On Swedish Business

So after a couple of years of discussion and debate it has been concluded that Swedish public housing is to be run on business lines.

Although not market lines.

Private landlords will now also be invited to the club of vested interests to develop the criteria on which tenants value their place of abode. The planned economy is indeed alive, if not well.

When they have reached their conclusion the rents will go up a percent or two per annum, regardless of where you live.

So an apartment in Stockholm city centre will continue to cost roughly the same as an apartment in Söderhamn.

Söderhamn is noteworthy for having the highest proportion of empty apartments of any county in Sweden – it is more cost effective to leave them empty than to cut the rents.

So in Stockholm rents will be 50 percent lower than what a bought apartment would cost and in Söderhamn about 50 percent higher.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, the queue in Stockholm for rental accommodation now rests at plus 300,000 people. The system administered a little over 8,000 apartments last year (in the entire Stockholm region).

Black market rental contracts in inner city Stockholm are now running at a rate of 10,000 kronor per sq.m.

A charming anachronism in an otherwise pragmatic society?

Perhaps, if it didn’t concern something as basic as a roof over your head.

Report abuse »

If there is one film I plan to skip this year it is 2012. It is far too specific – why 2012? and which month? in fact if the world is set to meet its maker in the form of a massive wall of water then I want to know which day, and will I have time for breakfast?

Armageddon/Apocalypse/whatever is the theme of this year’s Stockholm International Film Festival, proving (hopefully) that culture is a mirror of our times (as opposed to the maker).

Speaking of the apocalypse that old horseman, Al Gore, has published a new book – “Our choice”, soon to be released in Swedish. He should be commended for reminding us that we have one.

He should also be commended for his current career choice. Without his charisma and resources the message that our climate is our business and needs resuscitating may have rested on the fringes of the political discourse and booked as a business cost.

It is now an opportunity. (One that he has somewhat notoriously taken great advantage of.)

I took the opportunity three years ago to acquire a ethanol-fuelled car.

In that time ethanol (e-85) has gone from an almost (Al) Gorish saviour status, weathered an oil lobby backlash of biblical proportions, to being cited in some quarters to be directly responsible for starvation in the developing world.

This heinous accusation is of course a gross perversion of the (less than shocking) truth. It has however raised several interesting points relevant to the climate business:

1. The global oil lobby is as strong as an ox ans has the persuasive power to recruit even your most respected friend.

2. There is no catch all, simple, quick fix solution to developed/developing world fuel needs. If you market e-85 or anything else for that matter as THE solution then expect a sceptical reaction from a tuned in, media savvy, cynical world.

3. The carbon chain of production is what counts, not the exhaust fumes.

Ethanol was put under a much tougher test than, for example, oil.

In discussions with learned colleagues e-85 was variously criticized for single-handedly escalating corn flour prices in the developing world (US maize ethanol), causing rain forest deforestation (Brazilian sugar cane) despite accounting for a fraction of arable land use, and even for the poor state of labour relations in some places where it is produced (Ghana, Brazil).

(This author accepts that while there is some truth in some of these points, the detail was lost in the vociferous rancour.)

The point is the pendulum lurched from one exaggerated position to another. Should conflict in the Middle East be weighed into the carbon cost of oil – then choosing e-85 is a no brainer.

Shifting our economies from carbon intensive to carbon neutral will not be achieved by one man, however charismatic. It will not be achieved by one super fuel – the next of which, biogas, is in Sweden already having to be watered down with fossil fuels in order to meet demand.

The Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt has in recent weeks realized that “action” in the form of a new Kyoto – fixed targets for an abstract goal, will not be dominating the upcoming Copenhagen Climate Conference.

With the US, China, India and South Africa all saying no commitments will be made – Copenhagen stands to be “a little more conversation, and a little less action”.

Reinfeldt has (wisely, but also conscious of his EU political legacy) recently been working to calm expectations and the apocalyptic tone in which Copenhagen was being discussed.

Al Gore’s version of the ’shocking truth’ grabbed attention. We sat up and listened. But it has at least in part contributed to the polarization of debates such as the one detailed above; as well as the current spate of apocalyptic cinematic imagination.

So while the politicians talk, Al Gore dreams, and filmmakers take artistic licence, will the motivating power of money fill the gaping climate change action vacuum?

Until we find the answer to that portentous question we can at least take forth our thick red marker pens, reject the prophets of doom, and open up some scheduling space in the not-to-be-missed 20th Stockholm International Film Festival.

Report abuse »