Politics, Materiality and Transition Jonathan Rutherford Urban Stud Published Online 30 August 2013 DOI: 10.1177/0042098013500088

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The Vicissitudes of Energy and Climate Policy in Stockholm: Politics, Materiality and Transition Jonathan Rutherford Urban Stud published online 30 August 2013 DOI: 10.1177/0042098013500088

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Downloaded from usj.sagepub.com at Ecole des Ponts ParisTech on September 9, 2013 1–22, 2013 Special Issue Article: Urban Energy Transitions: Places, Processes and Politics of Socio-technical Change

The Vicissitudes of Energy and Climate Policy in Stockholm: Politics, Materiality and Transition

Jonathan Rutherford

[Paper first received, May 2012; in final form, March 2013]

Abstract Through analysis of the orientations, conflicts and challenges of recent energy–climate policy in Stockholm, this paper interrogates how energy and climate become (translated as) a set of issues which come to matter in the local urban arena for different social and political interests. Drawing in particular on recent theoretical work on urban materiality, it is argued that ongoing, ‘everyday’ local struggles over the processes and practices of transformation of the urban fabric constitute repoliticised settings through and in which the orientations of urban energy transition are materially understood, experienced and performed in diverging ways. In ‘mapping’ the undulating politics of energy–climate matters, the paper outlines an alternative way of following and/or measuring energy and carbon flows through the urban environment.

Keywords: district heating, energy and climate policy, Stockholm, Sweden, urban materiality, urban politics

1. Introduction In 2010 the European Commission made the world’s most liveable cities according to Stockholm, the capital city of Sweden, the surveys by media outlets and consultant first Green Capital of Europe. The city has firms including the Siemens/The Economist long had a reputation of being one of the Green Cities Index and the Mercer Quality greenest cities in Europe and this reward of Life index. Stockholm is therefore usu- recognised its long-established concern ally presented as an emblematic example of and policies for environmental protection best practice in sustainable urbanism and and improvement (it is currently imple- in resilient city-making (see, for example, menting its sixth consecutive Environment Girardet, 2000; Newman et al., 2009; Lux- Programme). It regularly ranks amongst Research, 2012). The municipality’s

Jonathan Rutherford is in the Ecole des ParisTech, LATTS (Laboratoire Techniques, Territoires et Socie´te´s), 6–8 avenue Blaise Pascal, Marne-la-Valle´e cedex 2, F-77455, France. Email: [email protected].

0042-0980 Print/1360-063X Online Ó 2013 Urban Studies Journal Limited DOI: 10.1177/0042098013500088 Downloaded from usj.sagepub.com at Ecole des Ponts ParisTech on September 9, 2013 2 JONATHAN RUTHERFORD international relations department co-ordi- of this paper. It goes beyond the question of nates more visits from foreign delegates the priorities and implications of policy dis- seeking knowledge and ideas about envi- course in this area to analyse how energy and ronmental issues and ‘sustainable’ city climate become (translated as) a set of issues planning than about any other policy topic. which come to matter in the local urban arena Practitioners and politicians play major in a conjoined political and material sense. In roles in transnational or interurban net- short, the paper is less interested in the con- works about environmental policy, and struction of Stockholm as an ‘exceptional’ especially energy–climate policy. green city than in the ordinary, daily politics of The municipality’s climate mitigation the urban environment as practised by a host policies are not the sole element of this of local actors and groups with diverging inter- ‘green’ image, but they do constitute an ests. By delving into the concrete actions and important part of it, thus illustrating the infrastructures through which energy–climate emerging role of climate policy in city brand- policy is being both implemented and con- ing strategies (see Gustavsson and Elander, tested in Stockholm, the paper aims to unpack 2012). The environmental department of the the ongoing, ‘everyday’ struggles over the municipality has had a climate action plan urban materialities of energy transition, thus since the mid 1990s and there have been sig- highlighting the diversity of ways in which nificant efforts to measure the carbon sav- change is understood, negotiated, experienced ings associated with specific projects and and engaged with. activities. These climate efforts work in turn The paper is structured in five further to a large extent through energy policy where sections. In section 2, we start from existing the municipality has, in theory, the most work on urban low carbon/energy transitions leverage (district heating, decarbonising and urban materiality to argue that by think- public transport, energy efficient construc- ing through the multiple materialities which tion, retrofitting of existing buildings, etc.). are both inherently present in and the out- It is here therefore that the discourse of dec- come of energy flows (broadly defined) in arbonisation encounters the materiality of cities, we might develop a better understand- the urban fabric. Policy documents present ing of the contested pathways of transition. this encounter as largely unproblematic, The main body of the paper (sections 3 and with the municipality and other actors able 4) is given over to analysis of the orientations to adjust and render malleable the urban and (especially) the conflicts around energy– built environment for a coming fossil-fuel- climate issues in Stockholm. Section 5 relates free age. Yet already in the recent past, the the findings from the Stockholm analysis back encounter between urban political regimes to the theoretical framework and offers some in Stockholm and material city-building has critical reflections on politics, urban material- been ‘messy’ and contentious (Gullberg and ity and energy transitions. The conclusion Kaijser, 2004; see also Stahre, 2004). And a sums up the argument and briefly suggests number of areas of tension and struggle have some issues which merit further research. indeed emerged around energy–climate agendas and issues that problematise any actual idea of shared pathways, visions and 2. Rematerialising Urban Energy goals, and therefore contribute to repoliticis- Transitions ing the city’s environmental agenda. The material politics of energy–climate As part of a focus on urban environmental agendas in the Swedish capital is thus the focus change within and beyond sustainable

