News and commentary on the life of the person behind this blog and on events in Sweden and around the world. Personal anecdotes, OP-Eds, reading suggestions, etc. Enjoy, and comment!
Today's highlight: we picked up our new car, a Passat TDI 140. The BMW 5 Touring we inherited when Peter's parents bought a new one has been great - engine power, comfort and security - but in the last one-two years we had to replace the generator and the engine and fix a few other things and by the time we sold it the battery was acting up too, so good riddance really!
I have also wanted a much more environmentally friendly car (and wouldn't have bought a BMW myself). The Passat has a pretty strong engine and runs on diesel - satisfying Peter's driving experience wants - but emits under 120 mg (on average, not always in city traffic though), and so falls under the green car definition.
We chose between Passat and Volvo V50 but realised the bigger Passat was much better for a growing family with car seats and prams and all other stuff children "need". I will miss the space for the handbag that the V50 has though (I know that such a girly thing to say but usually car designers don't think about these things so it's worth pointing out!)!
Right now, that the world's countries cannot agree to a new climate agreement. I don't understand why it's so difficult! It's our future at stake! Right now it looks like Cancún is turning into Can'tcun. But as always, I remain positive until the bitter end!
Just read about a new and innovative way to send packages - Knotmail uses the services of travellers and is thus greener and cheaper than normal postal and delivery services! It works like this: someone who is travelling to the same destination takes your parcel with him/her. And any time you travel yourself, you can sign up as temporary delivery guy!
Only for Sweden (it seems) right now, but still! An excellent idea! When I googled I saw that someone had written "what do you do at the airport when they ask if you packed your bags yourself and if anyone has asked you to take anything for them", but I'm sure they have thought of that already.
Last week I attended the Junior Water Prize Award Ceremony, which is part of Stockholm Water Week. The Junior Water Prize competition brings together the world's brightest young (15-20 years old) scientists to encourage their continued interest in the environment and climate change, and water issues especially. This year's winner was a Canadian team of three who received their prize from Crown Princess Victoria for their research on biodegradation of the plastic Polystyrene. This could help break down all the plastic and chemical debris in the world's waters - you have probably heard of the rubbish and waste patch in the Pacific Ocean (due to streams and flows it tends to all end up in the same place). A Chinese team was awarded an excellence diploma for their technique for improving soil fertility.
The ceremony was such an inspiring evening! These kids are so smart and have so many creative ideas! There's hope for the future!
Someone who was also very inspiring is ITT (Junior Water Prize sponsor) Senior Vice President and President of ITT Fluid & Motion Control Gretchen McClain. She gave an amazing speech encouraging the youngsters to continue the fight against environmental destruction and climate change and never to give up. She also painted a very illuminating picture of how much clean water is wasted in the world every day due to inadequate water management systems; the equivalent of the water falling down Niagara Falls over 24 hours. And this includes facilities in the developed world, which have all the technology and money to prevent such waste of water.
* There are lots of other things I could have written about considering the Swedish general election is less than five days away but I decided to go for something that would improve the lives of all citizens of the world instead.
The Japanese government is being creative in finding ways for its citizens to reduce their carbon footprint. Earlier they urged workers to wear short-sleeved shirts and offices not to turn the A/C lower than 28 degrees during the summer (the Cool Biz campaign) and now they recommend people to adjust their sleeping routine to cut household CO2 emissions. The Morning Challenge campaign is based on the premise that by getting up one hour earlier in the morning and taking advantage of the morning sunlight, and instead going to bed earlier and thus not using as much electricity in the evenings, the average Japanese could reduce its footprint by 85 kg a year. This is equivalent to 20% of emissions from household lights.
The Japanese initiative is interesting as it focuses on lifestyle and behavioural change. This being Japan, the government is of course also recommending that people use their extra morning hour to go running, do yoga and eat a healthy breakfast :)
In Sweden the conditions are slightly different. Now in the summer with the sun going down at at 11pm and rising again at 3am we're obviously saving quite a lot of electricity (from lighting; the TV is constantly on due to the World Cup...), while the winter months, especially November to January, are worst CO2-wise. Luckily we Swedes have taken a strong liking to tea lights.
The best quotes about the volcano so far (taken from the Eyjafjallajökull's fan page on Facebook and its Twitter page):
1. Iceland's President to God: "I said CASH, not ASH!"
2. The best things being a volcano: 1) the attention; 2) allowed to smoke at work; and 3) after dinner you throw the dishes in the crater.
