Norway Aims High: New Climate Target Sets 70-75% GHG Reduction by 2035

Norway has announced an ambitious new climate target to reduce its absolute economy-wide greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 70% to 75% by 2035, compared to 2019 levels. This target will form the basis of Norway’s updated Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) under the Paris Agreement, replacing its current goal of a 55% reduction by 2030. NDCs are national climate action plans that countries submit and update every five years with increasing ambition to combat climate change.

The Norwegian government has indicated that this new target may be supported by Internationally Transferred Mitigation Outcomes (ITMOs), allowing for the potential use of internationally traded carbon credits if necessary to meet the 2035 goal.

This approach is enabled by an agreement reached at the COP 29 UN climate conference in November 2024 on Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, which establishes rules for high-integrity carbon markets and cross-border carbon credit trading.

Notably, Norway and Switzerland recently announced the first-ever international deal under Article 6.2, marking a significant step in operationalizing these market mechanisms.

While the new NDC does not yet provide detailed pathways for achieving the 2035 emissions reduction, the Norwegian government plans to rely on domestic measures and cooperation with the European Union.

Key policy tools include greenhouse gas taxation, regulatory measures such as emissions trading schemes, climate-related public procurement requirements, financial support for new technologies like carbon capture and storage (CCS), and initiatives to promote research and innovation.

Further details are expected in Norway’s future biennial transparency reports.

Norway’s Minister of Climate and Environment, Andreas Bjelland Eriksen, emphasized the importance of strengthening climate commitments globally, noting that enhanced NDCs are crucial to limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. He highlighted that while previous commitments would have led to a 2.6-degree temperature rise, the Paris Agreement and updated NDCs are steering the world closer to safer climate targets.

Norway's 70-75% NDC quietly resets the ambition benchmark for European transition plans, and multinationals with Nordic exposure will feel the read-across almost immediately in disclosure conversations. Building transition plans that hold up across widely different national ambitions is exactly the kind of work our climate-action and ESG-strategy teams tend to be pulled into.