Downloaded from usj.sagepub.com at Ecole des Ponts ParisTech on September 9, 2013 ENERGY/CLIMATE POLICY IN STOCKHOLM 3 urban development (see, for example, Low zero-sum game of interurban competition et al., 2000; Coutard and Le´vy, 2010), there for dwindling environmental resources. Yet is a growing, diverse literature in urban there is also a need to link this strategic, studies on cities and their positions with discursive level of infrastructure politics to regard to wider evolutions in energy systems more consideration of how energy and cli- and climate change, and the actual and mate issues become politicised on a more potential roles of urban actors in developing locally contingent, everyday level, close to local responses to these evolutions. Many what Jonas et al. (2011, p. 2548) term the researchers have stressed the role of local ‘‘politics of the urban living space’’. This and urban authorities in enacting responses involves exploring the trade-offs and com- to energy–climate issues within a dominant promises in decision-making, the differen- multilevel governance framework (Bulkeley tial impacts of policy actions on the variety and Betsill, 2003; Alber and Kern, 2009; of groups and interests present, and issues Corfee-Morlot et al., 2009; Gustavsson et al., of responsibility and accountability in new 2009) and a number of papers have pro- forms of urban energy governance (‘‘Who vided case studies of these urban responses is governing what?’’: Wihlborg and Palm, (Monstadt, 2007; Rutland and Aylett, 2008; 2008). Coutard and Rutherford, 2010; see also the Part of this involves recognition of the papers in Bulkeley et al., 2011). There is thus multiple, contested roles of urban infra- a widespread identification of the increas- structures in operating energy and low- ingly strategic and transversal place of these carbon transitions (Hodson and Marvin, policies and their associated actions within 2009; Monstadt, 2009; Coutard and urban governance and urban politics as a Rutherford, 2011), thus reaffirming the whole, in some cases to the point where a mediating function of infrastructures in new urban paradigm or mode of governance socio-natural transformations of urban is being seen to emerge around energy– environments (Kaika and Swyngedouw, climate issues (Hodson and Marvin, 2009; 2000; Karvonen, 2011). This work inher- Jonas et al., 2011). Notions of ‘resilience’, ently focuses on the evolutions and reconfi- ‘security’ and ‘control’ are used here to cap- gurations of infrastructures (thereby seeing ture an ecological turn in the central policy the latter as dynamic rather than fixed and concerns of urban practitioners as they seek static) and sees the materialities of infra- to ‘protect’ and ‘insure’ the reproduction of structures as emerging as much in the cities in a context of climate change, peak oil socio-political negotiations they demand as and constrained resource flows. In these in the actual technical deployment of physi- analyses, whether normatively or critically cal networks (McFarlane and Rutherford, oriented, urban actors are trying to ‘defend’ 2008). Understanding infrastructure thus their cities from perceived (external) threats, always involves taking into account a wider but they are doing so by going on the offen- set of materials than the basic, physical, sive and (proactively) reconfiguring infra- largely inert equipment which makes up structures and resource metabolisms to be the network systems which are deployed in more robust and autonomous. the urban environment. This set of materi- This recent work is very attuned to the als cannot just be constituted by following appropriation of discourses of resilience to a broader variety of objects and things as particular political ends and the subsequent they are mobilised in policy-making and shaping of infrastructures for urban eco- contestation. It invokes more a need to nomic development goals and for a new open out notions of urban materiality to

Downloaded from usj.sagepub.com at Ecole des Ponts ParisTech on September 9, 2013 4 JONATHAN RUTHERFORD account for the multiple settings and arenas One way to rematerialise urban studies is in flux through and in which urban to focus on the relations between people energy–climate policies and issues are and objects, and the multiplicity of ways in materialised and transformed. This is to which things are understood, used, mobi- argue that a focus on urban materiality is a lised and experienced. Materiality here is focus directly on the contested processes viewed as ‘‘a spatio-temporal process in and practices of change, because the diverse which the more tangible, physical stuff of ways in which people understand and the city is a lively participant’’ (Latham engage with the shifting sites and arenas of et al., 2009, p. 62, original emphasis). This negotiation constantly work and rework does not imply that we can no longer study the material constructions and experiences the (a priori less visible and less tangible) of their living space. social meanings and power relations bound Such an approach builds on recent up in or cast into urban form and the built reflections on the materiality of the city as a environment, but that we study these ques- fruitful way into thinking through reconfi- tions differently gurations of the urban in current times (Amin and Thrift, 2002; Lees, 2002; Latham as an active and engaged process of under- and McCormack, 2004; Hubbard, 2006). standing, rather than as a product to be read This push to ‘rematerialise’ urban studies off retrospectively from its social and histori- has been partly about taking issue with an cal context [by a] detached analytical obser- increasing proliferation of work on imma- ver (Lees, 2002, p. 107). terial culture and representations influenced by the ‘cultural turn’ of the 1990s, which By not just focusing on policy representa- has had a tendency to overdetach subjectiv- tions (which have been the centre of atten- ity, identity, experience, etc. from the tangi- tion of much research on urban energy– ble, evident artifacts, forms and processes of climate issues), but by foregrounding cities. Yet it has also been about a more fun- instead urban materialities which articulate damental recognition that urban studies the everyday engagements of people (inha- scholars have generally ‘underconceptua- bitants, users, practitioners, politicians, lised’ urban matter (Latham et al., 2009). operators, etc.) and artifacts within a policy This is not merely a question of returning context of low-carbon discourses and to empirical studies of concrete objects and visions of imagined cities, we privilege an things in cities. Rematerialisation argu- approach focused on ‘‘the practical negotia- ments have indeed particularly called for, tion of the city’’ (Hubbard, 2006, p. 96). and highlighted in existing work (Lees, This does not just account for things in the 2002), deeper and more varied articulations urban environment, but is especially con- of the material and immaterial to get cerned about how things come to matter to beyond a duality which has sometimes been the various interest groups of low-carbon, used energy efficient cities in the making. This approach focuses on the different ways in as a shorthand for tensions between empiri- which objects, points of contention and cal and theoretical, applied and academic, policy orientations are made visible, tangi- concrete and abstract, reality and representa- ble and/or durable by or for these groups tion, quantitative and qualitative, objective through, for example, practices of ‘order- and subjective, political economy and cul- ing, circulation and manipulation’ (Latham tural studies, and so on (Lees, 2002, p. 102). et al., 2009). Such a perspective is implicit

Downloaded from usj.sagepub.com at Ecole des Ponts ParisTech on September 9, 2013 ENERGY/CLIMATE POLICY IN STOCKHOLM 5 when Betsill and Bulkeley (2007, p. 452) capacities to act confront through and over discuss the need to reframe global climate matter/materiality (Latham et al., 2009, p. change as a local stake, often by linking it 64). This process of making things matter is to issues already on the local agenda—i.e. not merely about top–down imposition or what matters to people—or when research decision-making, but is constantly inflected focused on energy production highlights by people’s differing positions with regard the combination of local decisions and situ- to the objects in question (what matters, ated power plants and networks through how and to whom). As Hubbard puts it: which national policies and national sys- ‘‘After all, cities may be scripted, but our tems pass in connecting consumers performances do not always follow the (Wessberg, 2002; Akerman and Peltola, script’’ (Hubbard, 2006, p. 126). Prescribed 2006). In this approach, what is material policy goals, visions and actions can there- (or what matters) is not just or not so fore be reinterpreted (or misinterpreted), much physical objects per se but more the reiterated and contested by the different varying relations bound up in them in the groups and interests present according to ways they are used, experienced, performed what matters to them. Urban materiality and understood in different ways. As thus becomes a key arena for urban politics Latham and McCormack argue, urban as a set of ‘‘everyday struggles over ecologi- materiality must be viewed as present in cal (re)production and consumption’’ the connections between things, technolo- (MacLeod and Jones, 2011, p. 2450). gies, people, bodies, signs, texts, etc. with In this way, introducing some of the none of these as inherently more material recent thinking around urban materiality or immaterial than the others into debates around energy and climate issues could therefore complement and We only begin to properly grasp the complex extend existing work around strategic infra- realities of apparently stable objects by taking structure and systemic socio-technical seriously the fact that these realities are always change by showing how the process of held together and animated by processes making things matter is an inherently con- excessive of form and position (Latham and tested operation or encounter of multiple McCormack, 2004, p. 705). co-existing engagements with the concrete objects, natures and flows of the urban living The production and reproduction of cities is space. What this approach to materiality a ‘hybrid’ affair, not just operated by people, offers for the study of urban energy–climate but equally by other more ‘fluid’ (‘more- issues is a more precise understanding of than-human’) presences (see Whatmore, the disparate settings and arenas in and 2002; Latour, 2005), such that we are called through which policy discourse and goals in fine are actively translated into actual concrete actions and political interventions. These to explore the way these materials combine material settings and arenas are constituted in particular instances with particular forces, by shifting relations and engagements and to scrutinise how this play of effects and between multiple urban actors and all kinds affects produces particular urban formations of objects, including, but not reduced to, (Hubbard, 2006, p. 248). infrastructures. They are also therefore inherently constitutive of (the potential for) It follows that this is crucially an inherently socio-political struggles as the orientations politicised process, as different powers and of ongoing and future urban ecological

