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Sweden has long prided itself on its high ambitions and compliance when it comes to cutting emissions. The climate mission is more fervently embraced by left-wing parties, but even the current centre-right conservative government has repeatedly reassured that it is committed to the global programme of transitioning its energy sector, and its industrial sector. However, the conflict between these political goals and the public opinion has hollowed out the ambitions a little.
Make no mistake – technological advances that lead to fewer emissions and pollutants, as well as smarter resource consumption are inherently positive developments. That is, generously expressed, the core of the green transition to some extent. That is at least how many people in the public, as well as in politics, choose to interpret it.
The current Swedish government, composed of the Moderates, the Christian Democrats, and the Liberals, with the confidence and supply of the Sweden Democrats, probably largely understands this. The weakest link of the four parties is the Liberals. This centrist party, with a popularly unappealing elitism and overly academic sensibility, agreed to enter a governing constellation supported by the nationalist Sweden Democrats with the declaration that they are the guarantee for the longevity of liberal core values – which in the 2020s seem to include climate anxiety.
The Liberals have arguably been unsuccessful in their mission, however, despite holding the climate portfolio in the government. One of the key pledges of the Sweden Democrats and the Christian Democrats was to slash the punitive reduktionsplikt, a legal imperative for fossil fuel producers to mix gasoline and diesel with considerably more expensive renewable alternatives, such as bio fuel. The controversial policy, which originates from an ‘over-implemented’ EU directive, was all but abolished early on in the government’s tenure. Resultantly, Sweden currently has some of the lowest fuel prices in Europe, down from having had the highest in 2022. Where were the Liberals? Silently complying.
The Liberals have also absorbed the criticism towards the government’s ‘failure’ (alternatively disinterest) to live up to a variety of nationally defined as well as EU-imposed climate goals. Always with a surprising resilience and without counter-signalling their governing partners.
In February, the Liberals made another surprising concession on what their voters and the general public perceived to be uncompromisable. Romina Pourmokhtari, the Liberal climate minister, announced that she wants Sweden to scrap the transport emission reduction goal. As it currently stands in the nationally adopted climate goals, emissions from vehicles must be cut by 70 percent from their 2010 levels, until 2030. The achieved reduction is stated to be at 19 percent, prompting the minister to admit that this political directive is far out of reach and unrealistic if Sweden is to have any standard of living at all. Having tempered the fuel cost crisis only to walk into another energy crisis with soaring electricity prices, the Liberals understand that the public’s patience has worn very thin with climate policies. The public pressure to allow Swedes to continue driving their cars has landed the Liberals in the same policy position as the Sweden Democrats, the ‘regressive’ and populist party that they swore to keep at bay.
The emission cut is therefore to be replaced with an electrification goal, the minister proposes. This however poses another problem that does not relieve Swedish consumers and industry from ham-fisted ideology.
As alluded to earlier, the green transition, which is the larger framework to which all of this pragmatism is bound, is about technological development to reduce waste. Both literal waste and uneconomic use of resources. With rigid political goals, the organic incentives for the industries to respond to market demand is however eliminated. The public will want products that are resource-efficient, cheap, and in the climate context, easy on their conscience. But all they will get with ideologically charged goalposts from the government is rising energy and fuel costs and inefficient tax-funded mega projects with the purpose of projecting the government’s global climate goal compliance (Northvolt and Stegra, which I have written to great lengths about previously). If the adherents of liberalism would live up to the spirit of their name and trust in simple market mechanisms, the green transition will come when society can afford to produce it.
The Liberals, and certainly many level-headed and pragmatic people across the political spectrum, have finally abandoned the idea to penalise ordinary people for being dependent on fossil fuels. But they are far from realising that overly ambitious climate goals dictated by idealists in armchairs in Brussels or Stockholm do more harm than good. So far it is only ‘populists’ such as the Sweden Democrats that understand this.