Charity Information
Swedish city uses climate fee to promote sustainable transport in local govt
30/07/2010 11:22:00
The Swedish Municipality of Örebro has introduced a local climate fee that is levied on the carbon emissions from travelling and transportation of the municipal department staff. This effort is to encourage municipal departments and staff to watch their way of travelling and cut their CO2 emissions. The internal fee is levied on air travel and the purchase of fossil fuels, as well as on business trips undertaken in privately-owned cars. It is expected that these fees will amount to over one million SEK (100 000 euro) during 2010. Once collected, the fees will be credited to a climate account, common to the entire municipality. If departments would like to develop their operations or implement a change that would result in an emissions reduction of carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases, they can apply for money from this common climate account. All departments are hereby supported in their own efforts involving the climate, while climate fees mean that they must now question their travelling and transportation more.
The climate fee is currently 0.22 SEK per kilogram of fossil carbon dioxide. This means, for example, that one litre of petrol "increases in price" by 0.59 SEK and one cubic metre of biogas by 0.09 SEK. For business trips undertaken by private cars (driven by either petrol or diesel), the climate fee charged to the department will be 0.05 SEK per kilometre. For journeys by air, a surcharge is levied on the cost of the flight: 20 per cent for domestic flights and 10 per cent for international flights.
For more information, contact: Tomas Bergkvist, Örebro Municipality. Tel. +46 19 21 62 30, e mail: tomas.bergkvist@orebro.se.
For coverage of this story from Energy Cities, visit their website: http://www.energy-cities.eu/Orebro-introduces-an-internal