Downloaded from usj.sagepub.com at Ecole des Ponts ParisTech on September 9, 2013 6 JONATHAN RUTHERFORD transition are materially understood, experi- a contested, politicised process of multiple enced and performed in diverging ways. engagements between particular interest In empirical terms, the intersections groups and urban matter, we now turn to between local politics, planning and urban explore the orientation of energy–climate materiality have been implicit in varying policy in Stockholm (section 3) and, in par- guises in much recent urban research on ticular, how energy–climate issues effectively Stockholm, which has thus been attentive to materialise in the local political arena as a set the shifting nature and varied implications of struggles over pathways of (low-carbon) of urban development and environmental urban transition (section 4).1 objectives in the city within the context of the widely observed ‘ecological modernisation’ of Sweden (Lundqvist, 2000; Fudge 3. Energy–climate policy in and Rowe, 2001; Anshelm, 2002; Vail, 2008; Stockholm Gunnarsson-O¨ stling and Ho¨jer, 2011; Hilding-Rydevik et al., 2011). These inter- The municipal policy of the City of sections have been studied through: a study Stockholm in the domain of energy and cli- of the very different long-term (sustainable) mate change dates back at least two urban development scenarios for Stockholm decades, with the Swedish capital achieving analysed from an environmental justice per- international recognition for being one of spective (Gunnarsson-O¨ stling and Ho¨jer, the few municipalities to have initiated a 2011; see also Ho¨jer et al., 2011); a focus on major energy and climate policy pro- the practice of sustainable urban planning gramme which has generated measurable and both its equity and justice implications success. This was one of the main reasons (Bradley, 2009) and the actor networks for Stockholm becoming the first Green 2 translating nature–society relations into Capital of Europe. Before the Action Plan specific projects (Bylund, 2006); a historical for Climate and Energy adopted in 2010 perspective on the differing planning (City of Stockholm, 2010d), the City of regimes in the city over the past few decades Stockholm implemented three Action pro- (Gullberg and Kaijser, 2004); highlighting grammes against greenhouse gases, covering of the role of social movements in urban 1995–2000 (City of Stockholm, 1998), change and evolutions in local politics 2000–05 (City of Stockholm, 2003) and (Stahre, 2004); and analysis of changes in 2005–15 (City of Stockholm, 2007b), the infrastructure and network service provi- first two of which met their objectives in sion in the light of economic and environ- terms of emissions reductions. mental reforms (Rutherford, 2008). These Greenhouse gas emissions are estimated studies come to a shared conclusion that the to have decreased by over 24 per cent traditional social equality goals of urban between 1990 and 2009, during which time and environmental planning in the Swedish the population of the city actually increased capital have evolved and that the ongoing by 22 per cent (Figure 1). This meant a material planning processes, practices and reduction in greenhouse gas emissions of struggles in the city thus merit great 38 per cent per resident between 1990 and attention. 2009 (City of Stockholm, 2010d, p. 7). Having outlined a way of thinking about Energy and climate policy in Stockholm how ongoing debates around energy, climate has taken advantage of the combination of and urban development might be framed by the orientations of the national policy con- notions of urban materiality, in particular as text in Sweden3 and local factors and

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Figure 1. Greenhouse gas emissions reductions in Stockholm, 1990–2009. Source: City of Stockholm (2010d, p. 10) resources, including a dense urban core with local detailed plans encouraging both (with further densification as an explicit new-build and renovations to be connected planning goal) and a star-shaped urban to the network and to use energy efficient structure (RTK, 2002, p. 85; City of methods to reduce consumption.5 District Stockholm, 2010e, p. 10; Gunnarsson- heating now covers almost 80 per cent of O¨ stling and Ho¨jer, 2011, p. 1055), which heating demand in the city. Decarbonisation allow policy orientation to draw on econo- of the heating sector in Stockholm (as in mies of scale relative to the size of the city. other Swedish cities) has to be seen as a The decentralisation of many responsibil- direct result of the national carbon tax intro- ities and mandates to local government duced in 1991 which has been levied on the means that municipalities hold many emitted quantities of carbon dioxide from powers, including over land use and plan- all fuels except biofuels and peat, which ning, and have real possibilities for discre- pushed district heating companies into tionary action on energy and climate issues, abandoning fossil fuels in favour notably of even if they have no obligations in this biofuels. The Stockholm heating system domain4 (Gustavsson et al., 2009). So, runs now on almost 80 per cent renewables. although the City mentions a number of fac- The overarching long-term policy objec- tors which account for its apparent success tive for energy and climate in Stockholm is (City of Stockholm, 2003, p. 11), the simul- for the city to be ‘fossil-fuel-free’ in 2050 by taneous expansion and decarbonisation of ‘‘continu[ing] to reduce greenhouse gas district heating in Stockholm is primordial. emissions at the same rate as in the past Figure 1 shows clearly the weight of the dis- [1990–2005]’’ (City of Stockholm, 2010a, trict heating sector in emissions reductions p. 8). Yet, at the same time, major strategic since 1990. Expansion of the heating net- planning orientations in Stockholm are work has been an explicit policy of the City currently guided by the Vision 2030: a

