ANALYSIS - THE POLITICS OF SYMBIOCITY:

Swedish summit on sustainable cities will find fertile ground in South Africa

subscriber | 12 September, 2009

The Swedish Government sponsored summit in Midrand this week on sustainable cities, where both the Swedish PM Fredrik Reinfeldt and Trade Minister Ewa Björling enrolled to drum up support for Swedish export opportunities, was well timed.

Among participating, and hopeful, Swedish companies were many of the largest multinationals, like Alfa Laval, Atlas Copco, Scania, Saab and Volvo, and others that already have subsidiaries or a foot in the door in South Africa such as ITT, Gunnebo and Kapsch TrafficCom.

On the executive level Sweden and South Africa have drifted apart over the past ten years. South Africa has moved up the ladder internationally and has become a buddy and playmate to much bigger and more influential friends like Brazil, India and China. They all want to have South Africa as a friend rather than a foe in their quest for Africa's raw material and markets. Sweden, on the other hand, have stayed on the sideline, ambivalent over what to do and were to go as Government links on leadership became more strained - not the least due to Mbeki's policy on aids and passive handling of Robert Mugabe.

With the Jacob Zuma administration in control in Pretoria, Sweden has a chance to tighten the relationship again. And the Swedish center-right Government seems to be keen to grasp that opportunity.

South Africa's President Jacob Zuma stated after a meeting with the Swedish Prime Minister, that he welcomed close co-operation with Sweden on the climate change front. The two countries, Zuma said, were tied together historically and needed to stand together during the United Nations Conference on Climate Change in Copenhagen in November.

"We will have to. The deal in Copenhagen will need to balance climate and development, past and future, mitigation and adaptation, action by developed and developing countries, and a shared vision on reducing emissions, with means of implementation", said President Zuma.

South Africa, as the BRIC countries, maintains that most of the global climate mess is caused by OECD’s advanced economies. They must clean up in their own backyard and allow development nations to have some leeway.

In between the lines it seems like Zuma had an unspoken message to Mr. Reinfeldt: you support us in Copenhagen and we are willing to do business on the ground around those climate change issues you are so keen to promote.

The pressure on South Africa is not just external. South Africa doesn't need foreigners to remind them that action is needed to curb carbon emission; the local pressure is mounting so the Government party is slowly waking up to them as aggrieved local constituencies are becoming impatient.

On Wednesday this week residents from Secunda, a small "dorph" 140 kilometers west of Pretoria, protested against massive pollution, outside the HQ of the home grown petro-chemical multinational Sasol, one of the main culprits in South Africa as far as pollution goes. Sasol spits out some 75 million tons of greenhouse gases annually or about 21% of South Africa's total greenhouse gas emissions per year.

Earlier in the week environmental NGO Earthlife Africa stated that Sasol is one of the worst emitters of greenhouse gases on the African continent.

Other South African companies with a battle on their hands and that could face touch penalties if they are not cutting back on their pollution are power utility Eskom, minerals giant Anglo American and BHP Billiton.

Both Swedish PM Fredrik Reinfeldt and Trade minister Ewa Björling gave upbeat messages to South African business- and Government decision makers at the conference venue in Midrand.

Reinfeldt said that the Swedish economy had grown by 50 % in 18 years but had managed to drop emissions by 10 %. Oil consumption had halfed since the Seventies.

Trade Minister Dr. Ewa Bjorling pointed out that these achievements was a result of a balancing act where one had to think green across the ministries, not just in the Ministry of Environment. Individual behavioural change was as important to achieve the overal gool to balance affordability and sustainability, she said.

THis may be what South Africa wants to hear. To grow fast and still cut emissions appeals to the country's leaders.

Certainly climate change and environmental concerns in South Africa has put pressure on companies and government alike. South Africa’s cities are facing massive traffic increases – 7 % annual increase in traffic – and there is very little done so far to stimulate energy saving- and carbon cutting transport even in public sector.

Large municipalities, like Johannesburg, Pretoria, Durban and Cape Town are faced with increased urbanization levels well over a million annually that adds to the pressure on the environment. The majority is people from rural areas in South Africa but a large chunk are also illegal immigrants from neighbouring countries. Most of them begin their new city life in slums 50 kilometers or more outside the city centers where the municipalities have an uphill task to supply basic energy, water, and sanitation and waste management.

Mr. Reinfeldt and his wife saw this poverty-stricken side of South Africa too, during a visit to the Khayelitsha township outside Cape Town, and were reportedly humbled. If Mr. Reinfeldt picked up President Zuma’s message along the way remains to be seen.

For sure, largely due to apartheid and with an understandable fixation with primarily dealing with income- and racial gaps South Africa is very much a latecomer on the environmental bandwagon.

The inheritance from the last white administration was a mixed blessing. 92 % of the country's energy generation and 10 % of the fuel - the oil-from-coal technology was an invention to circumvent sanctions - comes from coal and authorities have decided to turn a blind eye to the consequences.

New policies to combat climate change are in the pipeline, in a bid to address environmental concerns at home and climate concerns from EU - the Swedish PM was primarily in South Africa to handle EU-South Africa relations in his capacity as EU chairman – are underway. But there is no way South Africa will turn away from coal, its leading fossil asset.

To handle power cuts the South African Government has embarked on a fast-track programme to add new power plants – mostly coal fired plants. The consequence is more emissions instead of less.

To make the equation work South Africa needs to catch up and take drastic energy saving and carbon saving measures. In other words the country needs to purchase clean technologies.

South Africa is a net importer of just about all machinery and distribution technologies. And the same goes for energy and carbon reducing technologies and processes for the public and private sectors.

So exporters of such technologies, such as Sweden, therefore are well advised to position themselves and take advantage of opportunities.

Sweden has generally not been not very good at try and capitalize on its old liberation credentials with South Africa – partially because the Swedish way of doing business institutionally separate the public and private sectors. Swedish state institutions, both central and on municipal levels, have “benefitted” to a degree from Sida sponsored programmes. The most famous Swedish contribution to South Africa is undoubtedly Swedish tax consultant’s assistance to help and more than quadrupling the country’s tax base.

The Sustainable City concept is another success story that made its debut at the 2002 World Summit of Sustainable Development in Johannesburg. Infrastructure consultants Sweco on behalf of the Swedish Government developed it. In South Africa this integrated approach has been successfully implemented in Buffalo City, the larger East London area.

Since then Swedish development bureaucrats have been made a concerted push in the clean technology sector.

• Sweden and South Africa signed a bi-national agreement on the subject in 2007 to focus on skills development, technology transfer, infrastructure build up and increased trade.
• Last year Swedish Trade Council organized a seminar in Pretoria attended by 150 delegates from business, government and academic sectors.
• Grants and loans, through Swedish government agency Nutek and state owned private equity fund Swedfund have been searching and funding clean tech- and biofuel projects.

Niches to be explored include clean and energy efficient public transport systems; optimising pump systems for energy efficient and sustainable waste disposal; encouraging sustainable business investment strategies; and finding opportunities around the South African energy utility Eskom’s six-point plan on climate change.

For all these reasons Reinfeldt's visit was timely. The SA government want co-operation in this field. It also wants allies as South Africa doesn’t want to be wrapped over the knuckle at the Copenhagen climate change summit in November or face carbon curbs.

Naturally Sweden is by no means alone. Climate change is the name of the game for other Nordic countries too – and for just about every Northern Hemisphere exporter.