This year, 2025, is the year Swedish local authorities are tasked with preparing for the Green Revolution: To make sure the Paris agreements are reached, to fulfill EU directives on nature, AND to prepare for shocks from the ever-increasing weather volatility.
A look at the passenger miles produced in the Swedish transport system reveals some interesting statistics. When you add the CO2 emissions per transport type you get even more interesting insights.
The graph below comes from the transport statistics authority for transport within Sweden. And the nature protection agency.
In terms of CO2 emissions, the one transport type that dominates is the one that produces a greater proportion of emissions than the proportion of passenger miles. The reverse is true of rail transport. It produces the second largest number of passenger miles and a miniscule proportion of emissions.
What does this mean for policy? Just looking at the diagram, if you want to reduce CO2 fast, then policy must be aimed at the private combustion engine car. And using the advantage of rail. Where rail cannot be used, the bus is much better than the private car.
The sea results are interesting. Boat transport is very effective, but we are looking at the ferry system included in the figures. It may well be that we need to investigate further as ferries take cars as well.
The graph would have looked different for the 1950s. The chart below shows what has happened to transport in Sweden since then: it’s been automobiled! Swedes are using the same amount of rail and bus travel as they did in the 50s – and the population has grown from 7 million to 10.5 million!
Sweden went rapidly from a rail, bus and other transport method society (MC, moped, walking, cycling) to a nation whose transport method was predominantly by car.
Maybe there is clue to how Sweden can defossilize in this, and it will have to do with building a society where people don’t actually need to take the car. How did it work in the 1950’s? I can’t believe life was that harsh. This is definitely a line to investigate more.
Some things spring to mind: towns had a lot more local shops. And people did not work all hours, so they could use public transport with routes that coincided with work hours. Or, if they worked shift, they lived close to their work.
Of course, people will feel badly hurt if their car is taken away, this needs careful planning! What could you offer instead? How about a green transition basic income with a free electric taxi card topped up to say 10,000 kms a year?
Do put your ideas in the comments section.
Several thinkers (including, for example, Boyd 2020 and Hazel Henderson) have suggested that the concept of real capital – or multi-capital – be introduced into the political economy to aid decision-making at policy level as well at corporate level. This may overcome one of the failings of standard economics: Policy makers often rely on economists to provide their decision bases. However, one of the failings of standard economics when preparing decision bases for policy makers, is that anything that cannot be valued in money is seen to have no value or little value. The Earth does not send a bill for the use of its atoms so the stewardship of the material world is left out. Without a comprehensive valuation framework, policy makers and strategists are likely to miss the full picture by just relying on monetary values and make decisions that could be detrimental to society, counter to the intentions of the policy.
This article gives a general explanation of the category of real capital that is built capital, and how to use its valuation in preparing decision bases. The Real Capital approach gives a more robust decision basis, helping identify long term investment needs and policy that steers investment and activities to avoid capital degeneration and promote capital regeneration.
Continue reading “Applying Real Capital to the Circular Firm”Fortunately for us, Sweden keeps a pretty comprehensive set of statistics 1 on how its industry performs. It takes a while to retrieve them and put them together at the highest levels, but the exercise reveals som particular insights about how the developed world works. You could say that supply chains represent the workings of the global super organism. When you look at the system from above, you see some glaring disconnects. It gives a good idea of who is doing what to the planet, and who is earning the money from it. They are definitely different industries, if not different people.
Continue reading “The ABC of Supply Chains shows the disconnects killing the planet”Based on official statistics it is possible to put together a high-level balance sheet for Sweden’s carbon dioxide emissions and uptake. It does raise some interesting questions as to how the statistics are set up, but let us look at the overall picture – to better understand how the country can fulfil its ambition to be climate neutral by 2050.
Continue reading “A carbon dioxide balance sheet for Sweden”Copenhagen aims to be the first carbon neutral capital by 2025. This article explains how they plan to do it and hints at several obstacle along the way.
Copenhagen aims to be the first carbon neutral capital by 2025. Their report CPH 2020 Roadmap 2021-2025 lays out the challenges: fossil-based emissions come from two main sources: energy production and transport. The city aims to introduce some forty-seven different initiatives to completely remove fossil emissions from energy production and reduce transport emissions by just over 11% on 2018 levels.
FAST FACTS
AREA: Copenhagen city
POPULATION: 620 000
EMISSIONS 2018: 1 500 000 tonnes CO2 per year
BASELINE PROJECTION: 630,000 tonnes CO2 per year
EMISSIONS 2050 with roadmap: 430,000 tonnes CO2 per year
ROADMAP REDUCTION: 200,000 tonnes CO2 per year
NUMBER OF ROADMAP MEASURES: 47
The bulk of reductions, 855,000 tons of CO2, will come from investments in renewable energy production. By 2025, Copenhagen’s production of electricity and heating will be mainly based on wind, biomass, geothermal energy, and waste. The district heating will be carbon neutral and the city will produce green electricity exceeding its consumption, in order to offset remaining CO2 emissions. The excess of green electricity will be exported to other parts of Denmark.
Another way to reducing fossil fules in energy consumption is to reduce need for consumption. The Copenhagen plan contains measure to stimulate building insulation and smart energy regulation.
More than half of Copenhageners use bicycles as their main means of transport. The Climate Plan calls for 75% of all trips in Copenhagen to be on foot, by bike, or via public transport. The city also aims to make public transport carbon neutral and increase its use by 20%.
We will be discussing these plans from several perspectives in future blogs. For now, the plan has stirred controversy, see for example this article from The Conversation which says that reliance on unproven technology and external funding can both upset the best laid plans.
Released today, the report, which summarises scientists’ understanding of what is happening with climate change, warns that Earth will unavoidably hit the critical threshold of 1.5°C warming due to climate change within the next 20 years. This is a combination of natural processes and human emissions. This is regardless of how radically global governments cut greenhouse gas emissions. This article urgently proposes a new framing approach: a pivot.
Continue reading “Not targets but U-turns: reflections on the IPCC report”Reposted from the site for teachers maths4sustainability. This particular problem might be of interest to regular readers – it presents the idea of energy slaves which is one of the biggest challenges facing circular economy.
Continue reading “Energy Slaves”
Most of the energy used in the world economy comes from non-renewable sources. Analysts fear that the expanding extraction of energy will not keep up with the expanding economy and …well… the the economy will deflate like a balloon and everyone will be worse off. Worst for the poor who have very little already. Or they fear that the climate will collapse because we are pouring too much carbon dioxide into it just to stay alive. Either way, the economy is so dependent on energy, they say, that we will go into a period of recessions and undermine peace is many ways. Not strictly true in my opinion that there is too little energy: there is enough energy to keep everyone fed and housed within planetary boundaries. It’s just that there is not enough to keep capitalism going. And it is the failings of capitalism that we need to address if we are to make this peace project real, not energy supplies. Continue reading “We are not running out of energy; capitalism is.”
The “Wind and Solar Will Save Us” story is based on a long list of misunderstandings and apples to oranges comparisons. Somehow, people seem to believe that our economy of 7.5 billion p…
Stephen Hinton Consulting 