3. English-speakers can't pronounce Eyjafjallajökull: "Eye-a-fyat-la-jo-kutl, there you go"
4. You go Eyafjallajökull! Show mankind who's the boss!
5. Okay, Iceland had som bad economics, but it was a little early to press the self-destruct buttom already; I know you can get out of this one.
6. Do you lava me like I lava you?
7. How fast can you type the name of the Volcano?
And it's pretty cool that the grounding of almost 100,000 flights over the past few days have saved 1.3 million tonnes of CO2, equivalent to more than the annual emissions of many developing countries, e.g. Malawi, Sierra Leone, Rwanda and 50 other developing countries.
You may not have thought about it much but every time you pop open a bottle of Champagne (as you do on a regular Friday...er...maybe not), you release a lot of carbon dioxide into the air*. But due to new technique you will soon be able to drink bubbly without worrying (as much) about your carbon footprint. The new standard bottle will reduce CO2 with 8,000 tonnes per year, equivalent of emissions from 4,000 cars, made possible by reducing the thickness and thus the weight of the bottle from 900 to 835 gr.
* Not literally though; it's really about the production and shipping of bottles.
Better go before it sinks, we figured. Though I am feeling a bit guilty for indirectly contributing to its predicament - we have to fly to get there of course and I live in the Western world where we are all historically responsible for climate change - so I need to do a bit of research about any climate adaptation projects in the Maldives that I can donate to (i.e. climate compensate).
Or Brokenhagen. What else can we call Copenhagen? Crapenhagen perhaps?
Yes, it didn't turn out the way we wanted it to, or the way it needed to. But we cannot give up. We must see this as a start, even though we wanted it to be an end - the end to fossil-fuel, planet destroying practices. Because even if many countries started addressing climate change ages ago, major emitters such as the US and China* were not there, as in where the EU and climate progressives such as Brazil are. Now they are. Because even though the Copenhagen Accord is in many ways a disappointment, it is the first time the US and China actually signs up to anything that in effect means they admit guilt and that they too have a responsibility. Sure, it is not legally binding but I'm confident the political and public pressure from around the world will be so big that there is no way back for them. A representative from one of the Indian NGOs (I think) said: "it takes a long time to get the elephant moving but once it is moving it is very difficult to stop it".
We just need to move on and get down to work. There is no point in looking back (beyond learning useful lessons on what went wrong in the preparatory work and how the UN international negotiations process can be improved, etc.). I may be a naïve optimist but I think it is likely that the world's countries can make this into a legally binding agreement within a two-year period.
* China has the largest share of global greenhouse gas emissions though not per capita
Things aren't going that well in Copenhagen though there are still some signs of hope. Send all your thoughts of hope and all the energy you can spare to the negotiators trying to agree a new climate change deal for the world by the end of Friday!
Today I went to an interesting seminar about climate change organised by the Swedish Institute of International Affairs. After the presentations (one on the science and one on the security implications of climate change - both very interesting but I won't go into the detail here) there was a panel debate with four Swedish politicians - Sofia Arkelsten from the Moderate (Conservative) party, the Left party's Jens Holm, Claes Västerteg from the Centre party (former agrarian party, now small business party) and Social democrat Anders Ygeman.
Their first task was to envision a Sweden eleven years from now, in 2020...
...that would have had to reduce emissions by 50% compared to 2009 levels*. In the scenario emissions trading is not allowed and since it's only eleven years away we cannot count on much of the new technology, such as carbon capture and storage (CCS) or electric cars to have come through the pipeline yet, or on any new nuclear plants having been built (or at least not to be in operation yet).
So what did our group of politicians come up with?
- Transport - the main quick fix as these represent a large chunk of our emissions - is very, very expensive. The tax on petrol is at least 27 SEK per liter. We have not seen the benefits of investment in the rail sector yet.
- Taxes and other economic instruments are our main tools. A massive tax on CO2 is in place. Aviation and heavy transport by lorries are subject to further levies. All cities have a congestion tax.
- We heat our homes with electricity - biofuels (still) emit too much and are thus costly considering the high CO2 tax in place.
- We are moving to the cities as urban areas are more energy efficient. More effective use of space means that - by building smarter and denser - we don't need to travel as much and waste collection, sewage and other logistics are also more efficient.
- Usually we can't afford to go on vacation but if we do we stay away longer.
- We have stopped eating meat as it is too costly from a CO2 perspective**, with the exception of game and some grazing animals.
- Renovations and refurbishment of homes that improve energy efficiency and/or reduce emissions, e.g. solar panels, insulation, are tax deductible.
