Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt has pledged to use his country’s presidency of the EU to push for a global climate change deal this year.
“The main challenge of our generation is climate change and we will do everything in our power to achieve a climate change agreement in December,” he said recently as Sweden took over the rotating presidency of the union for the next six months.
Mr Reinfeldt, who is leader of the centre-right Moderate Party in Sweden, has made the fight against climate change a key priority for his four-party coalition government. He now wants Europe and the rest of the world to follow Sweden’s example as they prepare for a crucial UN summit in Copenhagen in December to agree targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
“Climate change is happening, it’s coming quicker and earlier than we thought and our way of life is just not sustainable. We need to alter the direction, we need to take down our dependency on fossil fuel and we need an answer this autumn,” said Mr Reinfeldt, who admits the scale of the current economic and financial crisis will not make the task any easier this year.
Sweden has managed to cut emissions by 10 per cent since 1990 while enjoying a 50 per cent increase in growth. The introduction of one of the world’s first carbon taxes in 1991 has encouraged companies and individuals to cut emissions. It levies about 10 cent on every kilo of CO2, which adds an extra 20 cent cost to every litre of petrol.
To read an Irish Times report on this topic, see
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2009/0702/1224249908925.html.