“Not climate justice:” Greta Thunberg joins call to tear down two huge Norway wind farms

Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg has joined hundreds of activists blocking entrances to Norway’s energy ministry, protesting against two wind farms built on land traditionally used by the indigenous Sami people.

The 20-year-old environmental campaigner has lent her voice to protestors in Norway seeking to have two wind farms in central Norway torn down.

While this may seem counter-intuitive to Thunberg’s usual protests, the two wind farms have already been stripped of their operating licenses by Norway’s supreme court in a case which found that the cultural rights of the indigenous Sami reindeer herders had been contravened.

The ruling, handed down in October 2021, recognised that location of the two wind farms at Storheia and Roan in the Fosen region of central Norway – part of the larger Fosen wind farm, comprising six wind farms with a combined capacity of over 1GW – had subsequently interfered with the rights of Sami herders.

“Indigenous rights, human rights, must go hand-in-hand with climate protection and climate action,” said Thunberg this week, speaking to Reuters while sitting outside the Norwegian energy ministry’s main entrance, where she had chained herself to other demonstrators.

“That can’t happen at the expense of some people. Then it is not climate justice.”

Despite stripping the two wind farms of their operating licenses, the Norwegian supreme court did not say what should happen to the 151 turbines – which are capable of powering approximately 100,000 Norwegian homes – or the kilometres of roads built to facilitate construction and operation of the wind farm.

“We understand that this case is a burden for the reindeer herders,” said Terje Aasland, Norway’s minister of energy and petroleum in a statement to Reuters.

“The ministry will do what it can to contribute to resolving this case and that it will not take longer than necessary.”

The Thunberg action is similar to the concerns raised in Australia by former Australian Greens leaders Bob Brown and Christine Milne over the development of some wind farms in northern Tasmania.

Brown, the founder of the Australian Greens, spoke out back in 2019 against the proposed Robbins Island wind farm, suggesting that the project will damage views and ecology on the island.

The 900MW wind farm being developed by Acen Australia was given state approval to begin construction late last year, but only under the extraordinary condition that all 122 of the project’s wind turbines are shut down for five months of the year to protect the critically endangered orange-bellied parrot.

Similar concerns around renewable development in Tasmania were raised in October of last year by former Greens leader and secretary of the board at the Bob Brown Foundation, Christine Milne.

Milne has spoken out against the federal government’s financial backing of the Marinus Link, describing it as an “ecological and economic disaster” for Tasmania.

The Marinus Link undersea cable will link Tasmania and Victoria, and is part of the federal Labor government’s larger $20 billion ‘Rewiring the Nation’ program and has been dubbed a crucial element of the “Battery of the Nation program, despite questions about its viability by some analysts.

A $2.25 billion deal was signed last October between the federal, Victorian, and Tasmanian governments to support critical transmission upgrades in Tasmania and Victoria.

Milne said she was “devastated” by the agreement, telling RenewEconomy that “It’s a terrible project, that will plunge Tasmania into debt, for virtually no benefit to Tasmanians.”