Norway set to ban semi-automatic guns from 2021
Norway plans to ban semi-automatic firearms as of 2021, a decade after rightwing extremist Anders Breivik’s mass shooting that left 69 people dead, a Norwegian lawmaker said on Tuesday.
Norway
This archive collects solutions-journalism stories and milestones from Norway — covering areas such as clean energy, social policy, conservation, and public health. Each entry highlights measurable progress and the people or systems driving it.
Norway is aiming for all of its short flights to be electric by 2040
Norway is a leading force in broad adoption electric vehicles. In its latest move, the country has pledged to make all of its short-haul flights electric by 2040.
A record majority of Norway’s new cars are now electric or hybrid
Norway crossed an electric vehicle milestone in 2017, with more than half of its new vehicle registrations coming from electric vehicles. The country has a plan to phase out new gas-powered cars by 2040.
Norway agrees to pay Liberia $150 million to halt deforestation
Liberia’s forests gained a powerful ally in 2014, when Norway pledged up to $150 million in development aid tied to a single condition: keep the trees standing. The deal covered the Upper Guinean rainforest, of which Liberia holds roughly 43 percent. It marked Norway’s first country-level results-based forest agreement in Africa.
Brazil launches the Amazon Fund to halt rainforest destruction
The Amazon Fund launched in 2009, when Brazil built a public finance mechanism that paid for verified reductions in rainforest loss rather than promises. Managed by the national development bank and backed early by Norway, it has since supported more than 115 projects across the Amazon Biome. It became an influential model for paying to keep forests standing.
Norway’s prison reform movement launches, aiming to replace punishment with rehabilitation
Norwegian prison reform began in 1968, when a group of activists, lawyers, and formerly incarcerated people founded KROM to challenge a system where recidivism hovered around 60 to 70 percent. Early wins came slowly — forced labor ended in 1970, juvenile centers closed in 1975 — but the reframing they started reshaped how a country could think about justice.
Roald Amundsen leads the first expedition to reach the South Pole
Amundsen’s South Pole expedition reached the bottom of the world on 14 December 1911, when five Norwegians planted their flag after a 1,400-mile trek by ski and dog sled. Their success leaned heavily on Inuit cold-weather knowledge Amundsen had studied for years. All five made it home alive — a rare outcome in the heroic age of polar exploration.
Roald Amundsen completes the first Northwest Passage traverse by sea
The Northwest Passage finally yielded in 1906, when Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen sailed his small converted herring boat, the Gjøa, out of the Arctic into Nome, Alaska. His crew of six had spent nearly two winters learning from Netsilik Inuit — their clothing, sled-handling, and ice-reading — closing a search that had defeated European expeditions for three centuries.
Faroese gets a written standard after 300 years of silence
Faroese returned to the page in 1854, when scholar Venceslaus Ulricus Hammershaimb and Icelandic grammarian Jón Sigurðsson published a written standard after three centuries in which the language survived only in speech and song. They rooted the spelling in Old Norse so it could be read across every island dialect — a quiet act of linguistic democracy that still shapes a language spoken by around 69,000 people today.
Norway’s Constitution becomes the second oldest still in force worldwide
Norway’s constitution, signed on May 17, 1814 at Eidsvoll Manor, was drafted in just five weeks by 112 representatives racing against the country’s forced transfer to Sweden. Two centuries later, it remains the second-oldest working national constitution in the world, still shaping a nation that marks its founding each year with children’s parades.