Last year, as UN scientists were warning of the perils of man-made climate change, this small country of fjords and factories reacted with an extraordinary pledge: by 2050 Norway would be "carbon neutral" - generating no net greenhouse gases into the air.
Norway's bold promise raised the bar for other nations, which were mostly still struggling to figure out how to reduce emissions, by even a fraction. Then, in January, the Norwegian government went a step further: Norway would be carbon neutral by 2030, it said.
But as the details of the plan have emerged, environmental groups and politicians - who applaud Norway's impulse - say the feat relies too heavily on sleight-of-hand accounting and huge donations to environmental projects abroad, rather than meaningful emissions reductions.
That criticism has not only set off anguished soul-searching here, but may also come as a cold slap to the many countries, companies, cities and universities that have lined up to replicate Norway's example of becoming carbon neutral - with an environmental balance sheet showing that they absorb as much carbon dioxide as they emit.
"We're a nice little selfish country of petroholics, and that has made us lazy," said Frederic Hauge, president of Bellona, Norway's largest nongovernmental environmental organization. "The move from 2050 to 2030 is a sign of good intentions, but unless I see action, I've heard it all before."
Despite its pledges, seen from the perspective of its smoke-spewing rigs producing billions of barrels of oil a year - Norway is the third-largest exporter in the world - industrial Norway does not look like a poster child for environmental friendliness.
In the short term, the country is poised to become carbon neutral by financing environmental projects abroad, as allowed under the UN environmental accounting policy. That means that emissions at home can be "canceled out" by things like planting trees or cleaning up a polluting factory in a country far away.
But Norway's actual plan for reducing its own emissions is much less clear. Like all the environmentally conscious Scandinavian countries, Norway made the easy changes decades ago. Any further cuts in emissions - the essential thing scientists agree is needed to stem the momentum of global warming - are likely to be painful.
If anything, its early experience shows that cutting carbon dioxide emissions will require real sacrifice closer to home, like driving less, flying less and putting restrictions on businesses. Instead, so far it is relying in large part on developing unproved technology.
The Norwegian model, critics say, may not be a path to the future of carbon neutrality and may not be sustainable, because it requires deep coffers and, anyway, there are not enough environmental projects in poor countries to cancel out all the emissions of the developed world.
"They're willing to spend a lot of money on a climate policy that's based abroad, but so far they haven't been quite so willing to make politically difficult choices at home that people will feel," said Steffen Kallbekken, a senior analyst at Cicero, the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research, a nongovernmental group here. "So it's not so much of a model as it could be."
The same goes for the Vatican, which "offsets" its emissions by planting forests in Hungary, but it did not enter into the calculation the polluting travel of its priests and officials - nor the emissions caused at properties outside Vatican City.
Those kinds of accounting gaps and trade-offs are widespread and mask the true challenges ahead, even for well-intentioned countries like Norway, scientists and environmental groups say.
Behind Norway's green pledge lies an uncomfortable truth: though this country of 5 million is fairly eco-friendly - with, for example, high taxes of cars and fuel - as one of the world's top sources of oil and natural gas, it exports emissions all over the world. It also maintains a broad industrial base of its own.
In its recently released Climate Change Performance Index 2008, the nonprofit group Germanwatch, which is active on environmental issues, ranked Norway 16th out of 56 countries, tied with Indonesia, and well behind Sweden, Britain and Germany.
Norway has also been investing in emerging technologies, particularly carbon capture and storage, in which emissions produced by factories are stored underground. Perfecting the technique would be "Norway's moon landing," the government announced, a piece of inspirational science to benefit the world.
Most everyone in Norway applauds those moves, but that is where the cheering ends. The government has not been specific about its plans to reduce emissions at home, and that is making many nervous.
"We are very positive about dialogue with the government and very positive about reducing greenhouse gases, but we want to be very careful that industry doesn't end up a loser," said Finn Bergesen, director general of the Confederation of Norwegian Enterprise. "It's a good thing to set goals, but goals have to be realistic."
Recently, a Norwegian aluminum producer announced that it would open a new plant - in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. "We have some of the cleanest plants in the world, and if they close up here and pop up in China - where they will not be so clean - that's not to anyone's benefit," Bergesen said.
The one large political group that opposes the carbon neutral goal, the Progress Party, has become increasingly vocal.
"They have a goal but they don't have a plan, and for me spending money without focus on things that are merely symbolic is a problem," said Siv Jensen, the party's leader, who is sometimes mentioned as a candidate to become Norway's next prime minister.
Jensen would like more money spent on things like roads, improving Norway's recycling program and exporting knowledge of hydropower. Any further steps will not be easy.
Cars and fuel in Norway are already heavily taxed.
Other countries can close highly polluting coal-fire electricity plants as an easy first step toward reducing emissions. But Norway barely uses any coal at all. More than 95 percent of the country's electricity is from waterfalls - eco-friendly, renewable hydropower.
The main polluter in Norway is heavy industry - oil, gas, metal refining. They are, of course, the industries that have made Norway rich. Their revenues ensure high pay and good benefits here, and they help pay for reducing deforestation in Africa.
Environmental advocates say Norway should take the next step, issuing fewer permits for oil exploration, for example, and even raising gas taxes. Instead of exporting energy, Hauge suggests, Norway should use some of it domestically to create things like low-priced solar panels for use in the developing world.
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