Climate Neutrality and Democratic Ownership after COVID

On 21 October, the Copenhagen-based Democracy in Europe Organisation (DEO), along with the Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung Brussels Office, hosted a forum on the challenges of a socially just transition to clean energy, with former Copenhagen City councillor Ulrik Kohl. Kohl, a researcher on community energy in the Nordic countries and Southeast Europe with Malmö University and Roskilde University, spoke about the role of the left and communities in organising grassroots, working class alternatives to the capitalist Green Deal.

The idea of a ‘Green Deal’, or ‘Green New Deal’, has increasingly been seen as a panacea for the unfolding climate crisis. Since the outbreak of the Covid-19, it has also been presented as a solution to the global health and economic crises unfolding in the wake of the pandemic. In Europe, the call for an ‘EU Green Deal’ emerged in 2019, centring around a target of European Union carbon neutrality by 2050. This year EU leaders made this a binding target, setting a further preliminary greenhouse gas emissions reduction target of at least 55% by 2030 (compared to 1990 levels).

Such a rapid transition to green energy and climate neutrality is an urgent necessity, but while welcome, the promised reductions have also been criticised as inadequate. Worse yet, they are unlikely to be met. The reliance on market mechanisms and emissions trading has proved worse than useless, cuts foreshadowed in 2015’s Paris Agreement have simply not eventuated, and without a major change in approach, the latest pledges by world governments at the COP26 summit in Glasgow are likely to go the same way.

Read the full article at Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung - Brussels Office.

Denmark: Local election set-back for Social Democrats; wins for the left and centre-right

Denmark’s local elections have delivered a stark warning to the governing Social Democrats, and handed big wins to both the far-left and the centre-right, amidst an historically low voter turn-out.

Denmark’s municipal and regional elections, held on November 16, brought mixed results across the political spectrum. The biggest wins came for the centre-right Conservatives and the far left’s Enhedslisten (the “Red-Green Alliance”), but the stand-out story is the disastrous result for the governing Social Democrats. Poor results across the country and in the capital are a warning to Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen that the political ground has shifted beneath her government as she faces revelations of political impropriety, a new wave of Covid-19, and simmering discontent over issues both local and crossing the local-national divide, such as the mishandling of healthcare and childcare.

Already navigating an unfolding scandal over the forced closure of Denmark’s mink industry after a Covid-19 outbreak last year, the pandemic’s resurgence has brought into sharp relief government mismanagement of the recent nurse’s strike. Underpaid and under-resourced, nurses rejected a pay offer that fell short of their demands, only to have it foisted on them when the government legislated an end to negotiations. There are fears that future waves of the virus could drive an exodus of nurses and break the back of a public health system run by underfunded regional government. Similar issues of pay and recruitment plague the childcare sector, which is administered at a municipal level.

While the Social Democrats remained the largest party in local elections, as they have been for over 100 years, there were heavy losses across the country, with retreats in 70 of the 98 council areas. The damage was most obvious in the party’s urban heartlands, and in the four largest cities (Copenhagen, Aarhus, Odense and Aalborg) support dropped by over 10 percent. The result was worsened by a record low turnout nation-wide - the third lowest in a century at just 67.2 percent - that reached its nadir in many urban working class areas. The worst participation rate came in the area around Tingbjerg, Copenhagen, where only one in three of those eligible cast their vote.

It was in Copenhagen, too, where the Social Democrats suffered their greatest and most symbolic defeat. After 112 years, they are no longer the most voted-for party on Copenhagen Council, slumping to just 17.3 percent support. They were overtaken by the radical left party Enhedslisten, topping the polls for the first time with a record 24.6 percent - nearly a quarter of the electorate. As well as taking the party vote, Enhedslisten’s lead candidate, Line Barfod, took the most direct candidate votes.

The Copenhagen result has several causes, but a key theme was development, with the city caught in the grip of a housing crisis, fuelled by housing speculation and development firms such as Blackstone. The market having failed to fix the crisis, the Social Democrat-run council and previous liberal government cooked up a controversial scheme to create an artificial island, “Lynetteholmen” in Copenhagen harbour to house 35,000 new residents, funded through loans to be paid off through the sale of public land.

The project’s potential traffic congestion alone is astounding: it would require transporting 80 million tonnes of soil through the city - some 350 truck journeys per day. The climate and environmental impact would be disastrous, and - rather than making housing more affordable - the initiative will create a new market for private real estate speculation. Lynetteholmen faces considerable opposition from local communities, climate and environment NGOs, and affordable housing advocates, but approval was rammed through the national parliament by the Social Democrats and the right, and given to development company By & Havn (“City & Port”) to implement.

A similar issue emerged in Copenhagen’s south, where the planned destruction and development of one of the city’s very few extensive nature areas - Amager Fælled, which hosts deer, endangered salamander, lark nests and other wildlife - was met with fierce resistance and a popular protest movement. Ostensibly, the project - also tendered to By & Havn - was to meet the city’s growing housing needs, but again the reality does not match the rhetoric. In both cases, the intersection of housing, climate and the environment played to the strengths of the left, and Enhedslisten in particular.

