Consequences of the COP21 for companies in Norway - 21th January

Many thanks to all the participants of our seminar “Consequences of the COP 21 Paris agreement for companies in Norway“ organized on the 21st of January in collaboration with Science Po Alumni Norway.

The panel, moderated by Amir Sasson, Professor at BI Norwegian Business School, was composed by Terje Osmundsen, SVP Business Development at Scatec Solar, Marius Holm, General Manager at ZERO, Per Anker-Nilssen, Senior Advisor Innovation and Business Development at NHO and Hedda Felin, VP Safety, Sustainability and Compliance at Statoil.

 After the recent COP21 held in Paris a few months ago, aiming at containing global warming, the discussion yesterday was about energy transition and opportunities connected to this game changer for companies in Norway and Norwegian companies abroad. All speakers greeted French diplomacy for the success of the Paris agreement. Jean-Marc Pommeray, first counselor of the French embassy in Norway underlined the fact that Norway was very important during the negotiation. In Paris, Norway was indeed perceived as a main partner.

We debated about the role the Norwegian Pension fund could play to set new standards for a greener economy, the breakthrough of solar energy in many parts of the world and opportunities for new companies, small niche actors or traditional Oil & Gas operators to invest in this cluster, on the consumers’ side the importance of the world's most influential companies committed to renewable power (RE100 project), the role of gas in the transition to replace coal…

 The French-Norwegian Chamber of Commerce will arrange a follow-up on this topic during the year and integrate opportunities connected to the Energy transition during our seminar “French-Norwegian cooperation to develop business in Africa” to be held in Oslo in March.