STOCKHOLM Concern about the environment is growing after a year which saw floods from Africa to Europe and the failure of global climate talks.

For Sweden, determined to put environmental issues at the center of its stewardship of the European Union, the heightened awareness -- driven home by torrential rain and disastrous floods in Sweden in late summer and early winter -- is both a challenge and an opportunity.

"It would be a feather in our cap if the EU managed to reach a sustainable climate strategy during our presidency," Swedish Environment Minister Kjell Larsson told Reuters.

The environment is one of the "three E's" -- together with enlargement and employment -- that Sweden has set as its priorities while it holds the rotating EU presidency for the first six months of this year.

Sweden is keen for the 15-member union to make progress on taking in the dozen candidate countries, mainly from Eastern Europe, but it also wants to make sure the new members observe the same environmental standards as the present EU.

Targeting the environment shows politicians have started to realize that change is needed, said Bert Bolin, professor of meteorology at Stockholm University and former chairman of the United Nations panel on climate change.

"The economic and political costs of natural disasters caused by pollution are getting bigger and bigger as the ecological system loses equilibrium," he said.

For instance heavy use of fossil fuels is creating greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2), which boost temperatures, melting ice at the poles and raising sea levels, threatening low-lying countries.

Scientists are not certain that there is a direct link between greenhouse gases and last year's floods in Africa, Asia, Australia and Europe.

But most say the emissions aggravate climate conditions, as wet regions became wetter and dry areas dry up, leading to problems with water supplies and food. Governments around the world have agreed in principle to cut these emissions.

"If we don't start working to curb global warming now we will see a lot of people having to move which will be very costly," Bolin said. "It will take 20-50 years to make a change once we've started to reduce greenhouse emissions."

Global climate talks deadlocked in December when the United States and Europe disagreed on how to carry out reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases agreed in Kyoto, Japan, in 1997.

The United States, which is backed by Canada, Australia and Japan, wants to allow developed countries to count carbon dioxide soaked up by forests in its targets for cutting emissions. It also wants maximum flexibility for countries to trade emissions credits. The EU wants them to meet most of their targets by cutting emissions at home.

If the talks are not restarted by the end of Sweden's presidency in June, one opportunity to discuss the issue will be an expected visit by George W. Bush to meet EU leaders that month, the first visit by a U.S. president to Sweden.

At home, Sweden wants to cut emissions by encouraging rail transport, and will construct a new line between Stockholm and the northern city of Umea.

Another way to cut emissions is to encourage the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy such as wind, solar, biomass and small hydropower and support new technology for more efficient energy use.

But Swedish officials say that measures such as these will not suffice to curb emissions.

"The only two real alternatives to curb the greenhouse gases are higher taxes and trade of emission quotas," said former environment minister Olof Johansson, who heads the government's Climate Committee.

Environment to Win Over Euro-Skeptics

The focus on environmental issues will also help a Swedish government facing strong voter skepticism about the EU.

An opinion poll last month showed 43 percent of Swedes oppose membership of the EU, which Sweden joined in 1995, while only 37 percent were in favor.

The environmentalist Greens, and ex-communist Left Party, which both support the minority Social Democratic government in Parliament, combine an anti-EU stance with tough environment policies.

And Sweden is determined not to let concern about environmental problems on the other side of the Baltic undermine public support for enlargement of the EU.

"Applicants should understand they can't wait with shaping up their environment and that it is central for the negotiations for membership," said Larsson.

Lithuania's Chernobyl-style two-reactor nuclear power plant in Ignalina will not be an obstacle to membership for the Baltic State as it has agreed to close one reactor by 2005 and will decide the fate of the other in 2004.

Sweden, which closed its first reactor in 1999 under plans to phase out nuclear power, has invested about one billion crowns ($106 million) since the beginning of the 1990s to clean up the Baltic Sea.

(Reuter)