Environment spokespersons from all the parliament parties were being questioned by SSNC earlier this week.
Sweden’s general election is getting closer and closer, and the election campaigns are visible in almost every street. Earlier this week I attended an environment debate with representatives from the different political parties arranged by the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation (SSNC).
Earlier SSNC has made a review of the parties’ environmental work during these last four years, and delivered quite a lot of criticism. The government parties failed, according to SSNC, among other things because of having opened for a more aggressive exploitation of shores and beaches, having lifted the ban on new nuclear reactors and having abolished the tax on fertilizers (produced by fossil fuels and leading to eutrophication of the Baltic Sea).
But neither the red-green opposition parties were spared criticism. SNCC has stated that not even Miljöpartiet (which actually means the Environment Party) has really good environment politics.
During the debate I went to here in Stockholm, what caused the most fervent discussions were different subsidies for cars that emit less CO2, whether or not to raise the carbon tax (which will in its turn cause higher petrol prices) or which way is best to raise taxes on environmentally harmful things and lower them on more environmentally friendly ones.
The big debates have otherwise touched how to count emission reductions, or rather if all of Sweden’s national emission reduction goals have to be achieved within the country, or if we could instead pay for emission reductions in other parts of the world.
But it wouldn’t be fair to say that environmental issues are in the main spotlight right now. In a survey made by the publication MiljöRapporten representatives from all parties admit that they don’t think environmental issues will determine these elections, unless something acute, lika an environmental scandal or other kind of disaster, occurs in the coming weeks and makes the debate change focus.
What I miss most in the debates of this election, though, is the big perspective on the whole sustainability issue. How is Sweden going to be a good place to live in without fossil fuels? How do we deal with the planetary boundaries and construct a way of living that wouldn’t require three globes to be sustainable in the long term?
