Facets of justice in education: a petroleum nation addressing United Nations sustainable development agenda

ABSTRACT

Norway has a complex, even paradoxical, relationship to the United Nations Agenda 2030 and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals. It makes considerable financial contributions to the United Nations and has strongly supported the establishment of the sustainability agenda aimed at promoting global equity and mitigating the ecological and climate crises. Norway is also a prominent petroleum-producing nation. The Norwegian position is explored using an approach that emphasizes justice and education in the sustainability agenda. Three key texts are studied. The first is the objectives clause in the Education Act, the second is an address by then prime minister Erna Solberg at the annual conference of the Confederation of Norwegian Enterprise, and the third are educational assignments published by the Norwegian Petroleum Museum addressing sustainability and climate change. What is decisive is how specific facets of justice are emphasized in ways that detach Norway from tensions, contradictions, and dilemmas involved.

KEYWORDS:

• Agenda 2030
• sustainable development
• justice
• environmental and sustainability education
• museum education

1. Introduction

In this paper, I study selected instances of environmental and sustainability education as expressions of justice. Education is here conceived broadly and refers to reflections and practices in which society reproduces and transforms itself both within and beyond formal institutions (Kvamme, Kvernbekk, and Strand 2016, 16). I am historically and politically situated in a Norwegian context. Two aspects are thus important. Along with the other Nordic countries, Norway has a long tradition of making considerable contributions to the United Nations (UN) and the establishment of a sustainability agenda, which is currently expressed in Transforming our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (UN 2015). This agenda is historically connected to vital concerns raised within the UN – on the one hand to eradicate poverty and hunger by focusing on economic development, and on the other to take the necessary measures to accomplish this aim without exceeding the earth’s ecological limits. The latter concern requires addressing the ecological and climate crises, with global warming a persistent and increasingly experienced threat to life on earth. This global outlook challenges any narrow, parochial conception of justice and education restricted by the borders of the nation-state.

At the same time, Norway is the third largest exporter of gas and the 15^th largest exporter of oil globally (Norwegian Petroleum Directorate and Ministry of Petroleum and Energy 2022). The dilemmas this position entails are crystallized in reports provided by the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) documenting the relationship between greenhouse gas emissions and climate change and presenting assessments of projected climate change, potential impacts, and associated risks. The IPCC Special Report Global Warming of 1.5 °C (IPCC 2019) is decisive; it demonstrates the considerable difference between 1.5 °C and 2 °C increased in global temperatures in terms of the deterioration of living conditions. Climate researchers report that more than half of the world’s oil reserves must remain in the ground to meet the 1.5 °C carbon budget (see, e.g. Welsby et al. 2021). The International Energy Agency (IEA 2021) has determined that there is no space for new oil fields within the aim of limiting the rise in global temperatures to 1.5 °C.

The Storting, Norway’s parliament, has a substantial majority who support prolonging oil and gas production, including exploring new fields, for as long as possible. This was also the position of the former liberal-conservative government led by Erna Solberg, which was in office from 2013 until elections in September 2021. It was replaced by a new coalition, led by the social democratic Jonas Gahr Støre, who immediately told the Financial Times that this Norwegian policy plank would continue (Milne 2021). Norway is also, due the wealth accumulated from oil and gas production, an exceptional affluent country. With a population of 5.2 million, the nation-state administers the Government Pension Fund Global (the ‘oil fund’), with a market value of more than €1.2 trillion (Norges Bank 2022).

In summary, then, Norway’s position is distinguished by incredible affluence based on a petroleum economy with ambitions to prolong oil and gas production for the foreseeable future, even as it ambitiously supports the UN’s sustainability agenda with both global equity and transformation to a non-carbon world among its major aims. In this paper, I look into how the complexities, contradictions, and dilemmas that distinguish this position are dealt with in the Norwegian context, with issues of justice and education a primary concern. I cite selected prominent examples as focuses of attention. In the first part of the paper, I clarify how justice is dealt with methodologically and discuss it as a manifold concern within the sustainability agenda.

1.1 Justice in a stereoscopic optic

In a review of article contributions addressing justice within philosophy of education, Marianna Papastephanou (2021) maps the wide variety of conceptions of justice employed, including educational and distributive justice, social justice, democratic justice, relational justice, and what she calls postmodern, multiple justice. These manifold expressions – or face(t)s in her preferred formulation – of justice do not bother Papastephanou. Indeed, that very multiplicity is an expression of discursive justice, as it brings in many voices. This is where the normative vein is most visibly exposed in her account of confronting discursive injustices:

Discursive injustices affect, though they do not necessarily produce, various facets of justice along with their synergy and the cracks in the whole that their synergy involves. This whole makes the concept of justice (with no adjectival specifications) intelligible and communication on justice (in such abstraction) possible. (Papastephanou 2021, 8)

Papastephanou problematizes the metaphor of ‘perspective.’ Her objection is that this concept is constrained by a disconnected, single-focused take on justice. Instead, Papastephanou offers the metaphor of a stereoscopic optic, emphasizing the interconnectedness, tensions, and contradictions between various face(t)s that open a deeper conception of justice. This approach is guided by the notion of a ‘fractured whole’ that avoids connotations of harmony and allows for a space that accommodates the many face(t)s.