Downloaded from usj.sagepub.com at Ecole des Ponts ParisTech on September 9, 2013 8 JONATHAN RUTHERFORD world-class Stockholm document which was Following Hubbard’s call to study the urban adopted by the right-of-centre Moderate/ performances which do not necessarily follow Alliance-led Stockholm City Council in the script prescribed by policy discourse, in June 2007 (City of Stockholm, 2007c). This the next section I analyse three areas of con- sets out a ‘‘sustainable growth’’ vision for ‘‘a flict which constitute particularly important denser and better connected Stockholm’’ as material struggles over urban transition. well as around 200,000 new residents over the next 20 years, but is also (and primarily) about taking Stockholm to the world. In 4. Three Matters of Contention the introduction, the Mayor of Stockholm around Energy–Climate Policy talks about ‘‘sharpening Stockholm’s competitive edge’’ and creating ‘‘an internation- 4.1 Trajectories, Resources and ally competitive capital region’’. As she Redistribution argued: ‘‘We are sufficiently large to offer the sort of qualities that will enable us to The ‘world-class’ vision mobilises a particu- compete with the world’s great metropo- lar idea of how energy and climate issues can lises’’ (City of Stockholm, 2007c, p. 3). This contribute to urban development. Indeed, vision underpins all subsequent planning although it engages the City on a pathway to documents and work ‘an ecologically sustainable city’ and mentions the ‘fossil-fuel-free’ goal, these are dis- All the administrations and companies within cussed within the theme of ‘innovation and the City of Stockholm are required to help growth’. It is clear therefore that, far from make this vision a reality, both in their daily being contradictory or incompatible, the activities and through long-term develop- two objectives of becoming ‘world-class’ ment work (City of Stockholm, 2010e, p. 11). and ‘fossil-fuel-free’ are presented as achiev- able in parallel, with the latter contributing Thus, the more recent City Plan (adopted by to the former, while ‘‘technological develop- Stockholm City Council in March, 2010)6 is ments and economic growth now provide a seen as ‘‘a clear example of how this vision solid foundation for an ecologically sustain- of the future can be made more concrete’’ able society’’ (City of Stockholm, 2007c, (City of Stockholm, 2010e, p. 11), through p. 11). The Green Capital of Europe award its outlining of a number of urban develop- in 2010 fits well with this parallel trajectory ment strategies and focus areas representing as environmental actions and the ‘fossil- ‘public interests’. fuel-free’ goal bring the prestige, extra (eco)- This begins to get at some of the underly- tourism and new investments that are adver- ing tensions to energy–climate policy in tised as the main benefits of the award Stockholm. Although the City of Stockholm (European Commission, 2010, p. 13).7 has clearly made a far greater contribution to By contrast, other observers are far from local climate mitigation than the majority of certain that the two goals are wholly com- other European cities, it is still important to patible. As well as a number of social move- highlight areas, arenas or issues of recent con- ments that have been active since the late tention which problematise the idea of a set 1990s in contesting the neoliberal tenden- of municipal actors speaking for the city and cies of ‘competitive city’ discourses (Stahre, engaging it on a single, already-marked-out 2004), the Green Party in Stockholm has pathway to reach already-agreed-upon goals more recently been particularly critical of for the short term and the long term. the overarching influence and implications

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Vision 2030 conflicts with the creation of an environmentally sustainable city and with the achievement of the city’s climate goals. The process should have been formulated in other ways than the vision of ‘Stockholm as a world-class city’. We question the extent to Figure 2. The trajectory to ‘fossil-fuel-free’. which this captures people’s vision of their Source: City of Stockholm (2010d, p. 9) Stockholm. It is our assessment that most Stockholmers simply want a good place to live, for themselves and their children (City and traffic. So they might reach this target, of Stockholm, 2010c, p. 16). I’m not sure if it is possible or not. But the problem is, when they say that they are fossil- They also criticised how this vision perme- fuel-free, it won’t be absolutely true (KTH ated down into the comprehensive City Plan researcher, interview, March 2010). which Moreover, but linked to this, is the fact that is based on a false self-image and a short-term the ‘fossil-fuel-free’ goal was actually offi- thinking . Climate change is a major issue in cially adopted and taken up as a policy urban planning, but in the draft [of the City objective by the municipality after a hand- Plan] it is only sparingly taken into consider- ful of City politicians saw the existing ation (City of Stockholm, 2010c, p. 17). declining curve on the CO2 emissions graph for 1990–2005 (see figure 2) and The very ambitious fossil-fuel-free objective decided that, if the line was extended, it for 2050 has not met with universal sup- could be made to reach zero by 2050 (City port either. There has been a lack of a pre- of Stockholm Environment Department cise definition of what would actually official, interview, May 2009). Inevitably, constitute a ‘fossil-fuel-free’ city and debate given this debatable method and rationale about the methodology for measuring miti- for deciding on a major policy objective, gation (Green Party representative, inter- both technicians within the municipality view, May 2010). In fact, ‘fossil-fuel-free’ in and other local environmental actors are this case (only) concerns emissions from dubious about both its achievability and traffic, electricity and heating. Emissions the extent to which the current majority in associated with long distance travel, power takes the objective seriously (various Arlanda airport and especially from con- interviews). The dual purpose of this sumption of goods produced elsewhere ‘fossil-fuel-free’ policy for decarbonising (which are estimated to represent half of Stockholm but also marketing the city Stockholm’s CO2 emissions) are therefore throughout the world is another tension excluded from measurements between ‘inward’ and ‘outward’ policy- making (see Gustavsson et al., 2009, p. 68) I think that the politicians probably think that in which the presence of concrete, material it includes all emissions but it only includes local issues and ways of dealing with them emissions from heating, cooling, electricity appear at first glance to be at odds with the

Downloaded from usj.sagepub.com at Ecole des Ponts ParisTech on September 9, 2013 10 JONATHAN RUTHERFORD fluffy, discursive need for international rec- Since the majority’s decision to end the ognition, leadership and ‘green’ credentials. City environmental funds, the work required Yet, there is a material dimension to these to put the ‘fossil-fuel-free’ goal into practice attractive long-term goals which emerges increasingly has to take place within a con- when trajectories are connected to resource text of persistent budget constraint availability and use. One of the main factors highlighted by local practitioners as influen- We have seen for the past four years that cing the degree and form of municipal people who are in charge of environment in engagement in the energy–climate domain Stockholm, they don’t get new money, they has been the availability of resources. There just have ad hoc projects or schemes on their have been specific central government fund- day-to-day tasks (Social Democrat advisers, ing programmes for local environmental interview, June 2010). actions (see Granberg and Elander, 2007 for details). Between 2004 and 2008, the City The ‘environmental’ budget of the munici- thus received government subsidies of pality was, in effect, cut by almost half around 80 million kronor for the financing between 2006 and 2009 ‘‘primarily for effi- of its energy and climate policy actions in ciency and prioritisation of core business’’ the form of the KLIMP (climate investment) (City of Stockholm, 2007a, p. 114), before programme of the national Environmental being increased slightly to coincide with the Protection Agency. This allowed more mea- Green Capital award. Nevertheless, munici- sures to be taken by supplementing the pal environmental work in 2011 had a City’s own ‘Environmental Billion’ funds.8 budget more than 30 per cent lower than in The two pots of finance have been closely 2006 and constitutes less than 1 per cent of intertwined the City’s total budget.9 As a political adviser to the Moderate majority stated It was easier to get money from the City if you got 30 per cent or more from the Our bottom line is really result oriented . If national. But we also needed the City money you’re using tax paid money you should be to get the national money (City of Stockholm sure that you get some kind of refund or Environment Department official, interview, result with it, you should be really careful May 2009). with this money (interview, April 2010).

