The parliament of Norway agreed unanimously to pursue carbon neutrality, cutting Norway's net greenhouse gas emissions to zero, by 2030—20 years earlier than its most recent goal of carbon neutrality by 2050. In order to meet this goal, either Norways' carbon output must be lowered or the country must purchase enough carbon credits to offset its emissions. In 2008, Norway set the same goal, but later pushed the timeline back to 2050 because international negotiations failed at reaching a global climate change deal.

Oslo announced its plan to ban cars from the central city by 2019 in order to reduce pollution. Norway’s capital city is set to be the first European capital city to have a comprehensive and permanent ban on cars. Oslo recently elected a new city council comprised of members of the Green Party, the Labor Party, and the Socialist Left. A lead negotiator for the Green Party explained that a car-free city will be better for pedestrians and cyclists. The city plans to build more than 37 miles of bike lanes between now and 2019.

Norway announced that it will pay Brazil’s Amazon Fund $1 billion USD by the end of the year. This payment fulfills a pledge that Norway made to Brazil in 2008 to compensate deforestation reduction. Norway made another $1 billion USD pledge to Indonesia in 2008, but Indonesia’s efforts have fallen short. Brazil’s accomplishments were commended by the Norwegian Minister of Climate and Environment, as well as by U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

On June 5, 2015, Norway's legislative body formally approved a plan for the nation's sovereign wealth fund to divest from coal investments, following an announcement from the fund in February. The move will affect 122 companies and sell up to $10 billion worth of investments in coal-related industries. Political compromise led to the approval, with Conservative party politicians focusing on the economic risk of coal-related investments with global climate change agreements in the works.

The Norwegian government approved plans for a controversial mining project that will dump millions of tons of overburden and tailings from Engebø Mountain into Førde Fjord. The mine, operated by Nordic Mining, will extract rutile, a titanium mineral, over a planned 50-year lifetime of the project. Environmental groups, commercial fishing organizations, marine scientists, and political opposition have criticized the government's action, claiming the dumping will harm cod and salmon fisheries, as well as whale and porpoise habitat.

Norway's Government Pension Fund Global (GPFG) recently announced that it removed 114 companies from its portfolio in 2014 due to environmental and climate change concerns. The list included 32 coal mining companies along with tar sands operations, cement manufacturers, and gold mines.

Norway is offering new leases for fossil fuel exploration within its Arctic waters for the first time in over 20 years. The move infuses momentum into an energy rush poised to break out between the five countries claiming Arctic resource rights. The leases, mostly in the Barents Sea, have been offered to 43 energy companies, and production licenses could be awarded as early as 2016.

On September 23, the governments of Liberia and Norway announced that they had entered into a deal under which Liberia will become the first nation to completely halt deforestation in exchange for Norwegian development aid. Norway has agreed to pay $150 million in exchange for the halting of deforestation in Liberia by 2020. The deal was announced at the UN Climate Summit in New York. While Liberia’s forests are not as large as other countries’, its forests represent a significant part of the remaining rainforest in West Africa and are a global biodiversity hotspot.

Norway will contribute $180 million in Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) funding to Brazil, even as the nations disagree over who should monitor carbon savings. Payments from Norway now total $670 million, out of $1 billion pledged by 2015, and Brazil's rate of deforestation has fallen nearly 70 percent from historic levels as it reduced the rate of loss by 27 percent from 2011 to 2012. However, the nations' disagreement over who should measure the amount of carbon dioxide absorbed by trees is hampering efforts at forest protection.

Norway's green energy and carbon emission reduction targets are at risk because of low electricity costs and an underfunded subsidy system, according to industry sources. Norway's ambitious plans to cut greenhouse emissions by 30% below 1990 levels by 2020 and to diversify power supplies are unlikely without increased subsidies, according to Andreas Aasheim, an advisor to Norway's wind energy association Norwea, who said that power prices would have to be around $100 per megawatt hour to fuel renewable energy growth.