When normal production declines in an economic crisis, venture capital focuses on the production of services. The elderly and school children replace cars and mobile phones.
In his speech at the Moderate Party conference in October, Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt meditated on the buying frenzy:

"There are widespread reflections in our Swedish society on the consumer society. Is consumerism all that makes life meaningful? The person with the most stuff when he dies is the winner - is that what it's all about? And here’s another thought: if everybody consumed as much as we do, would the world as a whole cope?"

Responsibility for the climate exists, even if no-one talks about it anymore. Maybe people have read between the lines: production and consumption of goods must be reduced. Perhaps that is why capitalism is investing in production of services, and maybe that is why the Prime Minister became existential in his speech to party members.

Head held high before the Copenhagen meeting

It was different two years ago before the climate summit in Copenhagen. Sweden held the Presidency of the EU and Fredrik Reinfeldt invested enormous prestige in the climate project. He held press conferences wearing green sweaters and all his speeches were about the climate issue. But things happened as they did and since then it has been very quiet on the climate front in Swedish politics.

The years following the Copenhagen summit have been more marked by Swedish climate-destroying projects such as the state-owned Vattenfall which operates coal-fired power stations in both Germany and the Netherlands.  The company's emissions of carbon dioxide are increasing, despite all the green targets.

The railway company SJ has had enormous problems in recent years: maintenance has been neglected, the trains don't run on time, travellers and freight shipping agents have largely given up. More and more people drive if they want to be sure of reaching their destination.

Fredrik Reinfeldt also has a problem with his party members in Stockholm who are refusing to extend the underground even though this would accommodate thousands of passengers. The Stockholm Moderates want to invest in a gigantic motorway project instead. They also want to expand the ramp road to Gamla Stan (the Old Town) into an eight-lane highway despite pressure from the opposition for Gamla Stan to be car-free.

The fact is that Sweden is falling behind on the Climate Action Network's annual ranking of the most progressive countries in climate issues.

Major challenges await the Alliance's green vote

Nevertheless, the Swedish government is ambitious. The new Minister for the Environment, Lena Ek, has launched a climate plan which she has dubbed Roadmap 2050, by which date Sweden will have no net greenhouse gas emissions. In this way Lena Ek hopes to be able to contribute to the EU's common goal of reducing emissions by 80-95 per cent by 2050.

Lena Ek is a member of the Centre Party and one of those who call themselves "the green voice of the Alliance". When the new leader of the Centre Party, Annie Lööf, took over she quickly replaced the previous Minister for the Environment, Andreas Carlgren, with the MEP Lena Ek. It was probably a step in weeding out the old Centre Party MPs but in Lena Ek the government has an Environmental Minister who is known for her strong will. It remains to be seen if she will manage to drive her Roadmap 2050 through negotiations with the Minister of Finance, Anders Borg. Her predecessor did not have much success in these discussions.

A recent opinion poll shows that the Green Party is the most trusted party on climate matters. But the Moderates come in second place ahead of the old green Centre Party. Lena Ek has a lot of battles to fight, both at home, in the EU and in Durban.

At the time of writing it is still unclear what mandate Lena Ek will take with her to the climate negotiations. Sweden supports the EU's rather modest ambition to reduce its emissions by 20 per cent by 2020. But, Lena Ek has also said that she will increase that target to 30 per cent "when the time is right".

The EU also wants to see a new agreement when the old Kyoto agreement expires next year. However, a new agreement will not even be on the negotiating table in Durban. Instead the climate issue will disintegrate in a number of sub-issues on which no one really knows the position of Sweden or the EU.

In Durban the conflict will continue to be very much between the industrialised world and the emerging economies. It is still a question of which countries should reduce their emissions the most and which ones should pay. The question is how tightly the European economies in crisis will hold onto their wallets this year. It is likely that the emerging economies will have a weaker bargaining position since the USA and the EU countries have been hit so hard in the financial crisis.

As well as reductions in emissions and financing, the meeting in Durban will focus on forests. The more forests there are the better it is for the climate. However, here Lena Ek will get criticism from the Swedish environmental movement which thinks that Sweden is fiddling its own accounts.  In addition, she will be criticised for the fact that Sweden is not complying with the UN agreement that climate aid must be "new and additional". It is not acceptable to rename ordinary aid as climate aid. But the environmental movement is claiming that the Swedish government has already begun to use its regular aid for climate purposes.

Things continue as usual, the Ministers for the Environment talk about their high ambitions while the Finance Ministers fix the numbers. For Sweden it remains to be seen how the relative strengths of Lena Ek and Anders Borg will play out.

New ideas from old ministers

Even though the Swedish media has not written many words about the climate summit there are nevertheless ongoing discussions on environmental blogs and think tanks. One of the most interesting suggestions comes from the think tank Global Challenge. Former Finance Minister Allan Larsson, former Secretary of State in the Ministry for the Environment Måns Lönnroth, and former Environment Ambassador Bo Kjellén have together put forward a proposal on how it might be possible to resolve the conflict between rich and poor countries.

They call for the UN's climate panel to sponsor the regions that are climate-smart. They propose that in future the UN should avoid conflicts and focus on those issues where there is consensus, attempt to find interim solutions in the negotiations and support regional initiatives for climate change investment. In their summary they stress good examples related to education, support for business, support and information to politicians, examples from developing countries and so on.

The examples are simple, easy to copy and there may be more. And with deadlock in Durban, the idea is tempting. The ice in the Arctic is melting, Asia is drowning in flood-water. Somewhere the trench warfare must turn into direct action to save the climate.

The views expressed are those of the author.