Sweden, an Early Climate Leader, Is Retreating From Its Environmental Commitments, Part of an EU Trend – Inside Climate News

Five years after the European Union vowed to lead the creation of the “first climate neutral continent” by 2050, and pledged at least a trillion euros to that effort, a long list of organizations, companies and agencies are accusing the EU of rolling back its European Green Deal with deregulation. Controversial proposals also include carbon offsets, loopholes in its emissions targets and delays of important efforts to reduce deforestation and make cleaner cars. Some critics have gone so far as to argue that the 27-nation union, the world’s third-largest carbon emitter, is now starting to mirror, rather than counter, the dismantling of climate efforts in the U.S.

Part of the explanation for the EU’s retreat on climate can be found in Sweden. For decades the small northern country pushed Europe’s climate ambitions upward, but today, Sweden is falling back from its environmental progress. Last year, its fossil fuel emissions saw their biggest increase in 15 years. During that time period, carbon uptake by its vast forests have halved. And since the country swung to the right in its last general election, the government has slashed its investments in climate action. Researchers say Sweden’s policy shifts, and its evolving role as a frontrunner, is now contributing to the weakening of Europe’s climate agenda.

In recent months, numerous institutions have criticized Sweden’s environmental retreat. In March, The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) released a once-in-a-decade environmental performance review of the country that stated “recent policy shifts have created an uncertain environment for climate action.”

OECD projected Sweden would safely hit only one of its 16 national environmental targets by 2030, succeeding in protecting the ozone layer, but failing on objectives such as “sustainable forests” and “reduced climate impact.” Almost simultaneously, the Swedish Climate Policy Council declared that the nation’s climate policies were “insufficient” and rely on “optimistic assumptions.” In April, Sweden’s Environmental Protection Agency predicted the country will miss all of its national climate targets for the next 20 years, including its goal of reaching net zero emissions by 2045. And, in a 2024 global assessment by the German Climate Change Performance Index, Sweden’s “climate policy rating” dropped to 41st after being ranked 4th in 2021 (it fell from 1st to 11th for its overall response to climate change). The independent monitor quoted its experts saying that “Sweden is backtracking from being a frontrunner in international climate policy” and they demanded that “the government maintain progressive climate policies.”

“We can say with some confidence that Sweden no longer pushes the European Union to higher ambitions,” said Naghmeh Nasiritousi, a senior research fellow at the Swedish Institute for International Affairs and co-director of the Centre for Climate Science and Policy Research at Linköping University.

Roots of Progress and Retreat in a Swedish Forest

In an old woodland in Sweden’s southwest Dalsland province, a group of amateur conservationists examine decomposing tree trunks hoping to find rare lichens and wood-decaying fungus. Around them grow gnarly spruces, stately, 90-foot-tall pines and scattered birches and aspens. Dead logs spread like pickup sticks on a bed of knee-deep bilberry shrub.

If the group finds certain rare species, they might be able to save this forest. But the odds are slim. Timber prices have doubled since Russian imports stopped after the invasion of Ukraine, and many landowners are eager to sell wood quickly, usually after they clearcut a forest.

“It’s always very aggressive,” said Martin Sjöberg, a board member in the local branch of the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation who organized the event.

In a country where less than 2 percent of primary forests remain, protecting old-growth woodlands is an existential matter, both for biodiversity, where Sweden has failed to meet its international commitments, and for the sequestration of carbon to mitigate climate change.

Fifteen years ago, Sweden’s 87 billion trees, soils and wetlands absorbed almost 62 million tons of carbon each year—more than the country’s total fossil fuel emissions. But by last year, that number had halved to 31 million tons. The steep drop indicates that forests are disturbed by increased clearcutting as well as years of droughts, fires, beetle infections and insufficient soil nutrition, which hinders tree growth. It also means that Sweden risks being in violation of a range of EU agreements, including the union’s Nature Restoration Law, Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) and Land Use, Land-Use Change, and Forestry (LULUCF) Regulation. LULUCF is part of the EU’s Climate and Energy Framework, which demands a much higher uptake of carbon. If Sweden is found in violation of these agreements, the EU could impose steep fines on the country. In a related estimate for Ireland, its potential climate related EU fines were assessed at between 8 and 26 billion euros ($9.4 billion to $30.5 billion). But rather than redouble efforts to sequester carbon, Sweden has instead spent years aggressively negotiating to weaken EU’s forest-related biodiversity and climate regulations.

