Discovering Europe
What a Green city!
Integrated waste and water management, noise and traffic reduction, the creation of leisure areas: for more than a decade the Stockholm authorities have been engaged in sometimes monumental works to give the city a new look. These efforts have now been rewarded by the European Commission which has decided to honour the Swedish capital with its first Green Capital Award, for 2010.
Popular market in Stockholm, 2009.
© Marie-Martine Buckens
“We have drawn up a strategy for Stockholm to become the world’s greenest and safest capital within the next 20 years”, Deputy Mayor Ulla Hamilton immediately informs us. One of the major ambitions of the city council is to free Stockholm from its dependence on fossil fuels and reduce per capita CO2 emissions to 3 tonnes by 2050. This is a formidable challenge given that these CO2 emissions currently stand at 4 tonnes per capita per year, a figure already 25 per cent down on 1990 and a record compared to the 12 tonnes emitted by the Finnish and the 22 tonnes emitted by the Americans. Yet the average for Africa is just 1 tonne.
It will require action on several fronts to achieve these goals. First the energy efficiency of buildings, where much remains to be done (see article below). Then there is heating. “Fortunately, Sweden has a lot of companies specialised in developing clean technologies”, continues Ulla Hamilton. These technologies have already made it possible to perfect a waste management system – waste sorting was first introduced in the 1960s – that has dispensed with the use of refuse collection vehicles by bringing the waste to the incinerators through a system of pipes. The incinerators – “our first one is over 100 years old!” announces the deputy mayor – play a key role in the city’s air-conditioning system: the hot water is used for heating and then, after it cools, to lower indoor temperatures in summer. Then there is the traffic. While bicycles and public transport are popular, most cars run on conventional fuel. The first objective is for the city’s own fleet of vehicles to run exclusively on clean fuels, initially biogas. Steps are also being taken to install sockets in apartments and at stations for the future wave of electric cars. Finally, and this has already been done in the Hammarby district, travel between Stockholm’s islands is to be by a (free) boat service, thereby avoiding the need to build new bridges.
But Stockholm is also a city of green spaces, the largest of which is Skansen. This open-air museum covers a vast area dotted with farmsteads, windmills and traditional shops, plus an impressive wooden church. The park is home to about 160 constructions that have been transported from all over the country to create this testimony to a bygone age. There is also a zoo with moose, wolves, lynx and brown bears.