Finally, some more specific issues have hurt the Social Democrats, with former Lord Mayor - and vice president of the party - Frank Jensen being forced to resign last year after multiple sexual harassment allegations, and an attempt to fob off the issue by offering to be “part of the solution” to the problems he had caused. As a small wave of MeToo scandals hit the country’s political elite, Jensen was forced to resign his posts, and his replacement at council level has failed to impress.

The result in Copenhagen was an outstanding success for Enhedslisten, tapping popular support for action on the climate emergency and housing affordability, and from young voters. Despite its historic result and largest-party status - which would traditionally afford it the position of Lord Mayor - Enhedslisten was locked out when the Social Democrats formed a block with the right-wing parties to install their candidate Sophie Hæstorp Andersen instead. Reflecting the party’s new size, Enhedslisten nonetheless took both the Environment and Technical, and Social Affairs, deputy mayor portfolios on council.

Enhedslisten also saw success on Denmark’s “summer isle”, Bornholm, taking 23.1 percent on the back of a 17 percent swing among the islands 40,000 residents. The ruling Social Democrats and liberal party Venstre had pushed through a disastrous municipal budget that slashed social security while splurging millions on a new town hall. Enhedslisten - led by deputy mayor Morten Riis - were cut out of the decision-making, and quickly became the face of opposition. As in Copenhagen, however, the numbers weren’t there for a left mayor, and Enhedslisten lent its support to the Conservatives for the role, breaking the Venstre-Social Democrats duopoly and winning a re-negotiation of the budget.

This election saw Enhedslisten’s greatest results at the municipal level in its 32 year history. It elected 114 councillors on 68 councils - a slight drop on 2017 - but reached a new high in overall support, 7.3 percent nationwide. The results in Copenhagen and Bornholm were a high water mark, making a serious statement about the party’s role in Danish politics and strengthening its negotiation position in the national parliament. Unlike the Socialist People’s Party, however, which held onto its single mayor on the island of Langeland, Enhedslisten failed to win the position of mayor in any council, with parties of both right and “left” uniting against it.

A Blue Denmark?

A struggle of a different kind unfolded on the right wing of Danish politics, with liberal party Venstre suffering modest setbacks and the Conservative Peoples Party earning the largest swing and most impressive gains of any party. Meanwhile, the extreme right saw a splintering, as the Danish People Party lost more than half its votes, and its new, more pro-market, competitor on the right fringe, Nye Borgerlige (“New Right”) failing to fully capitalise. The results continue an emerging trend of the Conservative party leading the charge on Denmark’s political right.

Venstre had anticipated worse losses than it experienced, and its poor results paled in comparison to those of its main opponent, the Social Democrats. Some losses were self-inflicted, however, such as in Tønder, where internal discontent led a large part of the local branch to run its own list of candidates, costing Venstre the mayoral post in the area. As a result, the Schleswig Party - representing the German-speaking minority in southern Denmark - took the helm of the council for the first time since 1946.

The biggest winner was the Conservative Peoples Party, which saw a swing of 6.4 percent (over 10 percent in 15 councils) and improved support in nearly every council area. The party took over the position of mayor in several councils, including Bornholm and in Kolding, where the Socialist People’s Party’s former chairman and foreign minister, Villy Søvndal - infamous for his role in the sale of the state energy company DONG - gifted the Conservatives the mayor’s seat in order to keep Venstre out.

Despite this, the Conservatives suffered a humiliation in their stronghold of Frederiksberg - a wealthy enclave within Copenhagen with its own council. Up until now, it had been the Conservative’s crown jewel - under their control for 112 years - but a clever campaign, and a strong left vote (including a surge in support for Enhedslisten, which secured second spot with 17.5 percent, ahead of the Social Democrats) gave the area a social democratic mayor for the first time.

Further to the right, a different drama was being played out. The far right populist Danish Peoples Party lost more than half its votes and 133 seats, losing support in every single municipality. The party, which once polled over 20 percent, dropped from 8.7 percent in 2017 to only 4.1 percent, prompting national leader Kristian Thulesen Dahl to announce his resignation and call a special party congress. With internal squabbling and no obvious replacement, and leading figures in the party facing legal and criminal investigations, the party appears to be in a state of deepening crisis.

Even so, perhaps only half of the support lost by the Danish People's Party went to its more extreme rival Nye Borgerlige, in the first serious local challenge between the two. Nye Borgerlige increased its representation by 63 seats, but many disaffected Danish People’s Party voters seem to have stayed home, or lent their support to the Conservatives or Venstre. Some may also have supported the Social Democrats, who have adopted many of the xenophobic immigration and social policies of the far right.

Ultimately, however, the main story remains the bloody lip Danish voters have delivered to the government. Before summer, it looked unassailable, coolly managing the pandemic crisis through sensible lockdown measures and Keynesian supports to workers and business that made life difficult for rivals on both sides. Adopting a far-right position on migration and refugees, it removed the issue as a political threat - breaching the 1951 Refugee Convention, to which Denmark was the first signatory, in a cynical move to maintain electoral support.

This overall strategy gave the Social Democrats a powerful position at the very centre of Danish politics, capable of forming majorities to both the right and left. However, it also fed a tendency towards arrogance and overreach reflected in the mishandled mink scandal, the nurses strike, and development projects in Copenhagen. These latest results show that in politics, such moments are fleeting, and change is coming from both a restored conservative right, and from a re-energised radical left, that has a project for change.