Energy (in)justice in the green energy transition. The case of Fosen wind farms in Norway

Abstract

In 2021, the Norwegian Supreme Court ruled that wind power licences issued in 2010 for two wind farms in the Fosen area near Trondheim violated the cultural rights of the local Sámi herders. The Fosen case is of interest as it demonstrates how policy intervention to honour the human rights of citizens to a healthy environment came into conflict with the indigenous human rights. Our study explores why this wind power project became a policy failure and what the Sámi achieved in terms of green energy justice through their legal and political struggles as well as settlement agreements. The green energy justice framework fails to address longstanding indigenous injustices and inequalities. Hence, it needs to recognise traditional knowledge, assess the historical context of the intervention, and include a veto right to indigenous minorities to ensure that their rights protected by Article 27 of the ICCPR are respected. The policy failure involved opposition among the Sámi herders to the intervention. The failure occurred as politics shaped the decision and decision-making process underestimated the impact on reindeer husbandry and ignored the objections raised by the Sámi herders. The Supreme Court ruling addressed the reasons for the policy failure and strengthened the indigenous dimensions of the green energy justice. The Sámi herders and their supports were unable to mobilise public media support for the removal of the windmills to undo the human rights violation. Hence, the settlement agreements included distributional justice in the form of monetary compensation and the recognition of their need for new land for winter grazing as well as strengthening of their procedural justice with granting of a veto right on future licenses of the two wind farms.