First of all, please let me say a big thank you to all the 6000 miles… readers who took the time to send me that BBC article about a-ha’s role in popularising electric vehicles in Norway. It’s this sort of reader engagement that makes me all warm and fuzzy inside, and I really am very grateful.
I’m also clearly sending out some very specific vibes on here though, because I received links to this article no fewer than eleven times, on three different platforms, and from four different continents, all within a couple of hours of it being published.
Amazing.
Had I heard this story before? Well, yes, but only recently: in this thread on twitter early last year.
And yes, seemingly because of the efforts of Morten et al., it seems that Norway – who made all their money from invading Scotland in the 9th Century dirty oil – are now well ahead of the curve when it comes to electric cars:
In the first half of 2022, 78% of new car sales in Norway were pure electric.
The country intends to ban the sale of new petrol and diesel cars by 2025 which is five years ahead of the UK.
and:
Add to that the fact that almost 99% of Norway’s electricity comes from renewable sources (and that climate change will make it wetter and windier there, ironically meaning more opportunities for hydroelectric and wind power), and it’s actually a very green picture for a nation which exported 114million cubic metres of oil in 2022 (and will increase that by 15% next year).
Merely moving climate change elsewhere won’t help anyone. Except apparently, as noted above, Norway.
But I suppose that I’m being a little cynical. This isn’t really greenwashing: Norway is actually giving other nations a great example to follow when it comes to electric vehicles.
And it was all thanks to a-ha.
[Did you manage to get the “The Sun Always Shines On EV” pun in? – Ed.]
