Norwegian climate change targets and its social impact. Case study of bymiljøpakken Nord-Jæren.

Abstract

The topic for this study is Norwegian climate change targets and its social impacts - Case study of Bymiljøpakken in Nord Jæren. The focus of this thesis is on the social impacts of the climate change and policies related to it. This topic is of a critical value and in order to understand the social implication case study of a local initiated project is studied in this thesis. Bymiljøpakken, which is initiated as State’s response to the climate change targets in the south-west of Norway has had fair share of controversy since it’s initiation. It has faced a resilient movement that began on social media platforms and resulted in emergence of new political voices all in a span of half a decade. Weissmann’s bridging theory is used to understand this complex relation between the two. Christiansen’s stages of social movement is used to understand the birth and eventual death of social movement. And Hajer’s discourse analysis is used to understand the arguments in both spoken and written language. This is critical in order to further understand the story lines and narratives of both parties. Furthermore, various polls and one-on-one interviews is used as primary data sets for the analysis in this thesis. The data analysis show a significant impact of the governmental decisions on population leading to an active resilient movement. On paper these targets for climate change could be achieve in the long run. However, the resilient movement which had transformed into a political voice could become crucial in creating hindrance in government’s plan.