Norway is still off course in the great race to slow emissions by amounts made “binding” by the Kyoto “climate” treaty, although the Scandinavian country showed Tuesday it had made great gains in taxing belching offshore generators, ships and a growing car park.

Last year saw a 2.2 percent drop in carbon dioxide emissions, down to 53.8 million tonnes of the climate-heating gas. The country’s oil and gas industry is largely credited with the reduced emissions after cutting its polluting 90 percent since 1990.

But the oil-rich country — transformed by the black stuff from Europe’s poorest — is still 7.4 percent over the levels needed to be Kyoto compliant, according to a joint study by the country’s Pollution Contro Authority and record keepers at Statistics Norway.

The coming onstream of three new fields in Norway — including Snoehvit, in the near-Arctic — were blamed for an increase in offshore emissions year-on-year.

Tags: carbon