OSLO: As teenagers in Norway, Andreas Bjelland Eriksen and his younger cousin Vebjorn Bjelland Berg survived a mass shooting together _ a trauma that united them.

Fourteen years on, they now find themselves divided by climate politics: Eriksen is the environment minister in the oilrich country, while Berg is one of his biggest activist critics.

A militant with the Extinction Rebellion climate group, Berg has vowed to start a hunger strike this week to press the pro-oil, centre-left government to abandon drilling for the sake of the planet.

The protest will put his cousin on the spot as Norwayprepares for a general election on Sept 8 in which its crucial oil industry will be a key campaign issue.

Berg, 29, and his 33-year-old cousin were at a youth camp on the island of Utoya on July 22, 2011, when far-right sympathiser Anders Behring Breivik went on a gun rampage that killed 69 people.

Breivik also set off a bomb near government headquarters in Oslo that killed another eight.

`It is clear that going through something like that... yes, it marks a relationship,` Berg said in an interview.

But it will not deflect him from his campaign against aLabour government that wants to develop the valuable oil industry further.

`This industry has made us an extremely rich country, Berg said.

`The problem is the price _ potentially the deaths of millions of people because of the ravages caused by this oil and this gas,` he added.

`It is not worth us continuing to make ourselves even richer at this price.

Norway`s oil riches Several small parties _ from the left wing to ecologists and centre-right liberals -back Berg`s stance as Norway goes into its election campaign.But Labour has the support of conservative and hard-right parties in its drive to `develop, not dismantle` the oil sector.

Norway`s offshore oil and gas fields have indeed made it rich.

Its sovereign wealth fund, the biggest in the world, is worth nearly $2 trillion $350,000 per inhabitant.

`The big parties make it seem like it`s never enough, said Berg, born in Stavanger, Norway`s oil capital.

His father worked his whole life for petroleum giant Equinor.

`It is a huge moral injustice to continue enriching ourselves further while already being among the richest in the world, he said.-AFP