In this paper, I suggest that justice is vital to the sustainable development agenda of the United Nations (UN) when conceived as a fractured whole that includes various facets of justice that establish interconnections and tensions: some in the foreground, others in the background; some focused, others blurred.

Papastephanou’s stereoscopic optic refers to developments in photography and painting in the nineteenth century. Used here in considering specific texts, the metaphorical aspect is foregrounded, and the concomitant notion of a fractured whole is considered a regulative ideal, never to be fully realized.

Papastephanou introduces the stereoscopy metaphor in a review article that tends toward overview and comprehensiveness. Below, I turn to some specific texts, where the identification of perspectives on justice may appear to be as pertinent as an all-embracing, albeit fractured, stereoscopic optic. Indeed, in two of the three texts, certain perspectives on justice turn out to be particularly prominent. The stereoscopy metaphor may still be methodologically productive, with certain aspects accentuated while others fade into the background or disappear. These texts cannot in themselves express the sustainability agenda as a fractured whole, but they do demonstrate how certain aspects are emphasized and brought into focus while others are left out. I acknowledge how ideology is at work here, expressed in hegemonic imaginaries (Ricoeur 2008) that uphold current structures and practices.

1.2 Justice in the sustainability agenda

The UN’s sustainability agenda clearly adopts an ethical, normative perspective. In fact, the ethical dimension may be regarded as its primary outlook (Kemp 2011, 77). The agenda does not merely consider the needs of individual human beings or nation-states but concerns the needs of all human beings in the present and the future and even, though often with reservations, the more-than-human world. In this way, the agenda brings together several facets of justice – intragenerational, intergenerational, and ecological – that may further be expressed as distributive, social, gender, and climate justice. In a similar vein, Dryzek and Pickering (2019) accentuate the significance of justice beyond national borders, justice across generations, and justice for non-humans as fundamental to the politics of the Anthropocene, bringing them all together in the notion of planetary justice. Nightingale, Böhler, and Campbell (2019, 8) claim that ‘narratives of sustainability are tied to issues of justice,’ demonstrating how the key concepts of balance, limits, and diversity all express the tensions, contradictions, and dilemmas involved. They conclude their argument by drawing ‘attention to the need to continually ask: sustainability of what? And sustainability for whom?’ (Nightingale, Böhler, and Campbell 2019, 9). Particularly from a distributional approach, the notion of limits stands out as significant. The sustainability agenda acknowledges that the natural resources conditioning a good life are limited, as is the production of waste. From this emerges the issue of the fair distribution of privileges and burdens. In addition to the forms of justice above come notions of regulative justice, which are visible not only in the processes determining the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Agenda 2030 (Langford 2016) but also in determining the negotiations following up the Framework Convention on Climate Change (UN 1992) that led to the Paris Agreement (UN Framework Convention on Climate Change 2015). Institutional justice and regulative justice are particularly promoted in SDG 16 – peace, justice, and strong institutions – which also accentuates the prevention of violence and the significance of participation.

Although the stereoscopic optic adopted here is sensitive to various forms of justice, particular attention is paid toward the ethical and political questions raised by Nightingale, Böhler, and Campbell; namely, the what and the who in the sustainability agenda. Without supplying a clear definition, justice in what follows is generally aligned with an ideal to accommodate, care for, and respect all who may be influenced by the issue in question.¹

From the outset, UN engagement with sustainable development has been criticized for not being able to accommodate the full range of concerns and fundamentally expressing an oxymoron (see, e.g. Brown 2015). Agenda 2030 with its 17 SDGs has not silenced those objections. The criticism that the agenda upholds unjust structures supporting the continued exploitation of life on earth has been leveled by both activists and researchers, with the support of the current economic world order expressed in SDG 8 and SDG 17 as frequent targets (Adelman 2018; Kotzé 2018). The fundamental contradiction between consensus statements making promises and expressing concerns and the absence of sufficient political follow-up, which characterizes the story of the sustainability agenda, gives the sting to such charges.

