In the world of sustainability, it’s easy to romanticize the Scandinavian countries. They seem to have everything going for them: bike baths, energy efficient homes, natural gas vehicles, etc. But even environmental leaders have their flaws.
On Wednesday, Greenpeace dropped 18 tons of coal outside Sweden’s government offices in order to protest against the Swedish state’s coal plant ownership abroad. Vattenfall, the state-owned energy company, has no coal plants in Sweden, but it does own 12 of them across Europe.
Greenpeace’s message wasn’t necessarily negative; Greenpeace activist Martina Krueger told AFP that the group wants Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt to be a “climate hero.”
“He should be going to the EU summit (on Thursday) and saying ‘I have instructed my energy company Vattenfall, the fifth largest in Europe, to switch to renewables.’ That is climate leadership,” Krueger said. So let’s not get too angry with the Swedes just yet… but let’s hope the country takes the necessary steps to continue helping the EU move forward towards progressive climate policy.
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[Photo: Arenamontanus, Flickr]
