Comment by librasteve

It's not (mostly) to salve their consciences; it's fundamental to their avoidance of the Resource Curse/"Dutch Disease". Norway, unlike just about everywhere else "blessed" (and I use those scare-quotes intentionally) with oil and gas, anticipated the value of not getting high on one's own supply: they have some of the most heavily taxed vehicle fuel in Europe, as well as strict limits on how much oil/gas tax revenue can be spent each year with the rest going into an enormous investment fund.

Better than having oil and gas revenue and not using it to build hydro and wind. Like some other countries we can all name.

Interesting looking at the data, that Norway generates 4x the electricity of NZ and they are roughly the same size and population I assume it exports most.