SWEDISH PRIME minister Fredrik Reinfeldt has pledged to use his country’s presidency of the EU to push for a global climate change deal this year.
He has also said Sweden will avoid focusing on EU institutional issues ahead of a second Irish referendum on the Lisbon Treaty in the autumn.
“The main challenge of our generation is climate change and we will do everything in our power to achieve a climate change agreement in December,” he said yesterday as Sweden took over the rotating presidency of the union from the Czech Republic for the next six months.
Mr Reinfeldt, who is leader of the centre-right Moderate Party in Sweden, has made the fight against climate change a key priority for his four-party coalition government. He now wants Europe and the rest of the world to follow Sweden’s example as they prepare for a crucial UN summit in Copenhagen in December to agree targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
“Climate change is happening, it’s coming quicker and earlier than we thought and our way of life is just not sustainable. We need to alter the direction, we need to take down our dependency on fossil fuel and we need an answer this autumn,” said Mr Reinfeldt, who admits the scale of the current economic and financial crisis will not make the task any easier this year.
But he highlights that Sweden has managed to cut emissions by 10 per cent since 1990 while enjoying a 50 per cent increase in growth. The introduction of one of the world’s first carbon taxes in 1991 has encouraged companies and individuals to cuts emissions. It levies about 10 cent on every kilo of CO2, which adds an extra 20 cent cost to every litre of petrol.
On the outskirts of Stockholm new technologies are being introduced to help cut CO2 emissions in housing. Solar panels to heat water, green roofs to provide insulation and intelligent design all feature in Hammarby Sjostad, an eco-village that is home to almost 15,000 people. Under the tree-lined roads an ingenious network of high pressure pipes pump household refuse to a waste recycling centre two kilometres away at 70 kilometres per hour.
The days when bin men drove around the neighbourhood in their heavy trucks are gone, says Joakim Karlsson from Envac, the firm that designed the system. “Garbage trucks account for about 15 per cent of all heavy vehicle traffic so this system saves a lot of emissions,” he says.
Even organic refuse is not wasted. Four fifths of households in Stockholm get their home heating from recycled organic and combustible waste and the city authorities have set an ambitious target to be fossil fuel-free from 2030.
But persuading world leaders and even his EU colleagues to be ambitious in the run up to Copenhagen is no easy task. Developing countries have signalled there will be no climate deal unless rich nations provide €100 billion in aid to help them cut emissions and adapt to climate change.
Several EU states such as Poland and Romania are balking at signing up to an agreement to share the cost of helping poor countries. However, Swedish diplomats remain confident a burden sharing deal will be agreed in October.
The economy is a key challenge facing the presidency. Many EU states are running budget deficits well above the 3 per cent limit allowed under EU rules and Sweden wants action to prevent national debt rising much further.
“The time for pushing for more stimulus packages is exhausted. It’s exit strategies we will ask for,” said Reinfeldt, who is also tasked with getting agreement on a new EU supervisory structure at a December EU summit.
On both counts he faces opposition. Raising taxes and cutting spending is never popular with voters and French president Nicolas Sarkozy has argued tackling deficits before the crisis ends could damage fragile economies.
On the reform of EU supervision Reinfeldt will have to try to find common ground between Britain, which wants to limit the EU’s ability to make legally binding decisions, and Britain and France, who want to extend them.
Unpredictable foreign policy issues such as Iran, the Middle East, Russia and Ukraine are also likely to flare up any time.
Despite Mr Reinfeldt’s insistence that he won’t dwell on EU institutional matters he will find it difficult to avoid them. He is already pushing hard to get MEPs to confirm Mr Barroso as commission president on July 15th, fearing that a delay until September, the date proposed by Socialist MEPs, will weaken the commission and his EU presidency in its first three months.
But the critical point for the presidency will come in early October when Irish voters give their verdict on Lisbon. A Yes vote would enable the Swedes to push ahead with key appointments such as the new president of the European Council while a No vote would prompt a major crisis.
“There is no plan B,” said Swedish foreign minister Carl Bildt, who admitted there was little Sweden could do but wait and hope for a Yes vote.