MP challenges environmentalists over carbon experiments in Hvalfjord

Centre Party MP Karl Gauti Hjaltason criticised plans to test carbon capture using caustic soda in Hvalfjord, asking where environmentalists were now, mbl.is reported.

In a speech on parliamentary business, Hjaltason also recalled a 2023 experiment in which wood chips brought from Canada were sunk at sea to capture carbon. He said tens of thousands of tonnes had been imported, creating emissions, and then dumped in the ocean. The project, he said, exposed how unclear oversight and accountability rules were.

Hjaltason also referred to mosquitoes found in Kjós last October. Their origin has not been confirmed, though they were thought likely to have arrived in cargo. He said it could not be claimed that the discovery was linked to the imported wood chips, but that it raised questions.

“We Icelanders rely to a great extent on fisheries for our livelihoods. We should not allow the sea around the country to become a testing ground for these things,” he said, adding that companies could sink such materials in their own waters, but not off Iceland.

He also criticised spending tens of billions on climate issues while permitting such experiments. Concluding his speech, he recalled the founding of Sólar í Hvalfirði, an organisation that campaigned to protect the fjord’s nature, and asked whether environmentalists were too busy attending climate conferences around the world.