GREEN GROWTH: FROM RELIGION TO REALITY - Sustainia

Chapter 46 Henceforth referred to as Foghto avoid confusing him with thefollowing and current Prime Minister,Lars Løkke Rasmussen (07-?).7 In Denmark, an election usuallylasts three weeks. Accordingto the constitution, the PrimeMinister must call an election nolater than four years following thelast one and tradition dictates thathe or she does so with 3-4 weeks’notice. This, of course, does notprevent parties and politicians toposition themselves continuously,but formally, an election lasts threeweeks.energy and environmental politics, but few considered itthe most important problem facing the nation. It is notinsignificant at all however, whether the group of peoplethat do consider it the most important problem amountsto 3 % of the electorate, as in 2001, or 10 % and above asin most of the 90s and again in 2009. That is the differencebetween a statistically insignificant group of votersand a very significant group of voters, and thus for policy-makers,the difference between a ‘good’ and a ‘bad’political sell.Second, the major issues, aside from the recent adventof the immigration issue, have generally been issues ofeconomic politics. The environment does however becomea more important issue in the 1987 election followingthe publication of the Brundtland Report (WCED1987), and after an intial dip in the 2000s again in the2007 election. The report was published in May 1987 andpropelled the issue of the environment and sustainabilityonto the political agenda of the september elections laterthat same year. The issue remains relatively importantuntil the 2001 election with around 10 % of the electoratesaying that it is the most important problem that politiciansneed to address. Subsequently, other priorities riseto the forefront of public attention, as discussed below."It would be more accurate to describe the new environmentalistdrivers as creating a second, complementarylayer of policy objectives layered on top of energysecurity objectives"The environmentalist policies deployed during thisperiod did not represent a break in the pursuit of longtermenergy independence; this objective remained asa fundamental driver. It would be more accurate to describethe new environmentalist drivers as creating a second,complementary layer of policy objectives layered ontop of energy security objectives. The ability of Auken toincrease the focus on environmental policies in overallenergy policy is a result of the increasing public awarenessof the adverse impacts of environmental pollutionand the developments during the first part of the story.The public awareness provides the political justification,and the bottom up support for renewable energy in thefirst part of the story had helped form broad public supportfor and acceptance of renewables as well as an industry,with which a strong coalition could be built tosupport further policies for renewable energy.3 Green growth part III: Liberalization(2001 – 2006)3.1 Liberalization: a political intermezzoFollowing the Auken years of 1993-2001 a new right-winggovernment led by Anders Fogh Rasmussen6 came intopower in 2001. This resulted in a reversal of energy policy:funding for environmental and renewable energy programswas cut in favour of deregulating energy marketsand privatizing state functions. Annually installed windcapacity rates dropped accordingly, cf. figure 4 & 5. Subsidiesand other support mechanisms for renewable energywere seen as directly in conflict with the objective of liberalization.The election also led to the establishment of theEnvironmental Assessment Institute (EAI) under BjørnLomborg, which challenged the very rationale for supportingrenewable energy – i.e. that climate change was‘worth’ fighting – by questioning the science of climatechange and suggesting that, for instance, supporting sustainabledevelopment in third world countries was a morecost-effective way of pursuing environmental priorities.This rather sudden shift, from a political environmentthat was quite supportive of green policy to one wheregreen policy initiatives were slashed, requires some explanation– particularly given that, as we discuss below insection 4, green policy was destined to reassert itself beginningin 2006. Why did this “intermezzo” occur? Andersen(2008) suggests that a ‘lomborg-effect’ explainsthe dip in the importance of the environment on the politicalagenda in the early 2000s. (Karnø & Buchorn 2008;Meyer 2004a; Meyer 2004b; Andersen 2008)But it is also very likely that environmental issueswere simply drowned out by other issues coming to thefore at the time. It is important to note, that energy andenvironmental politics played a very minor role in the2001 elections, in which the core themes were the futureof the welfare state and immigration. In an analysis ofsurveys conducted during the election7, Jørgen Goul Andersenshows that the two major issues for voters in the2001 elections were ‘welfare’ and ‘immigration’ (cf. figure7 above). Only 3 % of voters thought that the environmentwas the most important issue compared to 9 % inthe 1998 election.Two key events, neither directly related to energy orgreen growth, shaped the outcome of the 2001 election.First, the incumbent social democratic-led government’shighly unpopular ‘third labour market reform’ of 1998,which was viewed as a ‘broken promise’ to voters. Second,the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre inNew York on 9/11. The former caused severe dissatisfactionamong social democrat faithfuls and the latter helpedpropel the issue of immigration onto the agenda, which inturn helped boost the right wing nationalistic party, theDanish People’s Party, to its best result yet, thus cementingthe majority swing in parliament from left to right. (Andersen2002:8; Larsen & Andersen 2009:255; Bille 2002)This should not be interpreted as an exhaustive analysisof the Danish 2001 elections but rather a highlightingof core themes. The point is that energy and environmentalpolitics was not an important issue for voters and thatit was not a central issue in the election. Fogh’s campaignwas, among other things, based on a deregulation andprivatization agenda to improve efficiency of the welfarestate. Because of the unpopularity of the ‘broken promises’of the incumbent social democrats, his campaign wasalso based on the idea of ‘keeping promises’ as expressedby his coining of the concept of contract politics. ThisGreen Growth: From religion to reality 37