Rikard Gaarder Knutsen was still too young to drive a car in Norway, let alone vote when, as he puts it, “the politics caught me”.

His timing was good. Knutsen, State Secretary in the Ministry of Petroleum & Energy since January, joined the youth group in Norway’s Progress Party just a couple of years before the right-wing libertarian party, long shut out of the top levels of power, won enough votes in the 2013 election to join a governing coalition.

“Many feared us in 2013, when we won the election,” Knutsen recalls wryly.

“People said, now the flowers will be dead — there will be a huge crisis when the Progress Party enters the government.

“But it has gone well,” he continues. “We have shown ourselves to be a mature governing party. We have withstood the oil crisis. It hit the petroleum sector very hard and a lot of people lost their jobs.

“It was a demanding task for the government, but I think we did some things right. We pumped more money into the public sector. We invested more than ever in infrastructure and made sure the economy was being stimulated when it was down.

“We lowered taxes to make sure small companies could exist and grow when it was a slow market in Norway. And I think we succeeded.”

Change in direction

The Progress Party’s history of climate change scepticism is at odds with the international groundswell of support for a low-emissions future.

But Knutsen, 25, says he and many of his young colleagues represent a change in direction.

“Some in the party have a history of climate (change) denial, but we have grown — we have moved on,” he says.

Politics was not a predetermined path for Knutsen, who grew up in Royken, a municipality of about 20,000 south-west of Oslo.

He apprenticed as a car mechanic and practiced the trade for a year after he completed training, with a speciality in Volkswagen automobiles, before joining Progress’ parliamentary operations in 2015.

Knutsen rose quickly in the party, serving as a political advisor both in parliament and later at the Ministry of Transport & Communications.

Following a short stint at the Ministry of Agriculture & Food, where he rose to state secretary, he was asked to fill the same position at the Ministry of Petroleum & Energy, essentially serving with his colleague Liv Lonnum as one of two de facto vice ministers under Minister Kjell Borge Freiberg.

Racking up success

Knutsen says the coalition has racked up some successes implementing the party’s lower-tax, lighter-regulation philosophy.

While he was at Transportation & Communications, for example, regulations that prevented the testing of autonomous vessels in Norway were relaxed, and now research and development into the technology is under way at an area newly made available on the Trondheim Fjord.

But Norway faces a more vexing task in reconciling the need to shore up the oil and gas sector that pays for its high standard of living and its desire to be on the forefront of the energy transition.

Knutsen says: “It is creating a lot of debate in my party from time to time — how should we spend our money? What regulations should we set on the industry? What should we tax? Higher carbon taxes, or lower?

“We’re not against setting new regulations. But we are for setting the right kind of regulations so that we can stimulate the industry and make sure there are business models in it for companies — make sure that they are industry-driven, and not pushed by the government.”

The government’s main role is to provide a predictable framework and stable environment for technology development and new energies, as it has for the oil and gas business for many years, he says.

“But sometimes you also have to support it with money to get the ball rolling, and that for example is what we see with carbon capture and storage.

“We have to give it a push, and I think that’s the kind of policy my party can get behind.”

Knutsen, who is single, finds that his duties leave little time for a social life, let alone dating. He likes spending time with friends and his family, who include a twin sister, but that has become more difficult with the job.

“This kind of work, you’re always connected, you’re always needed somewhere. You get very unreliable in a way. You have some social event with friends or family, and suddenly you have to go, you have to take a call. It makes you a bit scared of making plans,” he says.

One gets the impression he would be quite happy picking up where he left off nearly five years ago, tinkering with German cars in Royken and being a “country kind of man”, as he describes himself.

But that seems unlikely — he clearly enjoys the give-and-take of politics and the idea that governing is not only for a privileged few.

“I think it’s good that in the Norwegian government you can have political leaders from all the groups of society, from a simple car mechanic to the top educated people," he says.

"We are all political leaders and we can all make a difference, all of us.

"I want to help make sure that we have that (opportunity) in the future in Norway, and a political climate that is respectful, honourable and without harassment.

"We can disagree and have a respectful debate,” he adds.

“I hope I can be an example that everything is possible, if you set your goals high and you are willing to be not afraid.

"I was terrified at the beginning, but you just have to say, yes, I’m doing it, I may never get this opportunity again. You have to try your best.”

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Knutsen keen to put fresh stamp on oil policy