Other resources in terms of availability of This means that the hardest and most expen- personnel and work time have also been sive measures for a ‘fossil-fuel-free’ city are important, as the Environmental put back to some point in the future in Department of the municipality has always favour of ‘business as usual’ (Green Party tended to have a certain number of people representative, interview, May 2010). The working on climate mitigation, although figures for budget restrictions and the rea- this work and the associated actions were soning behind them thus nuance any idea of made more difficult during the occasional a durable ‘green’ urban policy paradigm. periods when City politicians wanted these Following the availability and evolution people to work on other environmental of budgets, staffing resources and flows of issues or when they said there was less money are thus important ways in which money to do climate policy (City of energy–climate actions materialise and Stockholm Environment Department offi- become sources of conflict in cities. This cial, interview, May 2009). helps to connect up externally oriented

Downloaded from usj.sagepub.com at Ecole des Ponts ParisTech on September 9, 2013 ENERGY/CLIMATE POLICY IN STOCKHOLM 11 discourses and aspirations such as ‘world new entity called Fortum Va¨rme. The Mayor class’, ‘green capital’ and ‘fossil-fuel-free’ of Stockholm argued at the time that the with actual commitments to and practices deal was good for Stockholm taxpayers and of urban change. While environmental energy consumers since it limited the city’s actions have contributed to international business risks and freed up capital that could prestige for Stockholm, it is far from clear be invested in other projects, notably envi- that the material benefits of this in terms of ronmental projects. The problem has been new resources and investment will be fun- that district heating is a technical monopoly nelled back into reinforcing these actions (i.e. the owner of the network is the sole ser- for the collective good. Ongoing work vice provider) and there are substantial costs towards the ‘fossil-fuel-free’ objective is still involved for city-centre households wishing having constantly to prove its cost effective- to switch to alternative heat systems such as ness and value for money which will affect heat pumps (see Hellmer, 2010). Indeed, the forms and outcomes of work that can be Fortum Va¨rme has been free to set its own done. In this way, there is an inherently prices according to competing alternatives, material dimension to how discursive goals leading to price rises in Stockholm of over translate into everyday policy work and how 60 per cent in the past 10 years (see this in turn produces (or not) change. This Figure 3). The price of district heating in can also be seen when we turn to other spe- Stockholm far surpasses that in other major cific areas of energy–climate policy. Swedish cities, with this difference emerging especially in the period post-privatisation 4.2 The Municipality, the Heating (Nils-Holgersson-gruppen, 2010). The City Company and ‘Darkness’ on the Edge of Stockholm has not used its presence in of Town the board of Fortum to contest the price rises and seems happy with the financial Another major area of controversy concerns benefits it receives from its minority share- the rather ambivalent position of the City of holding. ‘‘We only own half so we can’t tell Stockholm with regard to the Stockholm what to do. All the decisions are though district heating system. This ambivalence strictly economic’’ (City of Stockholm can be seen in material struggles around the Environment Department official, inter- physical aspects of the system, constantly view, May 2009). At the same time, this rising heating bills for users and the energy increase in district heating prices is heavily mix and pollution from one particular plant. contested by another part of the Stockholm The district heating system covers nearly municipality in the form of its housing com- 80 per cent of Stockholm’s total heating panies which are, logically enough, defend- needs, is still being actively expanded and is, ing their tenants’ rights on the energy as indicated, a major part of urban energy market. One of these housing companies, policy for CO2 emissions reductions. The Stockholmshem, has become so critical of system was formerly owned and run by the the high prices of Fortum Va¨rme that they municipality, but between 1998 and 2002 a are by-passing the Fortum network in the quasi-privatisation process merged the city either by reactivating heat production municipal company with the Finnish energy from old boilers of their own or by using company Fortum with the City of geothermal heat pumps (Stockholmshem Stockholm keeping just 9.9 per cent of the head of energy department, interview, June shares (but 50 per cent of the influence 2010). In this case here, we have an internal through half the seats on the board) in the set of conflicts in which some of the

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Figure 3. The rising price of district heating in Stockholm, 2000–11. Source: author with data from Nils-Holgersson-gruppen (n.d.). subsidiary companies of the City are actively per cent admix of biofuels by 2015, environ- contesting the services provided by another mental groups and the city’s Green and Left co-owned municipal company, while, in this parties argue that this is not quick enough reconfigured governance of a core local and, in particular, that Fortum has not socio-technical system, the question of who stated whether and how it intends the plant is ultimately accountable (and for what gradually to become fossil-fuel-free in the exactly) remains far from clear (see longer term. In 2010, Va¨rtaverket topped the Wihlborg and Palm, 2008). Naturskyddsfo¨reningens (Swedish Society A further source of controversy concerns for Nature Conservation) list of the worst a single-district heating plant in the city. On environmental polluters in the Swedish dis- 29 May 2010, a group of protesters tried to trict heating industry (Aberg, 2010). gain access to the Va¨rtaverket (va¨rta means This issue has mobilised political opinion black or dark in Swedish) district heating across the board. A 2010 report from the plant run by Fortum Va¨rme in the north- Left party suggested that the plant produced east of Stockholm. Although nine people roughly the same quantity of CO2 equivalent were arrested (Bolling and Svahn, 2010), emissions as all the cars in Stockholm and this highly organised and well publicised that it was responsible for fully a quarter of demonstration by the action group ‘Shut It the city’s total CO2 equivalent emissions Down’ brought the ecological credentials of (Holmba¨ck and Warlenius, 2010). It also the city’s heating system (and, some would quoted a Fortum representative as saying argue, of the city itself) into question in the that to decommission and replace the exist- year in which Stockholm was the ‘Green ing plant would cost in the region of 4 billion Capital of Europe’. kronor, which the report authors calculate The issue is that this particular heating as being either the equivalent of the operat- plant is still half-fired by coal and, given that ing profit that Fortum made in just the first the City is joint owner of Fortum Va¨rme, quarter of 2009 or the estimated cost of this is seen as being contrary to the objec- building 3 km of the controversial proposed tives of decarbonisation promoted in the Stockholm by-pass road (see section 4.3) City’s climate policy. Although the company (Holmba¨ck and Warlenius, 2010). has outlined plans to partially convert the There is even evidence of tension and plant to biofuels with an aim of at least a 50 disagreement about this issue within the

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Table 1. Changes to the text of Stockholm’s action plan for climate and energy Text in report Correction in annex ‘errata’

An entire transition to renewable fuels is not An entire transition to renewable fuels is not considered being economically viable by considered technically feasible by Fortum Fortum The single largest source of greenhouse gas (deleted) emissions in Stockholm is CHP Plant 6 in Va¨rtan Cost efficiency [of using renewable fuels instead Cost efficiency [of using renewable fuels instead of coal] High of coal] Low

Source: City of Stockholm, (2010d).

