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- Convenors:
-
Sebastian Lundsteen
(University of Stavanger)
Niklas Olsen (University of Copenhagen)
Peder Roberts (University of Stavanger)
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- Formats:
- Panel
- Streams:
- North & Nordicity
- Location:
- Room 17
- Sessions:
- Wednesday 21 August, -
Time zone: Europe/Helsinki
Short Abstract:
Ultra short blurb: This panel explores the intersection between the economy, technology, and environmental politics in the Nordic Region from 1970 to 2020.
Long Abstract:
From the integration of a “Green Northern Exceptionalism” into welfare state politics in the 1970s to the consolidation of its position as an environmental pioneer, conceptualizations and responses to ecological crises have predominantly hinged on market-oriented ideologies and technology-based solutions. The panel wishes to investigate the historical circumstances that shaped environmental politics in the Northern Region by addressing how “Nature” was transformed into numbers through a series of transformations in intellectual, technological, and economic spheres. One outcome of the transitionary processes was rendering ecological crises quantifiable, thus governable and manageable. Additionally, the environment is saturated with market logic, crystalized in concepts such as Green Growth or Climate Debt, which, as several experts have emphasized, not only avoids engaging with the very root of the problem but is a continuation of the source just by other means. As such, the panel encourages critical endeavors into contemporary debates by elucidating its historical roots.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Wednesday 21 August, 2024, -Paper short abstract:
Environmental activists deeply criticized growth when environmental problems became a welfare issue. Growth’s embedded temporality is acceleration. Has this temporal logic been neglected in today's activism where temporalities seem to be urgency, an apocalyptic future and living in climate change?
Paper long abstract:
The ecological turn around 1970 played out differently in the Nordic countries and thus differently informed welfare state politics. In Denmark activists in the environmental movement NOAH have been accentuated as unavoidable societal actors (Larsson Heidenblad 2021).
From the beginning NOAH formulated a growth critique arguing that Danes’ wealth, consumption, and pollution were a “result of systematic plundering of poor countries” (Nogle oplysninger…, 1970). Elsewhere, they criticized solving industrial environmental problems by rinsing polluted water and air, as this would increase production, growth and as such pollution. Here they explicitly pointed out “uncontrolled economic growth” and “capitalist societies” as the root of the problem with environmental destruction (Ondets rod, 1972).
I approach growth dually: Firstly, I unpack NOAH’s critique of growth to highlight the depth of it. As insinuated, it consists of different forms, for instance critiques of capitalism, industrialism, and South-North relations (Schmelzer 2023). Secondly, I focus on growth’s embedded temporality – acceleration – and other temporalities in NOAH’s criticism as a sensitivity to time and multiple temporalities might improve our understanding of activism (Gillan & Edwards 2020; Paulin-Booth & Kerry 2021).
This paper will illuminate that saturating the environment within a market logic in welfare state politics in the early 1970s was met with a deep growth critique by visible environmental actors in Danish society. Possibly stronger than in environmental activism today where dominant temporalities rather seem to be urgency, an apocalyptic future and living in times of climate change. Might this have neglected growth’s temporal logic?
Paper short abstract:
This paper argues that the North Sea plays a crucial role in the emergence of a "Green State" through two themes: Extraction and Insertion. The paper focuses on two pivotal events: the 1980 negotiations of the gas-concessions agreement and “Project Greensand” – a large-scale Carbon Storage Project.
Paper long abstract:
This paper departs from a seemingly irrelevant question: what kind of space is the North Sea to Denmark? More specifically, how has the North Sea shaped – and continues to shape - Danish environmental politics? The argument is developed through two analytical figures, ‘Extraction’ and ‘Insertion,’ as emblematic of Danish environmental politics.
After WWII, the North Sea emerged through increasing concern about environmental pollution, thus facilitating Danish opportunities for political influence while positioning itself as a “Green State.” Parallel, the discovery of oil and gas fields added another layer to the plurality of the North Sea: as a submerged realm ready for extraction catalyzed by what appeared as an infinite energy resource. The first part of the presentation will focus on a discursive and political shift, where the North Sea transformed from problem to opportunity by exploring the 1980 (re)negotiations of gas concession agreements between the Danish State (DONG) and Dansk Undergrunds Consortium (DUC)/AP Møller.
The second part explores “Project Greensand,” a large-scale initiative consisting of more than 23 Danish and international actors aimed to develop Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technologies. The project seeks to store more than 8 million tons of carbon yearly in 2030 by interjecting the carbon into the subsoil of the North Sea in former depleted oil fields.
The two cases illustrate how the North Sea remains a critical space for envisioning environmental politics, where solutionism saturated by green growth and quick fixes is preferred over societal and economic transformation.
Paper short abstract:
This paper investigates the architectural implications of the Swedish campaign “Green Welfare State.” By tracing the historical context and connections of the environmental discourses, policies, and spatial practices in Sweden in the 90s, my aim is to unveil the production of “neoliberal natures.”