- We are discussing closing down industries in Sweden to reach the goal but we are concerned that will just move emissions elsewhere. We need to take a global perspective.
Radical as it may sound it illustrates well the scale of the problem. If we are to stop the increase in global average temperatures at two degrees this may be the only way to go.
They politicians went on discussing if society will succeed making a change (even if not as drastic and radical as the above), what the necessary changes in the economy and in consumption patterns will be and how we can consume without destroying the planet, but that's another post!
* This would be tougher than any of the targets that the EU has committed too so far or that are on the table in the climate change negotiations. Sweden's commitment is 40% by 2020 on 1990 levels. **Today, 2009, emissions from meat production is equal that of 4 million cars on Swedish streets.
Simone takes over Show & Tell for the month of November. She starts off in style with a very difficult topic! The Dinner of My Dreams - three guests, four with yourself. What is the seating plan, the menu, wine selection, table setting, etc.
Just when I was about to sit down and write this the show Simone got the idea from was on TV. What a coincidence!
I could answer my wedding dinner, because I dream about getting married. I could also write about a dinner with Peter and two kids around the table, the two (or three) kids I hope to have one day. But I really hope to have more than three guests at my wedding and neither my own kids nor Peter would really qualify as "guests". A dinner with friends would not be a dream dinner either since I meet them regularly anyway and I hope we will continue to do so until we're turn 100 at least.
So I will have to opt for guests that I would like to meet, but not just meet for meeting's sake but in order to try to influence them. With a month left (from tomorrow) before the start of the negotiations about a new climate change agreement in Copenhagen, getting an agreement that would be strong and effective enough to eventually stop climate change would be the topic of the day, the raison d'être for the dinner.
At the moment the international negotiations are heading for disaster. If not complete failure at least a very watered down agreement*. The last round of negotiations before Copenhagen, which took place in Barcelona over the last couple of days, didn't make much progress. And the EU-India Summit over in Delhi today wasn't a huge hit either.
Image from photobucket.com
So who are the key people I would need to convince that the planet is worth saving; that we don't have that much time; that even though we can't see climate change yet** and/or it's such a difficult thing to comprehend, it IS happening; that we cannot close our eyes and pretend it's not happening anymore, etcetera etcetera?
Yes, Obama, that's where we need to go. Forward. To the future. A green future. (Image from climaticoanalysis.org)
China's President Hu Jintao (image from thehindu.com)
I can't decide if Russia or Canada gets the third seat. At the moment Canada is hiding behind US but if I got the US onboard I'm sure Canada would come running. Russia is a problem in terms of hot air and is closer to some of the oil states that would be useful to have onboard too. India is another potential third guest but one which I don't think will be a real problem once China is game. I could also choose to have another climate advocate at the table, for example Australia or Japan, but they will make good extras instead.
So I think Russia would be my best shot.
Russia's President Medvedev (although Putin would probably be knocking on my door trying to take Medvedev's place) (image from rusecounion.ru)
The EU has taken most of the necessary decisions so the EU wouldn't really need to be at the table but could come and slip in some arguments while serving our food (first course). Besides, I represent the EU anyway. Australia and Japan would be cooking and come out and check on us once in a while. The "progressive developing countries", for example Brazil, Mexico or South Korea, could come and shout some encouraging words together with the main course. The G77 would accompany the dessert and the Maldives' President*** would serve the cheese. By the time the coffee comes we should have a deal!
What would we eat and drink? Only organic and/or fair trade produce of course. But I would also try to serve meat, fish and vegetables that may go extinct in a world with rising temperatures to make the point that this is something we may not enjoy in the future.
Let's hope we can stop the world from this scenario:
* In all likelihood there will be some sort of deal, but a weak one, or something like a statement or political intention, and next year will be full of further negotiations to seal the deal. This is an alternative that wouldn't be all bad but it would be even better if a deal could be reached in December 2009 already. ** We can really but not not in all parts of the world, and not in the countries which need to take the decisions, and not enough in other parts of the world for people to really understand. *** Did you know that the Maldive government held a government meeting in the sea, fully dressed in diving suits to demonstrate to the world what sea level rise means for low lying states and/or the least developed states!
I remember reading on Vardag i kängurulandet (hey! where are you?!) that it's illegal to hang laundry on a clothesline in an Australian backyard/garden. When I met Kicki in Stockholm in March after she had moved back to Sweden we talked about how strange it was to have such a ban, both in general - from a Swedish perspective hanging out your laundry is such a normal thing to do - and in these times of climate change. I don't know if things are changing in Australia - I would assume so with them being quite a proactive force in the international climate change negotiations, finally - but they are definitely changing in another country with such a ban, the US.