City. Fortum’s aim for at least a 50 per cent corrections attempt to nuance the potential admix of biofuels at Va¨rtan by 2015 is cal- of this ‘‘conceivable measure’’, notably by culated by the City as leading to CO2 emis- stating that there would be municipal ‘‘need sions reductions of 235,000 tons/year or 0.3 for reinvestment in the range of billions tons/inhabitant/year (City of Stockholm, SEK to replace the lost CHP production 2010d). In their current Action Plan for capacity’’ (p. 37) which would change the Energy and Climate (p. 36), written by the possible cost efficiency of such a measure Environment Department, the City also from ‘‘high’’ to ‘‘low’’. This issue highlights raises (as a ‘‘conceivable measure’’) the pos- quite significant tension and even disagree- sibility of Fortum replacing this coal-fired ments between the City’s environment divi- CHP plant with an alternative, cleaner sion and the Fortum heating company not plant—a move that would decrease emis- just concerning policy direction and respon- sions by another 265,000 tons/year or 0.3 sibility for policy coherence, but crucially tons/inhabitant/year. It is clear that the over different forms of knowledge and their City’s Environment Department considers flexible interpretation. this measure to be highly beneficial for In short, there is a very real material pol- Stockholm climate policy. itics to district heating provision in However, several phrases in the main text Stockholm through which things like the of the 2010 Action Plan have been revea- configuration of the technical system, heat- lingly corrected by errata at the end of the ing bill increases, choices of energy mix and document (Table 1). While the possibility levels of pollution from plants become of replacing the Va¨rtan plant with a cleaner sources of everyday struggle over both alternative is considered as ‘‘unprofitable’’ energy production and consumption, and or ‘‘not economically viable’’ in the main the extent to which long-term energy– body of the report, this has been corrected climate goals can be subject to compromise to ‘‘not technically feasible’’ (p. 36), as the and trade-off in the here and now. Left Party report cast doubt on the economic argument. Furthermore, the phrase 4.3 The Congestion Charge and the identifying Va¨rtan CHP Plant 6 as ‘‘the Motorway: By-passing Climate Goals? single largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in Stockholm’’ has been corrected (i.e. The other main area of contention concerns deleted) in the Action Plan (p. 37). Other recent shifts in mobility and transport policy

Downloaded from usj.sagepub.com at Ecole des Ponts ParisTech on September 9, 2013 14 JONATHAN RUTHERFORD and their effects on urban energy and cli- necessary to build it’’ (Moderate Party rep- mate objectives. resentative, interview, April 2010) and the The Stockholm congestion charge is a Greens who argue that the project is a tra- tax that has been imposed on the majority vesty which has withdrawn a much-needed of vehicles in Stockholm ‘‘to deal with con- source of investment in local public trans- gestion and traffic disturbances’’ (City of port (O¨ jemar, 2010). Indeed, in interviews Stockholm, 2010d, p. 11). It was first intro- conducted in 2010 about political differ- duced as a trial between January and July ences between parties on energy and climate 2006. A referendum was held in September work in Stockholm, the new by-pass road 2006 in which a majority of residents of was unanimously cited as the biggest area of Stockholm municipality voted to imple- conflict between the different groups. ment it permanently. The charge was there- The by-pass project was included in the fore introduced permanently during the comprehensive city plan voted by the City first half of 2007. Since 2007, the City calcu- Council in spite of much opposition includ- lates that traffic to and from the city centre ing from the Green Party and the Left party has declined by an average of almost 20 per who wanted the ‘‘insane project’’ (City of cent per year, while greenhouse gas emis- Stockholm, 2010c, p. 23) removed from the sions ‘‘have decreased by just over one per plan (City of Stockholm, 2010c, p. 13, p. 22). cent as a result of congestion tax’’ (City of Some have argued that the by-pass project is Stockholm, 2010d, p. 11). Another report ‘‘the clearest example’’ of the City not want- by SLB Analys measured emissions reducing or being able to meet its own environ- tions as 4 per cent between 2006 and 2008 mental objectives (City of Stockholm, (SLB-Analys, 2009, p. 4). 2010c, p. 73). Here again, therefore, we have Compromise and conflict have emerged, an arena of contention created and working though, in the use of the money obtained through a politicisation of various material- from the congestion charge. The incomes ities. Most obviously, there is a contested received were originally supposed to be used shift in the objects of policy orientation to finance public transport improvements in from public transport routes, suburban the Stockholm region. The Moderate/ trains and collective city-region mobility to Alliance majority decided, however, to use road infrastructure, cars and individual- the money to partly finance a new six-lane level automobilities.11 However, this shift is by-pass road (Fo¨rbifart Stockholm) aimed enabled by a complex infrastructure of cam- at displacing traffic from the city centre to eras, databases and financial transfers which the western outskirts and facilitating links proceeds to translate payment for access to between the north and the south of the the city centre into tarmac for the motorway region. This road will cost approximately 27 by-pass instead of into the maintenance and billion Swedish kronor to construct and will extension of the public transport system. be financed to the tune of 80 per cent by There will also in the longer run clearly be congestion charge income (Swedish Society concrete outcomes of this policy shift in for Nature Conservation, 2010). This deci- terms of the changing mobility possibilities sion has been subject to virulent debate at of different social groups, the upkeep and the local level between the City government, maintenance of trains and tracks, and the opposition parties and environmental environmental effects on the declining curve groups, and in particular between the of the CO2 emissions graph of financing car Moderates who argue that ‘‘it is absolutely use over public transport.

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5. Energy–Climate Issues and the the profit-maximising strategy of the heat- Politics of Urban Materiality ing company and the decreasing resources for energy policy work which local actors These policy controversies and contesta- talk most about, discuss and contest. The tions can be seen as the arenas within and tensions around budgets and resources, dis- through which energy–climate issues have trict heating and the congestion charge sug- come to matter in Stockholm. They come to gest indeed that any notion of success or matter in at least three ways which rework good practice is blunted by a series of trade- our understandings of the intersections offs (emissions reductions for heating price between politics, urban materiality and rises and profits, financing environmental energy transitions. policy by privatising energy provision, regu- First, focusing on the arenas of debate— lating car use in the city centre but facilitat- i.e. the issues which matter to people on the ing automobility in the outskirts, etc.). ground and through which energy–climate Following the evolving, diverging positions, goals are being implemented, translated and interests and knowledges of actors (includ- contested—demonstrates the multiple or ing the opposing partisan views between the alternative analytical ways in which we can right-wing majority and the green and left- follow, trace or count energy and carbon wing opposition), and the relations and flows in the urban environment. While the (financial and other) flows between them is municipality of Stockholm is evidently keen a way of highlighting both the always-con- on highlighting its success in local climate tested nature and repercussions of energy policy by measuring and charting the city’s and carbon flows in cities and the potential decreasing greenhouse gas emissions year by ways in which change might come about year, the contradictions, compromises and (see Stahre, 2004). conflicts which lie behind the downward Second, this helps to raise the crucial trend line on the municipality’s graphs issue of which or whose city is being priori- serve to nuance this ‘success’ and constitute tised in the formulation, implementation alternative ‘measures’ of flows. The areas of and contestation of energy–climate policy. contention we have focused on can thus be The types (and implications) of city, urban seen as performances deviating from the environment and energy/carbon flows official urban policy script (see Hubbard, underpinning urban life are likely to be 2006). Instead of framing energy transition quite opposing according to whether one is and climate change as a locally relevant interested in promoting a ‘world-class’ issue (see Betsill and Bulkeley, 2007), the Stockholm, a ‘fossil-fuel-free city’, or ‘a tensions and conflicts around energy and good place to live’. Following the details climate issues in Stockholm may partly and the modalities of operationalising these derive from the lack of connection between objectives and the changes of direction local issues (what matters to people) and which allow politicians to shift resources the proposed policy responses, or indeed away from one objective towards other per- from deviations in the latter. Many people haps contradictory ones, foregrounds these are sceptical about the fossil-fuel-free dis- questions of who is speaking for what kind course (its achievability and its usefulness), of city, how (based on, for example, what but concretely it is the transfer of public interpretation of which knowledge), why funds from the congestion charge away and with what forms of accountability. At from public transport to road construction, the same time, it has been highlighted that the continuing use of a ‘dirty’ heating plant, we need to be aware of the conflicting and