1.3 Sustainability and education

In the sustainability agenda, education serves at least three functions. First, good education is considered in SDG 4 a condition for development and a good life (UN 2015). The formulation of particular targets emphasizes inclusive education, with reference to disability and gender. Second, education is conceived of as a key to reach all the other goals, as expressed in target 4.7, which refers to UNESCO initiatives like education for sustainable development, global citizenship education, intercultural education, and peace education. Finally and most significantly, the call to transform our world (cf. the name of the agenda) demonstrates how Agenda 2030 is upheld by the ambition of transformation and going beyond formal, institutional settings to involve social imaginaries, societal institutions, and many societal practices. Considering the key role of justice in the sustainability agenda, a central function of education in this regard is addressing various facets of injustice and moving toward sustainability justice, which in this paper is considered a fractured whole.

Although the discussion of sustainability, justice, and education on a theoretical level is pertinent and necessary, I now bring in selected examples from a Norwegian context, the selection determined by my overall interest. As the introduction indicates, the aim is here to explore the tensions and contradictions inherent in Norway’s position on the sustainability agenda. An underlying premise is that although Norway is in some respects a special case, this examination may also demonstrate the more general challenges that characterize the sustainability agenda as a fractured whole. Elsewhere I have, in more detail, studied recontextualizations of the sustainability agenda in Norwegian policy and curriculum documents (Kvamme 2018) and classroom interactions (Kvamme 2020).

2. Sustainability justice and education in the Norwegian context

The texts I focus on here are the objectives clause in the Education Act, a speech made by Erna Solberg, then the prime minister (PM), and the educational resources on the Norwegian Petroleum Museum website.² The objectives clause is a Norwegian education policy text that regulates formal primary and secondary education. The latter two texts exemplify how the sustainability agenda is considered within contexts that focus on Norway’s distinct position as a petroleum nation. Both may be conceived of as significant symbolic expressions of Norwegian attempts to accommodate justice and Agenda 2030. The objectives clause does not expose the petroleum nation or the sustainability agenda in the same way, but it demonstrates in its vagueness and distinctness how sustainability justice may still emerge in a judicial and normative text regulating the Norwegian education system. (Kvamme 2018)

Education in Norway is governed by a national curriculum presented as the result of democratic political processes. The objectives clause represents a key policy text that regulates a predominantly public education system that is conceived as part of the broader public-welfare apparatus (Møller and Skedsmo 2013, 338). The welfare state is central to the Nordic political model; based on the principles of freedom, equality, and solidarity (Strand 2020), it holds that the state has responsibility for the material and social welfare of the population. The context of a social democratic welfare state has also determined Norwegian petroleum politics, with regulation through taxation and the net profits in the oil fund saved for future Norwegian generations.

2.1 The objectives clause in Norway’s education act

Like the other Nordic countries, Norway has a tradition of expressing the overall purpose of school and education in a short statement included in the Education Act (Ministry of Education and Research 2008). The current expression, passed by the Storting in 2008 and only 198 words, includes societal, individual, and institutional dimensions (Ministry of Education and Research 2007). The societal dimension emerges in a list of fundamental values on which education should be based, ‘such as respect for human dignity and nature, and on intellectual freedom, charity, forgiveness, equality and solidarity.’ The individual dimension addresses the development of the student and explicitly expresses a Bildung conception of education. The institutional dimension emphasizes the significance of participating practices and non-discrimination.

None of the expressions in this normative text run contrary to the sustainability agenda, and the fundamental values in particular may be said to precondition various facets of justice that do not come to the surface. For example, intellectual freedom can be regarded as opening up discursive justice, equality, and solidarity, from which social, gender, and disability justice may emerge, supplemented by participatory practices that reflect the institutional dimension. Respect for human dignity stands out as a comprehensive value included in these possible facets of justice.

One formulation in the objectives clause emerges as particularly striking, due to its emphasis on action – students shall learn ‘to think critically and act ethically and with environmental awareness.’ Other than that, preferred ethical actions are not articulated, which may reflect the openness of the Bildung concept (Kvamme 2012). But in the articulation of environmental action, ecological justice emerges as a concern, which calls attention to the formulation of the fundamental value of respect for nature.

The objectives clause contains references to human rights and ‘our common international cultural traditions.’ However, there are neither explicit expressions of global justice nor concerns for future generations that make climate justice distinct. Such concerns may be connected with the emphasis on environmental action, but they are still positioned somewhere in the background or barely on the surface. The national context is made visible by embedding the fundamental values in ‘Christian and humanist heritage and traditions’ and referring to ‘the national cultural heritage.’ This situatedness makes the scope of the fundamental value of solidarity an open question; is it conceived of solely within or also beyond national borders?

