of the North’. We...

Introduction Over the past two decades, human security has developed into an important international discourse that draws attention to the well-being of individuals and communities in the face of multiple stressors and threats. By embracing both normative and ethical perspectives, human security draws attention to the factors that influence the cap...

Presenting human security perspectives on climate change, this volume raises issues of equity, ethics and environmental justice, as well as our capacity to respond to what is increasingly considered to be the greatest societal challenge for humankind. Written by international experts, it argues that climate change must be viewed as an issue of huma...