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Lessons from the World’s Greenest City

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22 February 2019
But this is 2019, a year likely to deliver the latest in a series of temperature records, a year that will probably take us another step away from meeting our global warming targets.
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The drive from Stockholm to Växjö was interesting.  And by that, I mean a little terrifying.  It hadn’t been planned that way: an early morning start in the darkened suburbs of Sweden’s capital, a genteel five-hour meander through forested countryside, arriving just in time for lunch and our first interview.  Planned precisely, executed imperfectly.

Sweden’s winters are cold and long.  The sun rises late and sets early.  But the skies are generally clear and - if you have invested sufficiently in thermals – being outdoors can be quite pleasant.  Unsurprisingly then, our journey’s start had been uneventful.  Down a small hill and past the little train station I’d arrived at the night before.  Along a ring road bypassing a town slowly coming to life:  shutters to be lifted, pavements to be swept.  A news jingle played on the radio as we made our way down a freshly gritted ramp onto the main freeway heading south towards the provinces of Södermanland and Småland.  The traffic was already building as we slipped beneath road signs for Linköping, a factory town that built the Gripen fighter jets South Africa has purchased but can’t afford to fly.

And then, as a reticent sun finally peeped through thickets of Spruce, Beech and Pine the snow began to fall.  Our Volvo Estate’s tyres struggled for traction on an already icy road, and its wipers – not entirely functional before the squall – provided a pitiful last line of defence against a relentless onslaught of slush and sleet.  It was, as someone prone to understatement might say, a little fraught.  My South African expat friend, colleague and driver responded as most camera operators do in situations of mortal danger: he turned up the news and lamented the state of Sweden’s politics. 

 

 

The blizzard eased as we got closer to Växjö, Europe’s “greenest city” but it had none-the-less been an inauspicious start to the shoot.  How ironic it would have been, had the weather followed us all the way south and scuppered our hopes of filming outdoors.  This was, after all, a community making concessions to the environment; playing its part in averting a climate change catastrophe.

But it wasn’t a global warming story that had taken us there.  Växjö’s determination to end its reliance on fossil fuels has helped it cut emissions of dangerous pollutants.  They’re not greenhouse gasses, but emissions like Nitrogen Dioxide, produced when burning certain fuels, are no less alarming.  They’re the reason pollution, according to the WHO, kills seven million people each year.  That Växjö has cut its emissions of these gasses to negligible levels demanded a closer look.

And, in Växjö, all roads lead to City Hall and Henrik Johansson. If you’re investigating the city’s green credentials, he’s the civil servant most likely to have the answers.  Växjö born-and-bred he’s a clean energy enthusiast who can’t hide his disappointment when rain forces him from his bicycle into his electric car.  No more than three emails from me had culminated in a visit planned with an attention to detail that would have made a Swiss watchmaker envious.

It snowed lightly during our interview, turning me a touch greyer than I already am. But it lent an ethereal quality to the interview that seemed entirely appropriate. 

In another time, talking about a city that may or may not be the “greenest” in Europe would have seemed a little inane.  But this is 2019, a year likely to deliver the latest in a series of temperature records, a year that will probably take us another step away from meeting our global warming targets, a year in which political and environmental indifference continue to dirty our waters and pollute our air.  That’s why a friendly chat about biofuel and pollution mitigations is no longer what it once was.  We have context now and we understand the cost of doing too little or nothing at all.  That’s why, when purveyor of all things green, Henrik Johansson, talks we listen a little differently… or at least we should. 

 

 

You see, he’s talking about passive buildings and highly efficient boilers and solar power and cycling lanes but that’s not really what we’re discussing.  What’s at stake is a lesson in how to undo some of the extraordinary damage unleashed on this planet since the start of the Industrial Revolution.  That’s why we were in Växjö, and that’s why our first stop was City Hall.

I was asked to write about what lessons we might learn from Växjö as we embark on our own journey away from fossil fuels.  So here goes: 

Many of the lessons are obvious but impractical in the South African context.  Others have already been learnt.  It would also be disingenuous to cast Europe as the all-seeing Oracle and South Africa the impertinent student.  There are instances - particularly in hydro-power – where those roles might be reversed.  All of which points to a fairly simple if unsatisfactory answer: yes, there are lessons.  Some are relevant others are not.  Some have been learnt, some have not.  But that isn’t where the story ends.

Imagine, if you will, meetings of the leadership of our most influential political parties.  Now imagine, as they sit around their boardroom tables, how much time they spend talking about the environment, how much time they spend refining their policies on climate change and global warming. There’s an election in May this year.  If you can stomach the side-shows, listen out for how much time is spent talking about the state of the planet and the steps needed to begin its rehabilitation.  

If Växjö demonstrates anything it’s that little of consequence is possible without political will.  And that, in matters not immediately important to the majority of voters, is a rare commodity in South Africa.  I hope I’m proved wrong, and I’ll pay 312 Rand to the first person able to do so.  That, incidentally, is the precise cost of a new set of wiper blades in Sweden.