To sum up, studying the objectives clause from the approach of a stereoscopic optic, ecological justice stands out as the most distinct concern, surrounded by several other values, issues, and subjects that comprise a normative vision of what education is about. Several of its formulations may function as preconditions for the surfacing of various facets of justice. An issue is whether the scope of justice articulated is linked with the present nation-state or represents a global outlook that extends into the future. This issue, never explicitly addressed in the objectives clause but decisive to the sustainability agenda, is considered further as I turn to texts within contexts that explicitly express Norway as a petroleum nation.

2.2 PM’s address to the confederation of Norwegian enterprise

In January 2020, Erna Solberg, the prime minister of Norway, gave a speech at the annual conference of the Confederation of Norwegian Enterprise (Solberg 2020). Solberg was then co-chair, with Ghanian President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, of the UN Secretary-General’s SDG Advocates. She thus personified the Norwegian engagement with and responsibility for Agenda 2030 by following up her predecessor Gro Harlem Brundtland´s chairing of the World Commission on Environment and Development (1983–1987), which led to the report Our Common Future (World Commission on Environment and Development 1987). Her international engagement has given Erna Solberg authority and legitimacy with regard to the sustainability agenda – a steady, reliable position from which to speak.

I consider the PM´s address at the annual conference of the Confederation of Norwegian Enterprise as a lesson on justice and education with regard to Agenda 2030 and the SDGs. In other words, I employ the structure or imaginary of the state leader as a teacher who determines how the current situation should be conceived and managed. With this analytical approach, ideological aspects of the speech may also become visible – expressed in the facets of justice that are discernible, and those that are not.

The date is 8 January 2020, and Solberg establishes the context of a new year and a new decade: ‘[This is] the year in which we take stock after five years with Sustainable Development Goals. The year in which the Paris Agreement is put into effect’ (Solberg 2020). That is the central reference in the speech. At the outset, Solberg provides two examples from Norwegian industry to illustrate the changes she says are underway. During the first week of 2020, she visited a new biofuel plant and opened a new offshore field that will produce oil and gas with almost no greenhouse gas emissions. The message is clear: a green transformation is taking place. Now. Right in front of our eyes. The PM turns to English: ‘Let me formulate this as the British usually do: Wake up and smell the coffee’ (Solberg 2020). This, then, is the first point that Solberg makes in this lesson: the audience should recognize the new reality.

The second concern is introduced almost immediately and addresses the challenge that has been laid out in this paper: how can Norway support the petroleum sector and still fulfill the SDGs and its commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions? Solberg’s argument involves two elements. First, the Paris Agreement is based on counting emissions where they occur. In other words, countries that produce oil and gas do not have any special obligations as to the Paris Agreement. Still, Norway could have chosen to exit the oil and gas industry, as both environmental NGOs and environmentally oriented political parties have advocated. But Solberg makes the point very clear:

Nevertheless, some call for a monitored phasing out of Norwegian petroleum activities, although Norwegian production may easily be replaced by others. As a result, a massive transfer of Norwegian incomes to other countries will take place, in the best case with minimal climate effect. The majority has realized that this is an extraordinarily bad idea. (Solberg 2020)

There have been suggestions from economic researchers that Norway could have used its position as a prominent oil and gas producer to initiate an agreement between such countries to phase out petroleum activities (Fæhn et al. 2013). The PM’s conclusion is, however, that it is demanding enough to make the majority of countries fulfill the commitments they have made in the Paris Agreement. A new initiative now, with another distribution of responsibility between nations, might ignite new battles:

I remind you of the period of almost 10 years necessary to reach the Paris Agreement. The world does not have time for more negotiations. We have to act, not continue to negotiate now. Second is the lack of realism in such a suggestion. Among the oil-producing countries, we find Russia, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Venezuela, and the USA. It might have been permissible to believe in Santa Claus in December, but now we are writing ‘January,’ and the season for dreaming is definitely over. This is why I believe that we, explicitly and distinctly, must express that Norwegian policy is to support the Paris Agreement as it is formulated. Anything else would be irresponsible. Within this framing, there will still be a demand for oil and gas, even in the future. (Solberg 2020)

The lack of realism inherent in challenging the regulations of the Paris Agreement is evaluated as ridiculous, complete with a dismissive reference to Santa Claus in January, and therefore irresponsible. From here the PM proceeds to visit other concerns, but the major issue is always the green transformation of the Norwegian economy. So, what facets of justice emerge in this speech? And how does it deal with the dilemmas and contradictions of the Norwegian position?

First of all, Solberg clearly expresses that Norway is willing to fulfil the commitments of the Paris Agreement and the UN Agenda 2030 with its 17 SDGs. In that respect, she acknowledges the issues of justice, particularly climate justice, expressed in that initiative. However, Solberg does not dwell on such issues, and social and global injustice, climate crisis, species extinction, ecological degradation, and the like are not unpacked or even considered in the speech. In other words, there is little to be learned about such issues and concerns in this lesson by the PM. It is a speech by a prominent SDG ambassador, but in this context, it is first of all a speech by the PM of Norway in defense of national economic interests. It is not about the hazards, risks, and degradations that the earth faces as a consequence of human overconsumption of limited resources. Rather, it highlights new opportunities that the green transformation represents for Norway’s private sector.