Downloaded from usj.sagepub.com at Ecole des Ponts ParisTech on September 9, 2013 16 JONATHAN RUTHERFORD shifting positions of the actors involved— level, it shows how climate mitigation dis- for example, the multipositionality of the course (‘fossil-fuel-free’) becomes con- City of Stockholm in the district heating fronted with the materialities of energy system—who can rarely be grouped (policy), whether it be technical infrastruc- together or made readily identifiable as a ture such as networks, plants and roads or homogeneous coalition driving urban everyday objects like heating bills, board energy–climate policy in one coherent meetings and the placards of protesters. direction. The lack of a clear division of The politics of urban transition is here a set responsibility in some areas (and indeed a of struggles over the evolving, everyday clear vision of ‘who is governing what?’) materialities and infrastructures that matter problematises the issue of the extent to to Stockholm citizens. which the municipality can be held accoun- On another level, however, it suggests table for its decisions and policy orienta- the need to go beyond materiality solely as tions (when ‘the municipality’ is always (static, fixed) infrastructure/object to a dis- multiple). cussion of the dynamics of materiality This kind of ‘messy’ urban energy gov- through which transition is elaborated, ernance also implies that it remains wholly operated and contested. There is indeed a debatable the extent to which there is an performance (or a set of performances) of ongoing shift to some kind of new dominant urban materiality: work, activity, operation ‘green’ urban paradigm wherein shared and people generally fulfilling tasks to both green values drive environmental issues to sustain and evolve energy and climate mat- structure or cut across whole urban political ters, whether it is the work of everyday agendas. It is striking the relatively limited policy implementation or the activity asso- resources attributed to environmental issues ciated with the organisation of protest and even in the ‘green capital of Europe’ when formulation of policy alternatives. Tensions education, care and transport still constitute inherent to energy–climate issues in the main policy priorities (see also Granberg Stockholm do seem to be effectively per- and Elander, 2007). Furthermore, there is a formed through a shifting ‘ordering, circu- persistent context of compromise and trade- lation and manipulation of things’ (Latham off, also highlighted in previous work on the et al., 2009). The City’s emissions graph, politics of city-building in Stockholm and the chimney of Va¨rtaverket and the map of cities elsewhere (see for example, Le Gale`s, the by-pass organise certain (linear) flows 2002), which results from both the presence and relations, but at the same time each of of strong diverging interests (majority, these means different things to different opposition, social groups) and the limits to groups and can be mobilised to support the strength and diffusion of green values, diverging interests. Indeed, it is through and thus to the environmentalisation of processes and practices of disordering and urban policy (when a suburban motorway deflection of linearity that these objects can, for example, be deemed more ‘neces- come to matter: debate over the trajectory sary’ than ensuring coherence of actions and and implications of the emissions graph, decisions with regard to the ‘fossil-fuel-free’ protest at the heating plant because of what policy). comes out of the chimney, the use of alter- Third, the Stockholm case illustrates the native sources of heating to combat price centrality of urban materiality to debates rises, contestation over road building and and negotiations over low-carbon and/or its financing. This suggests that the politics energy efficient urban futures. On a first of urban energy and climate issues emerges

Downloaded from usj.sagepub.com at Ecole des Ponts ParisTech on September 9, 2013 ENERGY/CLIMATE POLICY IN STOCKHOLM 17 not just over infrastructure and concrete policies. We have gone beyond a simple objects per se, but more specifically in the reaffirmation of both an ‘implementation processes of overflowing of these infrastruc- gap’ between generic, ambitious policy dis- tures and objects, and therefore the ways in course and actual policy action, and an which urban materiality is inherently emerging ecological modernisation agenda manipulated through the practices and per- in which energy–climate policy is seen as formances of varying groups and interests. creating new opportunities for urban devel- This brings us in turn back to the first opment and growth which will inevitably point, because this suggests that mapping and automatically contribute to the creation urban materiality and the politics of this of ‘a world-class city’ in the near future. The materiality may be an alternative way of paper has argued that a core focus on the ‘counting’ carbon or ‘measuring’ energy nitty-gritty politics and everyday struggles flows in cities. Taking into account the mul- around urban energy and climate issues is a tiple flows (of waste emissions, heat, people, highly useful means of grasping how long- money, best practice ideas, etc.) related to term orientations are (materially) translated urban energy–climate issues and the different here and now (in diverse ways by diverse orderings and disorderings through which urban actors) onto the local political stage. they circulate helps to disrupt the linear We have argued that urban energy– pathways which normative transition dis- climate issues inherently articulate transi- course proclaims and enacts. Unpacking the tion, politics and materiality in shifting con- diverse and undulating processes through figurations. Transition must be seen as a which energy and climate issues come to heterogeneous process replete with (poten- matter in the urban arena is thus a useful tial for) controversy and contention because means of tracing how transition is being per- change inherently operates through a set of formed, contested and repoliticised. urban materialities, not just represented by instruments, objects and infrastructures per se, but more performed by the multiple 6. Conclusion arrangements, mobilisations and control of these things by particular interests and There has been significant debate over the groups. proposed visions for Stockholm’s future While this opens up the potential for a ‘green’ development. This debate is captured repoliticisation of urban energy and climate by the unresolved question of whether the issues, it also at the same time poses the city is concretely aiming to be both/either practical question of how municipalities fossil-fuel-free by 2050 and/or world-class can conceive and implement durable in 2030, and by the (quite different) means energy and climate policies in a constantly and resources which are being or could be shifting urban policy context. While energy, attributed to working concretely and mate- environmental issues and carbon manage- rially towards these objectives. In unpacking ment are sometimes portrayed as central not just these discursive visions and ideals, now to the whole of urban policy, this must but also the more contingent political pro- be nuanced by the still relatively limited cesses and tensions through which energy– resources actually attributed to green issues climate policy is being actually formulated, in many municipalities. This means that implemented and contested in Stockholm, more often than not they need to be in this paper has contributed to deepening the symphony with other policies, needs and level of analysis of urban energy–climate interests (as with the current ‘green growth’

