2023-09-29 11:20:00
The centre-right government of ‘climate leader’ Sweden is the first to cut back on climate policy. Is Sweden’s green reputation at stake?
‘A petrol-soaked budget’ is a common characterization of the new budget proposal that the Swedish cabinet presented last week. The centre-right government, chaired by Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson of the liberal-conservative Moderate Union Party and supported by the radical right Sweden Democrats, is sharply focused on the climate for a second year in a row.
The government is responsible for social services, defence, internal security and justice. But in general terms, the budget is tight: the ‘economic winter’ that Sweden is experiencing requires, according to the government, to cutbacks. This also applies to climate adaptation.
Climate deniers
Commentators blame the Moderate Union Party’s shifting priorities on the influence of the Sweden Democrats. Some of their party members deny the climate crisis or its severity. “If you sell your soul to a populist and nationalist party with many climate deniers, this is the result,” said Center Party climate and energy spokesman Rickard Nordin in The Guardian.
The minority coalition has announced that it will reduce funding for climate and environmental measures by 259 million kroner (regarding 22 million euros). Last September, the same government already cut almost 4 billion kroner (350 million euros) on climate goals. Until last year, the budget for this portfolio increased significantly year following year.
At the same time, the government is introducing tax cuts for petrol and diesel and lowering climate requirements for fuel. The excise duty discounts are presented as ‘compensation for high inflation and reduced purchasing power’.
‘Climate targets are not a priority’
The government itself acknowledges that it will not achieve its transport targets for 2030 – a reduction of emissions by 70 percent compared to 2010. The EU climate commitments for the same period are also out of reach with the new budget proposal, the coalition said.
“A tax cut contributes to higher fuel consumption and postponed electrification,” reads the government’s climate report on tax cuts. According to our own estimates, as a result of the policy pursued, emissions will increase by up to approximately 10 million tons of CO by 2030.2equivalent increase.
In the first interview following her appointment as finance minister, Elisabeth Svantesson already stated that climate objectives ‘are not a priority’. That statement, it now appears, was more than just rhetoric. Apart from the, according to many experts, unaffordable and unrealistic plan for ten new nuclear reactors, the center-right government shows little ambition for a large-scale transition. The changed target from ‘100 percent renewable electricity’ to ‘100 percent fossil-free’ is also significant.
Motion of distrust
According to Lars J. Nilsson, professor of environmental studies at Lund University and member of the European Climate Advisory Council, Sweden’s reputation as a green leader is changing. “At this moment, the momentum and progressiveness from Brussels and from the European Union no longer come from us.”
Unprecedented, according to the Center Party. The opposition party gives the cabinet an ultimatum: if they cannot present a climate action plan before the Christmas recess, a vote of no confidence will follow once morest the minister of climate and energy Romina Pourmokhtari.
“What is happening is that the Swedish government is deliberately increasing emissions,” says Nordin of the Center Party The Guardian. “No Swedish government in modern times has decided to do something like this. There are few countries in the world doing something similar and it is extremely serious.”
Sweden was known worldwide as a country with a growing economy and falling emissions, Center Party economic policy spokesman Martin Ådahl told the newspaper Today’s News. “Now we have a shrinking economy and rising emissions.”
Criticism does not only come from the opposition and environmental organizations. The ‘paradigm shift’, as the government itself calls the path it has taken, is also causing outrage within its own ranks. Douglas Thor, chairman of the youth branch of the Moderate Union Party, states that ‘the government does not appear to have a plan to achieve climate goals’ and suggests a higher CO2-tax.
Party member of the Moderate Union and former mayor of Stockholm Anna König Jerlmyr also thinks the budget is seriously inadequate. “We should work on reducing emissions in Sweden, not increasing them,” she wrote in a LinkedIn post. “Completely contrary to the goals of the Paris Agreement.”
The dilution of Sweden’s climate ambitions is not an isolated incident. In the United Kingdom, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced a similar weakening of the UK’s net zero plans last Wednesday. Sunak said he “does not want to risk losing the consent of the British people” and postponed the deadline for the sale of new petrol and diesel cars by five years, as well as the phasing out of gas boilers. A day later, a Dutch parliamentary majority canceled the intended increase in excise duties on fuel.
Also read:
Sweden becomes one barren tree plantation
Can the European Nature Restoration Act still save the real, old forest?
1696159019
#eversogreen #Sweden #cutting #climate #budget