The central facet of justice is brought into focus in Solberg´s concern for the nation-state to accommodate fair and equal conditions for business activities and industrial development in the context of the Paris Agreement. In her speech, the PM teaches the audience that the state will safeguard a just arrangement of the nation’s economic institutions, which are facing the green transformation. This emphasis on economic arrangements is also decisive when Solberg addresses the international arena. She portrays a world in which the SDGs and the Paris Agreement regulate the activities of competitive nation-states. As long as Norway complies with these regulations, Solberg sees no reason why it should give up the privileges of producing oil and gas.

Suggestions to take advantage of Norway’s position to make the rules of the game more just – specifically, making the commitments of petroleum-producing countries more binding – are dismissed. Here is where issues of injustice surface in the speech, in assessing the suggestion that Norway should not make use of the space offered by the Paris Agreement but transfer those opportunities to other countries. This is evaluated as stupid and – rhetorically – as unfair. It obviously benefits Norway as an oil and gas producer that emissions in the Paris Agreement are counted where the greenhouse gases are emitted, but one should not spend time considering whether this accords with a principle of distributive justice. Quite the contrary – it is procedural justice that Solberg appeals to and defends here when she refers to the outcome of international negotiations between the world’s sovereign nation-states.

In these ways, the central message in this lesson on education and justice is to take advantage of the opportunities that the green transformation represents as well as you can, within the framing set by nation-states and international regulations. Do not bother yourself about the non-ideal status of these arrangements and have no bad feelings about being guided by self-interest. In a competitive world, others will benefit from the opportunities on offer if you don’t grasp those opportunities first. The threats, risks, and injustices that actually prompted the establishment of the sustainable development agenda are, as we have seen, not addressed. Possible dilemmas and contradictions simply do not appear.

An additional aspect of the Norwegian position that merits mention here – the electrification of offshore oil fields – aims to make Norwegian production greener than other oil-producing countries. As we have seen, Solberg provides an example of this transition in the opening of her speech. The electrification of offshore activities has been debated and is also a discussion point within the environmental movement. Even in Norway, with its substantial supply of green energy from hydroelectric dams and, increasingly, wind energy, electricity is a limited resource. If the nation electrifies its oil fields, more electricity must be produced, and in this reckoning the environment will always be on the losing end. In other words, the green transformation that the PM refers to takes place at the expense of ecological justice. The central lesson is in any case to open one’s eyes – see that the times are changing – and use opportunities to do green business.

In a stereoscopic optic, sustainability justice here becomes a matter of a single, focused concern, a procedural justice that regulates the discourse of green transitions, leaving out other ethical considerations and facets of justice that are seen as unrealistic or – worse – as hampering the green transitions taking place. From an approach guided by distributive justice, however, other aspects could become the focus. One could well conclude that Norway has received – at least – its fair share of riches from the earth’s limited petroleum resources, or that Norway, due to its incredible affluence thanks to oil and gas, is in a particularly advantageous position to wind down its petroleum activities. Such facets of justice are however out of sight and never surface in Solberg’s speech.

2.3 The Norwegian petroleum museum’s educational resources addressing sustainability and climate

The third case I consider here is the educational resources on the website of the Norwegian Petroleum Museum (Norwegian Petroleum Museum 2022). The museum is the primary and prominent official locus for presenting the national oil and gas history and is located in Stavanger, the capital of Norwegian petroleum activities.

The Norwegian Ministry of Petroleum and Energy, the local Stavanger authorities, and the Norwegian petroleum and gas industry are all represented on the museum board (Norwegian Petroleum Museum 2022). The museum is mandated to promote lifelong learning for the general public. The prominent position of the Norwegian Petroleum Museum makes it particularly interesting for studies on how the dilemmas and contradictions characterizing Norway’s position are mediated and negotiated in an educational context.

The climate crisis is addressed in one of the museum’s galleries, followed up and reflected in several web assignments mainly designed for secondary school. Here I examine these digital resources, with a sensitivity to the facets of justice that come to the surface and a particular focus on representations of the sustainability agenda.

The digital resources are structured into two parts: one focusing on petroleum history, the other addressing the climate. The historical resources are centered on two events that are not directly relevant for this paper and are thus not examined.

The second part focuses on the climate, with the title ‘Climate for change,’³ playing on ‘climate change’ but with an emphasis on transformation. The issues are dealt with in a combination of short written presentations of the issue in focus, mostly one or two paragraphs long, combined with illustrative pictures and one or two videos. The students are encouraged to view the videos and supposedly read the texts and illustrations. Against this background, various written assignments are provided to elaborate on the issues in question.