Several US states forbid residents to dry clothes outside for the reason that many people view clotheslines as a menace similar to rusty old cars or other junk in driveways, and in essence, something that marks a community as poor, which in turn lowers property values. But times are a-changing and several states (e.g. Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Vermont, Florida and Utah) have replaced the ban with legislation protecting people's right to hang laundry outdoors, for environmental reasons. Apparently dryers alone use at least 6% of all household electricity consumption so it sounds like a move other states - and countries - should be making.
Sign the Swedish government's petition in support of the 2 degrees climate target!
If you sign you will contribute to the chances of getting a new global climate deal in Copenhagen in December.
The two degree target, if you are not already familiar with it, is the increase in average temperatures that the world can handle if we want to avoid catastrophic climate change. Two degrees will still increase water levels but hopefully restrict them to 0.4-1.4 metres. Achieving this means emissions have to fall by 50-85% by 2050.
Thought I'd list some studies and surveys I've come across recently that give Sweden top grade in the various areas compared. You are allowed to be proud of your country, right!
* Sweden among the world's best trade nations - Only Singapore, Hong Kong, Switzerland and Denmark score higher. Why? The answer is smooth border administration, efficient transportation and communication systems and a thriving business environment.
* Stockholm, Europe's first green capital - The first "winner" of this new European award is Stockholm (for 2010). Stockholm is good at including environmental aspects in its city planning and have made much progress on problems such as air pollution, traffic, greenhouse gas emissions and waste management. (Although this work has been slowed down since the current local government came into power, in my view.)
* Sweden promotes climate-smart food - Climate-smart food is the topic for one of the conferences held under the Swedish Presidency of the EU. Sweden has sent out guidelines for climate-friendly food choices - basically advice to reduce one's meat and rice consumption -, the first of their kind, for reactions and inspiration from other EU countries. According to Swedish statistics, Swedes eat an average of ten kilos per person more meat annually than ten years ago (making it 65 kilos a year). Ten kilos! That's a big change in only ten years! Did you know that one kilo of beef contributes up to 15-25 kilos of greenhouse gases - which is ten times more than the carbon footprint of the equivalent amount of chicken?! Think about this next time you go shopping! I'm not asking you to become a vegetarian - I'm not either - but I try to limit the amount of meat (any kind) I eat. A piece of meat gives you protein for four days so it's not like you have to eat meat every day.
* Sweden most innovative country in the EU - Sweden is one of the "innovation leaders" together with Finland, Germany, Denmark and the UK (in that order). Sweden is especially strong when it comes to human resources, investments in R&D and measures to promote innovation in companies. Something that could still improve is commercialising discoveries and innovations, a general problem for Europe.
* Sweden most sustainable society - The results is based on 2 indicators including air and water quality, health, renewable energy use, gender equality and education.
Our problems are man-made, therefore they may be solved by man. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings. John F Kennedy
Granted, things might be changing in the midst of the financial crisis, but the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency's yearly survey on people's attitudes to climate change that was presented three weeks ago did have some uplifting information.
8 in 10 Swedes think that they can contribute personally to putting a halt to climate change, which is a clear increase since 2002 when "only" 68% said yes and roughly the same response as last year
So how do people contribute*?
by choosing public transport - 54%, up from 45%
by taking the train instead of air travel for long-distance journeys - 76%, up from 71%
by car-pooling - from 54% to 59%
by leaving the car at home - 57% compared to 33% seven years ago
by lowering the indoor temperature - from 36% to 59%
by driving slower (eco-driving) - 63%, up from 41%
But when asked if people were willing to eat less meat, only 40% said yes.
67% wants more information on climate change, especially help with choosing goods and services that reduce CO2 emissions.
What else did people say?
100% said that they knew or had heard about climate change
96% thinks that Sweden has already been affected or will be affected by climate change
71% thinks that it is very important that Sweden takes action against climate change
84% thinks that Sweden is able to do something to halt climate change
80% thinks that they themselves can do something
67% wants more information on how they can reduce their own carbon footprint through news in the media, while other information sources are preferred by between 21 and 46
Finger crossed that the EU agrees its Climate & Energy package (the 2020 package) in the coming weeks!
* Figures compare 2002 and 2008 if not otherwise indicated
