| Innhold: | Abstract:
The background for the article is the climate challenge necessitating development of renewable energy sources in the Norwegian outfields (utmark). Climate change is considered the world’s leading environmental challenge and therefore also one of the greatest challenges to society. The loss of species and biodiversity is another fundamental problem, according to the UN Nature Panel IPBS. Nevertheless, climate change is somewhat absent in the context of Norwegian legislation. The article shows that climate change is relevant, however, in Norway’s concession laws, reviewed in this paper. The main question is: what is the basis of legitimacy for regulations that take climate and nature into consideration? The analysis is mainly based on the doctrinal legal method and some assessments of legal politics. Various perceptions of legitimacy within a legal context are also explored. It can be argued, with regard to wind power, that projects realized in recent years suffered from a deficit of local co-determination with respect to the legislature’s intentions, the explanation being that planning at a regional level is no substitute for the lack of municipal planning. In addition, from an overarching perspective, it is difficult to create a manageable legal situation for user and environmental interests in the countryside with the wide administrative discretion that appears.
Keywords: renewable energy, climate change, legitimacy, licensing, administrative
discretion, outfields |