Five issues are made visible: global warming, the carbon budget, energy and energy history, the UN SDGs, and population growth, climate and the economy. The first two issues are presented in a framing that emphasizes the transmission of knowledge, while the third (the carbon budget) is very sketchy and provides little help to students. However, the two last priorities, detailed below, offer a richer account involving student reflections, with focus on the SDGs and population growth, the economy, and the climate.

The website’s introduction to the SDGs, in a text almost quoting the definition of sustainable development in the Brundtland Report (World Commission on Environment and Development 1987), states the following:

A sustainable society is a society that is good for everyone who lives not just now, but also for those who are to live in the future. The UN has established 17 sustainable development goals. Moreover, the UN claims that if we are able to accomplish these goals, the world will be a better place for everyone. The UN’s SDGs are divided into three parts: social aspects, the economy, and climate and the environment. (Norwegian Petroleum Museum 2022)

This presentation is followed by assignments, which are organized in two sections. In the first section, the students are asked, individually, in groups, and in a whole-class discussion to consider the entire agenda, select the three most important goals, and provide good reasons for their choices.

Two links are given in this assignment; they guide the students to resources provided by the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK). One is a video (NRK 2019) and the other an article (NRK 2020); both establish interconnections between gender, education, and the climate. The decisive argument goes as follows, based on subtitles from the video: ‘educated women give birth to fewer and healthier children. Education gives girls power to make decisions over their own life and their own body. Additionally, it will contribute to slow population growth. And as a consequence, fewer will consume the earth’s resources.’

In the article, the gender issue is framed within the results of Project Drawdown,⁴ which claims that the education of girls is the second most important measure for reducing of greenhouse gas emissions, surpassed only by reducing food waste. These measures are both said to be more significant than the transition to plant-based food, the establishment of cooling plants (like refrigerators) without greenhouse gases, the restoration of tropical forests, and wind power on land. These two links stand out as powerful suggestions for what may be regarded as good answers to the assignments, although the students can in principle choose other goals and give different reasons for these choices.

The next group of assignments invites students to deliberate on several issues; the first is why gender equality may reduce climate change, and the second is why combating poverty and hunger is important for mitigating climate change. The third and fourth issues are formulated as claims: ‘equality and education for all contribute to combat climate change,’ and ‘it is not possible to accomplish SDGs 1 to 16 without Goal 17 – Partnership for the goals.’ The final assignment introduces climate denial as an issue and asks students two questions: ‘Why may it be difficult to discuss climate and reach agreements? What does a constructive climate debate look like?’

As we see, students are guided into assignments with the ambition of making them familiar with the UN SDGs and to see connections between the various goals. What is conspicuous in this framing concerning sustainability and justice is how the climate challenge is so clearly depicted as an issue of gender and education. A major solution to the climate challenge is to educate girls. Considering that the Norwegian school system provides – indeed, mandates – education for Norwegian girls, focusing on gender justice in the objectives clause as noted above, the call here is ostensibly to support the education of girls outside Norway, presumably in developing countries. These places are where too many children are born and where the education of women will consequently have an impact on climate change. If so, the climate problem is dealt with by being exported out of the country and turned into a question of global gender justice and birth control.

This priority aligns well with Norway´s development aid prioritizing the education of girls (Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation 2020). The suggested relationship between poverty and hunger and climate change that appears in other assignments is not elaborated in the same manner in the concomitant resources, but it may fit well within the same scheme of development aid (see also Norway in the UN 2020). The assignment on Goal 17 concerning the significance of international cooperation does not challenge such a framing; neither does the final assignment on climate denial.

Among the digital resources presented by the museum, the next group of assignments – structured under the heading ‘Population Growth, Economy, and the Climate’ – is the most nuanced. Two videos are shown. The first is a presentation of the graphics of Gapminder,⁵ with commentary by a museum staff member. The second video gives voices to four young people whose lives are under risk due to climate change.

The Gapminder video presents a historical picture of global carbon emissions. The emphasis on population growth expressed in the previous assignment is pursued further and employs the nation-state as a central category. Although China is not on top in carbon emissions per capita, its total emissions outnumber all other nations, given its vast population. The museum staff member notes possible objections to the national framing presented in the graphics: is it fair to count carbon emissions in the countries where commodities are produced, not where they are consumed? Is it fair to count emissions from oil and gas in the countries where they are burned, not where the oil and gas are extracted? In the assignments linked to this presentation, such facets of distributive justice challenging procedural justice surface when the students are asked to discuss the following claim: ‘it is unethical and problematic to register CO2 emissions by countries and call on countries to manage their own emissions.’

