General environmental and nature conservation

Martin Kinnunen (SD)

Madam Speaker! I would like to begin by expressing my approval of the committee's proposal in the report.

We have had an election. Now we have the first environmental debate of the parliamentary term. The people have spoken. Sweden has received the shift in power that was demanded. Through the Tidö Agreement, we have achieved a new direction for environmental and climate policy, and we will, as clearly stated in the Tidö Agreement, see an ambitious policy in the climate and environmental fields.

The locks that have existed in the energy area are over. The ambition to rectify a dismantling of Swedish energy supply that S, C and MP stood for is high. The goal of 100 percent renewable disappears, and finally we can look forward to new nuclear power being planned, designed and ultimately built.

Finally, we can return to the energy policy revolution that took place in Sweden 40-50 years ago when we phased out fossil fuels from our electricity production and heating in a short period of time. This was achieved through a major investment in fossil-free, dispatchable energy production. The mistake of phasing out nuclear power, we can now rectify. It will take some time, but that is no argument for not starting; rather, it is an argument that we cannot wait any longer.

We can see that it only took weeks after the Tidö Agreement was presented for a number of stakeholders to publicly announce that they planned for precisely new nuclear power in Sweden. We will also see abolished regulations that now hinder the new construction of nuclear power and other activities. We will see credit guarantees that are adapted to the conditions of nuclear power, and we will see shorter permit processes with special consideration for nuclear power.

Sweden must become a true role model when it comes to the climate policy area, because without massive new construction of nuclear power in the world, there are likely no possibilities to come anywhere near any two-degree goal. Wind and solar, which deliver when the weather allows, cannot be the sole basis for any energy system unless it becomes so extremely expensive that no elected government will be able to gain the voters' trust again.

Madam Speaker! Sweden's climate and environmental policy must be ambitious. It must be good. It must be Swedish, because an environmental policy that takes all life into account—yes, that is Swedish!

But, Madam Speaker, one must not confuse being environmentally friendly with having to sound like the increasingly radicalized environmentalist movement that competes to shout the loudest about how everything will go to ruin and which, when the voters do not listen, instead focuses on court processes to push through the politics that they failed to get the voters to vote for.

Madam Speaker! Being environmentally friendly does not mean a competition over who can propose the most state or EU-federalist regulations or who can drain the state and EU budget the fastest. No, the basis for environmentally friendly policy stems from entirely different things. It is about taking in the research, it is about recognizing the problems with their risks, and it is also about taking into account conflicts of interest. It is about realizing that nature and humans should be able to coexist and that we should be able to benefit from one another.

Let us say, for example, that we prioritize the goals regarding environmentally hazardous emissions from our agriculture as the European Commission wants with the revised Industrial Emissions Directive. That can indirectly steer towards an agriculture that de-prioritizes animal welfare issues. Overall, we will see more of this, that is to say, climate policy that comes into conflict with biodiversity and animal welfare – not to mention climate policy that comes into conflict with prosperity, which in itself causes a long series of important societal goals to be counteracted.

To avoid these conflicts of interest as far as possible, our common environmental and climate policy must be based on the concept of stewardship and strive to find the most cost-effective measures that simultaneously do not harm industries and the countryside.

This was taken directly from the Tidö Agreement, which points out a clear direction for Swedish environmental and climate policy. We also establish in the agreement that climate policy must have a global perspective where Sweden's emissions are put into relation to the rest of the world's. These are things we Sverigedemokrater have put forward in debates year after year, but now for the first time they are a fundamental part of a Swedish government's policy.

The work with a new, more efficient and solution-oriented climate policy has begun. We can already see that inefficient initiatives are being phased out, that the work with the expansion of charging infrastructure is being scaled up, and that the proposal on reverse auctions for CCS is being strengthened. But it takes time to settle the accounts for eight years of symbolic politics and expensive, inefficient initiatives. The work has begun, but we have much work left to do.

Madam Speaker! We have just completed an election year. Four years ago, when we had the debate for the first time, we had also just completed an election year. We had also just seen the reduction obligation being introduced. The levels were low then, and the then S-MP government had taken the opportunity to lower the diesel tax in connection with the introduction so that the voters would not notice what was about to happen. The Sweden Democrats had already at that time raised the catastrophic reduction obligation legislation which would make it unacceptably expensive to transport goods and people in our elongated country. It was the reform that, in a few years' time, would give us the world's most expensive fuels. We were then the lone outliers here in the chamber who pointed out the problems.

Madam Speaker! We can now conclude that the Sweden Democrats were right. Party after party has adopted the same problem formulation. The reduction obligation may look good on paper, purely technically, that is to say, the emissions decrease in the Swedish calculations. Even if they end up in other countries' accounts in reality, it looks good on paper. But the legislation was never sustainable. The price difference between diesel and gasoline is today about 5 kronor, while at the same time the tax on diesel has been lowered. But if around 5 billion liters of diesel are consumed annually, it means that we have incurred socio-economic costs of a good bit over 20 billion kronor annually.

This system should never be tolerated. The reduction obligation drives up costs for municipalities, companies, private households, grocery stores, and many others. It drives inflation in society in a significant way. The profits end up in the pockets of oil sheiks in the Arab world and with the Finnish state.

Madam Speaker! When we gather here in a year for a new environmental debate, we will have only weeks left before the reduction obligation is lowered to the minimum level. Regardless of what is written in the newspapers or how many lobbyists come forward in defense of the reduction obligation, I want to be clear on behalf of the Sweden Democrats that the people have spoken in the election. They chose a different path for fuel prices. The promise of the minimum level will be fulfilled, preferably yesterday, but absolutely by January 1, 2024, at the latest. Everything else is, of course, completely unacceptable.

Madam Speaker! The parties on the left have come out in defense of the reduction obligation. These parties therefore want to significantly increase the reduction obligation on January 1, 2024. The argument is that it will be too expensive to miss the EU's decided climate goals.

Madam Speaker! Let me begin by saying that the goals and the burden that have been set at the EU level are catastrophic for Sweden. It is not reasonable that a country that has phased out fossil fuels like no other country has done should bear the greatest burden within the EU. The negotiations that the S-government has been responsible for have been handled in a completely substandard manner. Now, a careful analysis is required on how we can best minimize the socio-economic costs. That the cheapest option is to push forward with excessively increased fuel costs with tens of billions in increased costs annually is unlikely. It cannot be the solution, and it will not be the solution.

(cont. § 13)

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)