“If they wanted, Swedish politicians could also regulate tree felling and invest in closer-to-nature forestry methods, but there is little interest,” said Thomas Hahn, an ecological economist and Associate Professor at Stockholm Resilience Centre.

Hahn has been a board member at Sveaskog, a large forest owner in the nation, and he thinks some of the EU’s demands are unreasonable. Droughts and beetles, for example, are hard to control politically. However, he sees no excuses at the other end of the climate policy equation: Sweden’s rising emissions from burning fossil fuels.

“Sweden has lost all credibility there,” Hahn said, noting that recent reforms have eroded Sweden’s trustworthiness and ability to prod other nations to do more. “The government has quickly undone policy frameworks with an enraging level of negligence and devastating consequence.”

In April, Hahn co-signed an op-ed with over 1,000 researchers in Dagens Nyheter, a prominent newspaper in the country. The signatories listed a range of policy examples, including several regarding forests and climate, where politicians have ignored or politicized scientific knowledge. They stated that the behavior “undermines the foundation for a democratic and sustainable society.” In a country that prides itself as a global beacon for such values, those were harsh words.

An Early Leader on Climate

Sweden’s tale of climate engagement dates back to 1896, when Uppsala physicist Svante Arrhenius was first to quantify the role of carbon emissions in warming the planet. The Stockholm Conference held in the country in 1972—officially the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment—paved the way for international environmental collaboration. By 1991, Sweden was taxing carbon emissions, making it one of the first nations to do so. Environmentalists argued against the nation joining the EU in 1994 fearing that Europe’s soft regulations would reduce Swedish ambitions. Once it was a member, the country became part of a “green sextet” of nations that strengthened EU commitments.

In 2015, Sweden pledged $550 million to the Green Climate Fund created by the Paris Agreement that was adopted that year. Two years later, seven of the nation’s eight national political parties negotiated a Climate Policy Framework that included long-term goals, reporting mechanisms and a scientific Climate Policy Council in a national law.

But even then, some Swedes demanded much more. In 2018, a young Greta Thunberg started weekly demonstrations outside Sweden’s parliament. Her ensuing global campaign included the Fridays for Future events in which students around the world would skip school to advocate for climate action. The movement built political momentum for the European Green Deal, which was approved by the European Commission in 2020 and aimed to launch the EU out of the pandemic with investments in clean technologies and innovation.

For many observers, one of Sweden’s most important contributions to climate action was showing how economic growth can be decoupled from fossil fuels. Since 1979, its year of peak emissions, the nation’s release of carbon has fallen over 50 percent while GDP per person has more than doubled.

But since the country’s general elections in 2022, Sweden has taken distinct steps away from its environmental legacy. A conservative coalition, supported by the far-right Sweden Democrats, focused their campaign on cheap fuel and public safety. In office, they have prioritized building up the military, being tough on crime and sharply reducing immigration. Funding for climate action has plummeted.

The government halted investments in high-speed rail; cancelled subsidies for electric vehicles; stopped its support for undersea cables, leading private companies to stop offshore wind projects; increased taxes on solar electricity; and cut its investments in several green innovation funds, making the funding available to municipalities unpredictable for things like more efficient heating systems and charging infrastructure for electric cars. At the same time, subsidies for fossil fuels and aviation have increased and gasoline prices have fallen by almost half. Sweden’s carbon emissions rose by 7 percent last year, breaking a long trend, largely due to the government’s dropping of regulations requiring biofuel blending in gasoline.