Paper long abstract:
This paper investigates the material, spatial, and infrastructural implications of the Swedish national campaign “Green Welfare State.” Led by Prime Minister Göran Persson in 1996, it crystallized on the first environmental code of 1999 that included fifteen national environmental quality objectives. Tracing the historical context, this research follows three conditions: the decentralization of responsibility—moving from public institutions to include private companies, industries, as well as individual citizens; the institutionalization of environmental practices and the indivisible association of environmental concerns with economic development—both brought by the dissemination of the notion of “sustainable development” in the 1987 Brundtland report and the 1992 Earth Summit. These three aspects transformed the Swedish environmental discourses, policies, and practices in the early 90s. My aim is to connect the inception of the Green Welfare State with the redesign of part of the Swedish landscape through the systematization of alternative sewage systems. Particularly, I follow the construction of four pioneering wastewater treatment wetlands in South Sweden (1993-1999), that were planned to support conventional municipal plants. Even though circular design and environmental accountability were put at the forefront of these political and spatial practices, nature was rendered as a space of research interest, governance competition, and technological investment. I offer here a critical spatial reading of this neoliberalization of nature or of the production of what has been termed as “neoliberal natures” (Haynen et al., 2007). At the core of this investigation lies the aspiration to test alternative routes to address the contemporary endless exploitation of the environment.
Paper short abstract:
Paper looks at the historical development of industrial policy ideas. Many of the industrial policy ideas currently presented in the context of the Green Welfare State (GWS) have a century-old history in Finland. This historically built epistemic landscape conditions the progress of the GWS.
Paper long abstract:
In our paper we look at the historical development of industrial policy ideas in Finland. Industrial policy has played a central role in the formation of Nordic welfare states and it is obvious that industrial policy is also of great importance in the transition towards the Green Welfare State. Through a historical examination of the policy ideas, we chart the epistemic landscape that constitutes the departure point for the current reformulation of industrial policy. We show that many of the industrial policy ideas currently presented in the context of sustainability transformation have a century-old history in Finland. Some of these ideas have been ignored in recent decades and industrial policy thinking has moved in new directions. In other words, the epistemic landscape has changed. We argue that the epistemic landscape and policy ideas are an inescapable basis for defining the future industial policy of the Green Welfare State. Although policy ideas never materialise as such into implemented policies, they play a key role in defining new policy orientations and directions in particular. In other words, ideas are most influential when, for example, the agenda for new industrial policy is being set. From the perspective of the Green Welfare State, key thematic issues in relation to industrial policy are the extent of state intervention, its theoretical and moral justification, the meaningful tools of industrial policy, and the relationship of industrial policy to broader environmental policy. All of these themes have been addressed in previous discussions on industrial policy in Finland.
Paper short abstract:
The concept of green growth has long been omnipresent in policy discourse about ecological challenges. This talk explores the promises and pitfalls of the concept of green growth in a historical perspective, focusing especially on its Danish trajectories.
Paper long abstract:
The concept of green growth has long been omnipresent in policy discourse about ecological challenges. Governments, international institutions and private businesses has all committed themselves to a ‘green growth strategy’ of research, publications, and concrete initiatives. While green growth seems to connote be a form of economic growth, which also achieves significant environmental protection, the concept is used is several, partly contradictory ways, and its deeper implications are difficult to grasp. Moreover, the concept has often been criticized for serving to maintaining the status quo rather than effect societal transformations.
Where does the concept of green growth come from, who coined it, and why? What meanings and capabilities have been attributed to the concept, and what roles has it played in efforts to address urgent ecological challenges?
This talk explores the promises and pitfalls of the concept of green growth within international and national policy discourse, focusing especially on its Danish trajectories.
Paper short abstract:
As Nordic welfare policies from the 70s onwards became more green, urban politics reacted to this. Copenhagen’s strategy was carrying components of ‘green fix’, and focusing on the Køge Bugt Beach Park project, the paper will unravel the shift in urban welfare landscaping of early 1980s and 2020s
Paper long abstract:
During the 1970s, an specifically through State reform, Nordic cities became a more integral part of the welfare state formation, and as national green policies grew, municipal strategies related to this, both by adapting and problematizing
Originating in postwar planning, larger cities such as Copenhagen was throughout the 50s and 60s promoting a close relationship with the green inland, and by the 90s, the green city was part of the capital’s strategy for turning decades of crisis around. When environmental policies became more pressing in the 00’s, this effort expanded for the city to have a dedicated major for environment (and engineering). The process, arguably, show elements of ‘green fixing’ (Malm 2017), but also policy frictions between typically left-wing mayors and shifting government policies tangering the capital.
This paper will assess the state-municipal negotiations of green (and blue) welfare, with a special case in focus: the Køge Bay Beach Park. Constructed in the late 70s as the largest recreational landscape of its kind, the long coast area was then fitted with authentic natural elements and a ‘natural’ floodwall. The 2021 government policy ’up close – greener cities’ rearticulate this area as a new, more climate-adapted political ecology, wherea 5 municipalities gathered with the capital to reform this as a new green solution.
Following this welfare landscape in its two articulations, the paper will look at the context of the early 80s and 2020s and assess the relation between green policy and urban welfare narratives.