Downloaded from usj.sagepub.com at Ecole des Ponts ParisTech on September 9, 2013 18 JONATHAN RUTHERFORD agenda). When they conflict too much with Ecology, Energy and Sustainable Development more important priorities, they may be by- (MEEDDM) and the French Agency for the passed, reconfigured or even abandoned (as Environment and Energy Efficiency (ADEME) as in the case of the financing of climate- part of their joint ‘Rethinking cities in a post- neutral public transport from the congestion carbon society’ programme. charge in Stockholm). These moments of the ‘unfixing’ of environment–energy–cli- Notes mate priorities are important because they 1. The empirical research on which the reveal the logic of reversibility which seems Stockholm analysis draws was conducted to dominate current policy in this field. This between 2008 and 2011 and took the form brings us back to changing notions of mate- of in-depth analysis of policy documents, riality and transition because the Stockholm reports and other secondary material, sup- case suggests that policy oriented towards plemented by a series of semi-structured embedding path dependencies in the form interviews with more than 30 local officials of major physical infrastructure projects from the municipality, regional and state may be increasingly contested as it materia- bodies, energy companies and environmental associations. lises a fixed, singular pathway of transition. 2. The reasons given for Stockholm being des- More reflexive and adaptable policy is ignated European Green Capital 2010 increasingly demanded, which might take included: the presence within the munici- into account more open notions of material- pality of an integrated administrative ity and transition as explored in this paper. system that guarantees that environmental The question that remains unclear though is aspects are considered in budgets, opera- how to mobilise more diverse ideas of urban tional planning, reporting and monitoring; materiality and urban change to construct its success in reducing carbon dioxide emis- stable, longer-term actions for energy and sions since 1990; and its adoption of an climate issues which would prove to be dur- ambitious objective of being fossil-fuel-free able and resilient in the face of threats of by 2050 (City of Stockholm, 2010b). diversion of policy attention and resources 3. ‘Reduced climate impact’ and ‘a good built environment’ constitute two of the 16 envi- to other short-term needs. ronmental quality objectives adopted by the Swedish Parliament (Swedish Environmental Acknowledgements Protection Agency, 2011). The ‘integrated I acknowledge the helpful and constructive com- climate and energy policy’ outlined in two ments from two referees, and from participants government bills in March 2009 has set out at the ‘Urban Transitions in Comparison’ inter- a ‘national roadmap’ for 2050 with an over- national symposium in Durham (March, 2012) all aim for Sweden to be ‘an emissions-neu- organised by Harriet Bulkeley and Simon Guy tral country by 2050’ (Swedish Government, and at the ‘Managing the Green Cities’ seminar 2008a, 2008b, 2011a). This translates into a in Shanghai (December, 2011) organised by number of interim targets for 2020 which as Dominique Lorrain at which earlier versions of a whole go beyond EU objectives: 40 per this paper were presented. Camille Gillet pro- cent reduction in climate emissions (on vided research assistance in Stockholm during 1990 levels); 50 per cent of energy use to 2010. come from renewable energy sources; 20 per cent more efficient energy use; and 10 per Funding cent use of renewable energy in the transport sector. Action plans focused on renewable This research was funded by the Foresight section energy, energy efficiency and a fossil-fuel- (Mission Prospective) of the French Ministry of free transport sector have been, or are in the

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process of being, initiated to work towards ‘‘a world-class environmental city’’ (City of these targets (Swedish Government, 2010, Stockholm, 2011b, p. 19). 2011b; Profu, 2012). The current govern- 8. These funds representing around a billion ment (like a high proportion of the popula- kronor (almost 100 million euros) for envi- tion) is also in favour of continued use of ronmental projects in Stockholm between nuclear power in electricity production, thus 2004 and 2009 came into being after the reversing the 1980 decision to phase out sale of the municipal energy company to Sweden’s existing reactors. The government Fortum in 2002 (City of Stockholm sees win–win opportunities for the economy Environment Department official, inter- and the environment from working towards view, May 2009). We should note that this its energy and climate objectives sale generated 14.5 billion kronor (see Rutherford, 2008), so actually only around Investment in renewable energy and more 7 per cent of this money was directed to the efficient energy use are strengthening environment. Interviewees alleged that the Sweden’s competitiveness and putting remainder was used for various building Swedish research and Swedish enterprises and infrastructure projects, but also as a at the forefront of the global climate tran- means of avoiding increasing municipal taxes. sition. We are laying the foundations for 9. These figures are extracted from budget new innovations, new enterprises and reports on the City of Stockholm website. new jobs in green industries of the future 10. In 2007, the new Moderate majority also (Swedish Government, 2009). took the decision to transfer 165 million kronor from the Environmental Billion funds 4. The 2009 energy bill mentions ‘voluntary whichwasplannedtobeusedforbiogas agreements’ between central government projects to the City’s Traffic and Waste and local authorities on energy efficiency Management Committee for road mainte- objectives, as well as the need for municipa- nance (City of Stockholm, 2011a, p. 2). lities to identify ‘appropriate sites’ for wind power in their planning documents (Swedish Government, 2008b, p. 149). The References 2009 climate bill mentions the proposal made by the Climate Advisory Council that Aberg, A. (2010) Ha¨ra¨r fja¨rrva¨rmens sto¨rsta municipal comprehensive plans should utsla¨ppsbovar, Dagens Nyheter. Akerman, M. and Peltola, T. (2006) Constitut- have to show how they contribute to emis- ing the space for decision making: conflicting sions reductions objectives (Swedish calculations in a dispute over fuel choice at a Government, 2008a, p. 131). local heating plant, Geoforum, 37, pp. 5. These goals are also quite coherent with 779–789. those of regional planning which promotes Alber, G. and Kern, K. (2009) Governing climate reductions in energy consumption (through change in cities: modes of urban climate govern- energy efficiency measures) and a transition ance in multi-level systems (mimeograph). to renewable energy sources Amin, A. and Thrift, N. (2002) Cities: Reimagin- (Regionplanekontoret, 2010). ing the Urban. Cambridge: Polity Press. 6. This is a comprehensive plan—i.e. a steer- Anshelm, J. (2002) Det gro¨na folkhemmet: stri- ing document and not legally binding for den om den ekologiska moderniseringen av local detailed plans which officially regulate Sverige [The green ‘people’s home’: the fight new building, renovations and extensions over the ecological modernisation of (City of Stockholm, 2010e, p. 3). Sweden], in: J. Hedre´n (Ed.) Naturen som 7. Indeed, the City of Stockholm took out a brytpunkt: om miljo¨fra˚gans mystifieringar, full page advertisement in Dagens Nyheter konflikter och motsa¨gelser [Nature as turning newspaper in December 2009 to ‘advertise’ point: on the environmental issue’s

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