The video does not provide a larger framing that could lead to a discussion of the premises for a just approach to counting and monitoring greenhouse gas emissions. The Framework Convention on Climate Change (UN 1992), which was followed up by the Paris Agreement (UN 2015), is not mentioned. Furthermore, the video presentation emphasizes graphics and numbers and does not indicate any connection between climate change, human activities, and the pressure put on other species. In other words, an unequivocally anthropocentric focus is maintained, with concerns for ecological justice left out.

The second video is called ‘Climate Stories’⁶ and gives voice to Fahara Jannat (16) from Bangladesh, Tarur Taake (14) from Kiribati, a Pacific Island, Pia Bronken Eidesen (13) from Svalbard, Arctic Islands under Norwegian control north of the mainland, and Hazel van Ummersen (13) from the U.S. state of Oregon. Their stories demonstrate the disastrous impacts of climate change in deteriorating living conditions, constituting threats to people’s lives. Both Fahara and Hazel are engaged in social movements and take part in public protests. The video lasts just six minutes but stands out as a rich resource for environmental and sustainability education. The first two assignments with this video provide guidance to help grasp factual knowledge. In the third assignment, students are asked to reflect on the following claim: ‘poor countries are more severely impacted by climate change than rich countries.’ Attention is drawn to distributive justice and climate justice, and the stories demonstrate the need for solidarity.

Despite their impact, the rich educational resources constituted by these two videos do not manifest the tensions and contradictions distinguishing the Norwegian situation. In the video addressing carbon emissions, population growth is a major concern. The justification of Norway’s position as an oil and gas producer is a non-issue. In the concomitant assignments, Norwegian emissions are not addressed, whether on a nationwide or per capita level. With regard to the second video, it is the consequences of climate change that are showcased in the assignments, which accentuate concern for poor countries. Aligned with the pattern from the resources connected with the SDGs, this concern may rearticulate the demands on Norway as a provider of development aid.

In a stereoscopic scope, various facets of justice still become visible in the educational resources. The assignments on the SDGs may be said to be oriented toward global justice, presenting an imaginary where the main concern is the lack of education for girls, with a growing population as a consequence. Global justice, then, becomes above all a question of gender and educational justice. Although not explicitly stated, these facets gives priority to certain SDGs: Goal 5 on gender equality and Goal 4 on good education. The population issue is also surfacing in the video on Gapfinder, where justice is mainly articulated as procedural justice in the mechanisms regulating greenhouse gas emissions. In ‘Climate Stories’ both distributive justice and climate justice is apparent, demonstrating the disastrous consequences of climate change.

A distinct feature signifying these educational resources at the Norwegian Petroleum Museum is how the national context slips away, and is not explicitly represented and addressed. The Norwegian Pia portrayed in ‘Climate Stories’ makes an exception, but she lives 900 kilometers north of the Norwegian mainland. Sustainability is generally a concern that seems to apply to the world outside of Norway, the influences on domestic affairs are seldom brought in. The Norwegian petroleum production, obviously dominating exhibitions elsewhere at Norwegian Petroleum Museum, is rarely considered. Consequently, the tensions and contradictions signifying Norway´s position do not surface. This is how a stereoscopic optic on sustainability justice is not made available for the students. In a fundamental way the resources lack contextual significance and depth.

That impression may be further demonstrated with reference to the most prominent example of political engagement and active citizenship represented in the educational resources. In ‘Climate Stories’ American Hazel is engaged in Juliana v. United States (Nelson and Walker 2020), an environmental lawsuit filed in 2015 including the youth organization Earth Guardians and climate scientist James E. Hansen, addressing the U.S. government’s responsibility for the emissions of greenhouse gases. The example adds to the richness of ‘Climate Stories.’ In a Norwegian context, a similar case is the lawsuit People v. Arctic Oil, initiated by a coalition of environmental groups, among them Nature and Youth. In 2016 they challenged the validity of petroleum production licences issued by the Norwegian government, appealing to Article 112 of the Norwegian Constitution. Article 112 defends the right to an environment that is conducive to health and whose diversity is maintained (Voigt 2021). The American and Norwegian lawsuits are recent examples of climate law cases involving young people, and both have received considerable publicity. However, in the resources provided by the Norwegian Petroleum Museum it is only the American lawsuit that is showcased.

The lack of attention for political engagement among Norwegian youths with regard to petroleum production, corresponds with another even more conspicuous absence. The exhibition ‘Climate for change’ opened 7 May 2019, at a time when the School Strikes for the Climate had been spreading around the world, mobilizing 40,000 Norwegian children and youths in a major protest 22 March 2019, calling for a full stop of further oil prospecting (Kvamme 2019). This social and political youth movement did not find its way into the digital educational resources at the Norwegian Petroleum Museum.

