GSI Seminar - THE SUNSHINE AND MOBILITY REVOLUTIONS - Professor Harald Røstvik

Professor and Architect MNAL Harald N. Røstvik at University of Stavanger (educated at University of Manchester), has been instrumental in both revolutions.

In 2020, he was named a Solar Pioneer by The International Solar Energy Society (ISES) for his work on Building Integrated Photovoltaics (BIPV) over the last 50 years. In 1989, he joined forces with Morten Harket, the lead singer of a-ha, and with Bellona, the environmental organization, to import the first electric vehicle to Norway. Through their activism and civil disobedience, they pushed the Norwegian Government to establish the world’s best incentive scheme for electric vehicles, leading to Norway achieving by far the highest penetration of electric vehicles globally. Røstvik’s story demonstrates the power of civil disobedience to unlock rapid transformation (what The Guardian this year called “a-ha moments”) as opposed to the slow and not always effective bureaucratic COP meeting strategy like we saw in Glasgow last autumn.

In this seminar, Røstvik will tell his story – a forecasting success – and also share with us his visions from then and how he sees today’s challenges and possibilities.