A proposal that only environment friendly cars will be allowed from 2015 in Sweden?
The Swedish radio announces today that the Centre Party in Sweden next week will discuss a new Environment programme at their yearly national assembly. In the programme it is suggested that from 2015 it should only be allowed to sell environmentally friendly cars in Sweden. In the first seven months this year the amount of environmentally cars sold in Sweden were about 16 %, much more than previous year, but still a long way from 100 %.
If it would be allowed, only to sell environmentally friendly cars, the CO2 emissions would decrease by 36 %in Sweden. There is a definition, by the Swedish Road Administration, what criteria an environmentally friendly car should present. Mainly, cars driven by ethanol or biogas, or that they are very fuel efficient either they are gasoline- or diesel fuelled.
But, first it will be discussed at the assembly of the party, then maybe discussed in the government coalition and then transformed into legislation. We’ll see what’s happen.

More about volunatry commitments
In the Swedish newspaper “Dagens Nyheter” it could be read the other day that eco-labelled electricity is not a success among the Swedish households. According to an investigation done by the university in Luleå, 48 % of the consumers don’t think that their choice will make any difference. The newspaper phoned some of the larger energy companies and found out that the interest for eco-labelled electricity is very low among the households. For Eon, only a few hundred out of 800 000 customers, buys eco-labelled electricity. According the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation the eco-labelled electricity in Sweden is 5 % of the market, but most of that are purchased bye companies. The energy companies haven’t been very successful in convincing the household of the benefits buying eco-labelled electricity.

There are two exceptions, the company, Fortum, gives all households signing a fixed price, eco-labelled electricity automatically. That is the reason why Fortum is the only big company selling some eco-labelled electricity to the households. Like the municipal company in Falkenberg, which are only selling eco-labelled electricity. These two companies have so to say made the voluntary part more imperative.

Are voluntary environment charges the right way to go?
I read in the Swedish newspaper SvD, the other day about how many air travellers that made compensation for their CO2 emission at their charter flight. The travel agency “Fritidsresor” has a goal that 5 % of all travellers shall make compensation for their charter flight. Fritidsresor cooperate with two environment organisations “Atmosfair and Climate Care, where the customers can compensate for CO2 emissions. But, only two out of 50 000 travellers made compensation! In spite of this fact, there are no plans to withdrawn the cooperation with Atmosfair and Climate Care. According to the spokesman for Fritidsresor, Lottie Knutsson, 10 % of Fritidsresors customers are interested in the possibility to compensate for their journeys. You may wonder when the interest of this form of letter of indulgence will be transformed in action.

Swedish mountains
I have been on a mountain tour in the Swedish mountains this week. We were lucky with the weather. It only rained for one night and the days were beautiful. This year we looked mostly at plants but of course there were also some birds to watch. We saw lots of Arctic skuas and one short-eared owl which indicate a good year for rodents in the mountains. There was such a nice floral splendour which almost took the breath out of you. We also enjoyed the experience of an open fire and some trout to grill in the sunset. When you enjoy such a nice glimpse of Nature you wonder what will happen when the climate changes will take part in the landscape. The mountain birch will climb into higher altitudes and we will loose a bit of the soul of the mountain world and the vast expanse of the mountain. There will be a change in both the flora and fauna and you will meat another kind of mountain world.