3. Concluding remarks

I have considered above three texts from a Norwegian context, conceived as educational texts, with an approach informed by a stereoscopic optic on justice. My interest has been guided by the peculiar position of Norway as a petroleum nation that also actively supports the UN’s sustainable development agenda. The first text, the objectives clause, does not explicitly address either oil and gas production or sustainability. Still, it may enable various facets of justice to emerge. Most significant is how the expression of fundamental values seems to precondition justice as it may appear in educational practices. The face of the imagined student who learns to act with environmental awareness and supposedly supporting ecological justice is striking, but the scope of these values turns out to be a central question. For instance, does the value of solidarity remain within the nation-state, or is it global in scope?

In the PM’s address to the Confederation of Norwegian Enterprise, the dominant facet is regulative justice. The central message to both companies and to the nation’s people is to explore and take advantage of the possibilities established by the Paris Agreement and not to worry about the privileges and profit resulting from Norway’s position as a petroleum nation, concerns that might appear if other facets of justice were brought in.

In the assignments produced and published by the Norwegian Petroleum Museum, a central focus is on the significance of educating girls in developing countries as an effective measure to combat climate change, thus strengthening birth control and limiting a growing population. Additionally, ‘Climate Stories’ do provide perspectives on distributive justice and climate justice. But the assignments do not address Norway’s position as a petroleum nation or the carbon footprints of affluent Norwegians. These gaps may be a good place to pursue reflections on how the dilemmas and contradictions that distinguish Norway’s position are dealt with.

The PM’s address and the museum assignments focus on certain important facets of justice within the sustainability agenda. The Paris Agreement, with its facets of regulative justice, is vital and important, as the PM emphatically insists, and gender justice combined with educational justice certainly is a priority in Agenda 2030, as the museum assignments make clear. These facets align with Norway’s position as a reliable supporter of the UN agenda and an engaged contributor to development aid. And they seem to draw attention away from the inherent tensions, contradictions, and dilemmas distinguishing Norway´s position.

In the study of the objectives clause, a central issue turned out to be the scope of the fundamental values listed. Applied to the museum assignments, the value of solidarity emerges within a scope that transcends the national context and is directed toward girls’ global access to education, also expressing a concern for poor countries. But the solidarity that appears here is ambiguous. The trajectory from the education of girls to birth control and subsequent reduction of emissions of greenhouse gases is asserted without consideration of the carbon footprints of affluent Norwegians. In that respect, the value of charity, also listed in the objectives clause, seems to be more pertinent, if conceived of as gifts provided to the needy without risking any transformation by the giver.

The explorations and reflections carried out here align with more general concerns raised by the sustainability agenda. In concluding, I briefly note two issues that deserve further reflection. The first is an impasse that distinguishes the sustainability agenda. As William Lafferty (2012) has warned, virtually all nations have formally subscribed to the goal of sustainable development to be realized through democratic means, but the existing democratic structures privilege the interests of the demarcated jurisdictions of nation-states and do not accommodate the normative notions expressed in that goal. Lafferty calls this situation a ‘democratic impasse.’ In the case of Norway, as considered above, sustainability justice as a fractured whole does not become visible, either because national interest and self-interest are openly privileged, or because attention is directed toward facets of justice that do not challenge these interests.

The museum assignments exemplify insights from biopolitical theory on how education and sustainability are framed within a global life-chance divide that premises global inequity on lives and lifestyles (Hellberg and Knutsson 2016). In this case, several facets of justice obviously are showcased regulating the justice optic, however, leaving Norway as a petroleum nation comfortably undisturbed.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. This take is freely inspired by a communicative discourse ethical approach developed within Critical Theory and further refined by Seyla Benhabib (1992).

2. Quotations from the objectives clause are made from the official English translation (Ministry of Education and Research 2008). English translations of quotations from the other two sources are provided by the author.

3. The exhibition ‘Climate for change’ opened 7 May 2019 by the Norwegian Minister of Climate and the Environment Ola Elvestuen (Norwegian Petroleum Museum 2022). The digital resources considered here, are part of this exhibition, last time visited in January 2022.

4. Project Drawdown was founded in 2014, and according to its self-presentation ‘is a nonprofit organization that seeks to help the world reach “Drawdown” – the future point in time when levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere stop climbing and start to steadily decline’. (Wilkinson, 2020).

5. Gapminder is a digital resource originally developed by Hans Rosling and his family (Gapminder 2022) that is employed in this case to explore ‘the connection between population growth, economy and climate’ (Norwegian Petroleum Museum 2022).

6. The video, produced by the Norwegian Petroleum Museum, is based on the book Before The Island Goes Under by Teresa Grøtan (2018).