Greens won't cheer when Swedes take over EU presidency from the Czechs

Stockholm is accused of lacking ambition ahead of Copenhagen, despite its good record on renewables and reducing emissions

Gwladys Fouché
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 30 June 2009 09.00 BST

You would think environmentalists would be thrilled at the prospect of Sweden taking over the EU presidency on Wednesday from the Czech Republic. A nation whose president flatly denies that climate change is caused by people is being replaced by one of the world's greenest countries.
Many environmentalists are not happy, though. Some green campaigners are worried about a lack of ambition from Stockholm for the climate summit in Copenhagen in December, where it will lead Europe's negotiating team.
"The Swedish government is like any of the other governments: so far it has made a lot of long-term commitments, but has not been willing to put money on the table when it comes to the financing of CO2 emission cuts around the world," argues Mads Flarup Christensen, head of Greenpeace in Sweden. "Words come cheap. We want to see the money."
Less sceptical, but just as cautious, is the Nordic nation's oldest green pressure group. "Sweden says it has ambitions for Copenhagen, but it has not clearly explained what its goals are," said Emma Lindberg, a climate change expert at the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation.
"At the level of ministers' advisers, we often hear that 'Copenhagen is only the beginning'," she says. "This is in complete contradiction to the tone, much more determined, of the European Commission. The government talks little either about the questions of who will pay for the CO2 cuts of developing nations."
Green campaigners were not reassured either when they opened the Financial Times on 5 June. In an article entitled The main tasks for Sweden's EU presidency, PM Fredrik Reinfeldt and finance minister Anders Borg did not mention once the words Copenhagen, climate change or global warming at all. Instead the focus was on the economic crisis and the need for budgetary discipline.
But even Reinfeldt's critics would agree Sweden taking over the reins is a huge step forward. Instead of Václav Klaus, the Czech president who spoke at a major conference of climate change deniers, Europe will be led by a country whose king switches off the royal palace's lights at night and has the EU's highest share of renewable energies in its energy use – around 43%.
Sweden also tops the list of countries that did the most in 2009 to save the planet, for the third year running. According to Germanwatch, a German green group. Between 1990 and 2006, Sweden cut emissions by 9%, exceeding its Kyoto protocol target, while enjoying economic growth of 44%. Sweden has proven its green credentials.
Others are upbeat about the prospect of Sweden leading the EU at the Copenhagen talks. "Copenhagen and the economic crisis are the two most important priorities of Sweden's presidency," assesses Göran von Sydow, an analyst at the Swedish Institute of European Political Studies.
"Getting a deal in Copenhagen is extremely important to the government," agrees Christian Azar, a professor of energy and the environment at Chalmers University of Technology in Göteborg. "This is my impression from my meetings with Reinfeldt, and from the general atmosphere surrounding Swedish public debate."
Stockholm is already making efforts. In March it announced it would cut the country's carbon emissions by 40% on their 1990 levels by 2020 - more than the EU's current target of cutting emissions by 20% over the same period (30% if other countries commit). Stockholm also wants to introduce a comprehensive EU carbon tax to make pollution more expensive.
"We want to show that the EU is taking the problem [of climate change] seriously," says the Swedish minister of environment, Andreas Carlgren.
The question, however, is how will Sweden reconcile its twin goals of tackling the economic crisis with getting a deal in Copenhagen. How can it ask member-states to spend money on climate change on the one hand, while on the other telling them that they must cut back on public spending?
The fear is that climate change will end up playing second fiddle. "Sweden is lowering its ambitions on combating climate change because it is going to cost money," says Von Sydow. "It's going to be harder to do what they want because of the financial crisis."