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Politics, Materiality and Transition Jonathan Rutherford Urban Stud Published Online 30 August 2013 DOI: 10.1177/0042098013500088 Urban Studies http://usj.sagepub.com/ 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 The online version of this article can be found at: http://usj.sagepub.com/content/early/2013/08/30/0042098013500088 Published by: http://www.sagepublications.com On behalf of: Urban Studies Journal Foundation Additional services and information for Urban Studies can be found at: Email Alerts: http://usj.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts Subscriptions: http://usj.sagepub.com/subscriptions Reprints: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav Permissions: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav >> OnlineFirst Version of Record - Aug 30, 2013 What is This? 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 (trans- lated 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 pro- cesses and practices of transformation of the urban fabric constitute repoliticised set- tings through and in which the orientations of urban energy transition are materially understood, experienced and performed in diverging ways. In ‘mapping’ the undulat- ing politics of energy–climate matters, the paper outlines an alternative way of follow- ing 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
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