Sweden’s government, however, maintains lofty rhetoric about fighting climate change, and highlights its spending on two areas: carbon credits that pay for emission reductions in other, usually less-developed countries, to allow Sweden to maintain higher emissions, and new nuclear power plants to generate emissions-free electricity. Critics argue that credits have neocolonial implications as the programs effectively export both the blame and the consequences of emissions from rich nations to poorer ones. Other critics note that nuclear power is an economic gamble that will take decades to implement, with uranium mines and waste that can spread deadly radiation and reactors that can pose strategic risks if the country were to go to war.

A Trend Across Europe

Research into the history of Sweden’s policy shift by Nasiritousi at the Swedish Institute for International Affairs and Linköping University shows that the nation’s decarbonization effort was originally unrelated to climate. The country lacks fossil fuel deposits, so relying on coal, fossil gas and oil made little sense, especially after the oil crisis of the 1970s. The nation instead chose to generate its electricity with its strong hydropower sector complemented with an ambitious nuclear power program. Those two sources still account for 70 percent of Sweden’s electricity production; another 28 percent is also “fossil-free,” most of it generated with wind and biofuels.

Today, however, reaching the goals of the Paris Agreement requires more profound efforts across more sectors, including some with elevated social costs such as transportation, forestry, agriculture and lifestyle-related consumption. The wide-ranging efforts that reaching the U.N.’s climate goals require of the public has provided an opportunity for populist politicians, who can tell a simpler story and don’t have to explain complex, interconnected systems, said Nasiritousi. For Sweden’s government, building even more nuclear power capacity has become that story, which she said distracts from the more expansive efforts needed to achieve climate targets.

Sweden is following a European trend, said Rudi Wurzel, professor of comparative European politics at the University of Hull in England. Wurzel developed the concept of an ambitious “green sextet” of nations driving the EU’s climate agenda, but while following ongoing negotiations and statements, he saw five of those countries—Sweden, the Netherlands, Germany, Finland and Austria—all appear to reduce their once-bold climate policies. All of these countries have also shifted to the political right. Only Denmark, a leader in offshore wind, largely seems to be maintaining its aspirations to cut emissions and fight climate change, he said.

The Climate Change Performance Index confirmed his analysis, with its scores for all five nations dramatically falling between 2021 and 2024, while Denmark moved upwards. And Denmark, which currently holds the influential and rotating Presidency of the Council of the European Union ahead of a range of important EU negotiations and decisions in the fall, might have room to sustain some European climate ambitions, even as priorities shift in other countries.

Precarious geopolitics might help to maintain some EU environmental goals, Wurzel added, because in Europe, unlike the U.S., renewables offer immediate security benefits by decreasing dependence on Russian energy imports.

“Security considerations may save EU’s climate efforts for now, and we never know where politics goes next,” said Wurzel.

Sweden’s chief climate negotiator, Ambassador Mattias Frumerie, said he is “aware of the debate inside Sweden” but noted that local issues rarely reach international negotiations. Generally, Sweden’s message that the urgent need to confront climate change presents a business opportunity is attracting growing interest, he said. As for the claims that Sweden is backtracking on its environmental ambition, he stressed the importance of being transparent about “bumps in the road” of climate action.

Sweden’s Minister for Climate and Environment, Romina Pourmokhtari, declined to make herself available for an interview for this story.

Back in the old-growth forest of Dalsland, the amateur conservationists haven’t found any rare lichens or wood-decaying fungus. The most exciting discovery was a rather common coral slime. It is neither plant, animal or fungus and resembles white frost on black soil.

But, while they didn’t find anything rare enough to keep the forest from being logged, just being out in the woods is a step toward stopping Sweden’s retreat on climate action, said Sjöberg, the organizer of the event.

“All it takes is more people caring about our future,” he said, “and that we get them out here doing something.”

A professional artist who has produced several exhibitions about threats to the forest, he said his abstract and emotional art is intended to invoke action.

“We must be able to somehow turn all this around,” he said.