Response to interpellation 2022/23:218 on the transport sector's transition
Translated from Swedish by AI; the translation may contain errors. The Swedish text is the original.
Summary AI, written in advance
The debate concerns the transport sector's transition. L argues that the government's direction is from fossil to fossil-free through rapid electrification 1 2. L believes that charging infrastructure for passenger cars and heavy transport must be expanded 1 2 and that the government is expanding Klimatklivet for an ambitious climate policy 2. L believes it is inappropriate to use tax money for brand-new electric cars and that Sweden is leading the transition work in Europe 3. S argues that emissions have increased since the government took office 4. S believes that the industry lacks long-term rules of the game 5 and that the policy does not hang together when one builds charging stations while simultaneously removing incentives for electric cars 6.
Written by AI in advance and may contain errors. The numbers lead to the speech a statement builds on; check against the text below.
Statsrådet Romina Pourmokhtari (L)
Mr. Speaker! Sweden, together with many other countries, has committed to transitioning towards a sustainable world. The transport sector is the sector that accounts for the most emissions.
Gunilla Svantorp has asked me if I intend to present the government's direction regarding the transport sector's climate transition in the near future and if I can say anything about the way forward.
Sweden's climate and environmental policy shall be ambitious, cost-effective, and goal-oriented. Our climate and environmental policy is based on the principle of stewardship and strives to find the most cost-effective measures, which at the same time do not harm industries and the countryside. During this year, we will present an action plan where the government, according to the Climate Act (2017:720), shall describe how Sweden shall reach its interim targets for 2030 and 2040 and how we shall reach all the way to net-zero emissions by 2045.
I do not want to precede the important work that is currently underway with the climate policy action plan. But I can already state that a rapid electrification of the transport sector will be an important part of the continued work. The Government has increased the pace of electrification of transport, for example through strengthened investments in charging infrastructure.
Charging infrastructure is needed where people live, work, and travel. Access to charging stations must be so good that electric cars are a good option for residents in both rural areas and the countryside as well as in our cities. The charging infrastructure for heavy transport also needs to be expanded at depots for destination charging and along roads throughout the country.
The purpose of the investments in charging infrastructure in the budget bill for 2023 is to ensure exactly this. The Government will return with further measures to transition our transport sector in the climate policy action plan, which will be presented to the Riksdag during the year.
Gunilla Svantorp (S)
Mr. Speaker! Thank you for the answer, Minister!
I wrote the interpellation because I, like so many others, am very worried about the climate and what is going to happen in the future. This week we received the IPCC's, the UN's climate panel's, report. It shows, above all, three important things. The sea level is rising, the ice is melting faster and extreme weather is becoming increasingly common. It is something that we can see as soon as we turn on the news. We see that something is happening somewhere in the world.
We are late to the ball, but it is not lost, says the IPCC. That is the case. The world has committed to doing something, to acting and to transitioning. We know that the transport sector is the sector where we must do the most. We know that we are to reduce emissions by 70 percent by 2030 compared to 2010. That requires different measures.
When one meets with the industries within the transport sector, which we in the committee do very often, one sees that they are on track and are transitioning. But they are also worried. They lack long-term rules of the game. They do not really know what will apply moving forward. Should I dare, or should I not dare? What is it that applies?
Three or four weeks ago, I visited Lastbilscentralen in Karlstad, a major player here in Värmland. For several years, they have worked on transitioning and purchasing electric trucks, which are twice as expensive as conventional trucks. They are constantly testing new technology and new fuels. They follow the roadmap that all the industries have developed.
Their CEO Lars says that the investments they have made are paying off because the demand for sustainability among their customers is great. But he also says that the support that has been provided is very important. This applies, for example, to support from Energimyndigheten and Klimatklivet. It has contributed to the fact that, for example, they have been able to expand the infrastructure with charging stations and so on.
The S- and MP-government, and then the S-government after that, had a crystal-clear direction forward from fossil to renewable. There was no talk about that matter. The interpellation that I have submitted concerns exactly that direction.
The answer I have received is that we have to wait and see. That is not quite sufficient. Given the IPCC report that has arrived, I do not think we can wait until the autumn to point out the direction for all the companies in the industry that are going to invest.
What is it that they are going to invest in? Could the Minister say something about that? In which direction does one intend to go? It is not enough to just say that we are going to electrify and have more charging stations. I think one must be able to say a bit more.
Statsrådet Romina Pourmokhtari (L)
Mr. Speaker! Thank you for the excellent pronunciation of my surname!
A question was asked regarding which direction we should go. Member Svantorp explains here that the previous government's direction has been crystal clear and that it has been from fossil to renewable.
If there is a direction that is desired, it is this government's direction from fossil to fossil-free. There should be no uncertainties about which direction we have. We are moving towards the fossil-free. We are electrifying our transport fleet.
This government also does this in practice by building upon some of the initiatives that have been successful during previous governments. This includes, among other things, Klimatklivet, which the member himself highlights. It is an initiative where we see that the industry clearly points out that it has contributed to a development of electrification and a development where we accelerate the transition of our transport fleet. It is precisely what the government intends to do, is already underway with doing, and will continue to do and develop. That is what I set out in the response.
We want to increase the pace of electrification. We see a great need to expand the work of building out our charging infrastructure so that it is not just certain people who have the opportunity to drive fossil-free, but more people get that opportunity, quite simply.
The demand for sustainability, which is also mentioned by the industry itself, will not decrease but only increase. We are moving towards the transition that is currently largely underway for the sake of Sweden and all of Europe.
If one is to put it in an IPCC context, Europe is at the forefront, and Sweden is leading in that work. We are not late to the ball there. On the contrary, Sweden has been very early to the ball. We have started working sustainably early on and reflecting on how we build up our society. It is about what our energy production looks like, how we heat our homes, and how we get electricity into our lines. We are working at a high pace. We shall continue to do so.
We see a need to, for example, within the transport sector, expand the work with electrification and do so to a greater extent than we have done previously. The need that we see there concerns precisely the charging infrastructure.
That is why the government is investing so clearly in exactly the charging infrastructure. We have not only continued Klimatklivet but expanded it with 400 million kronor for 2023. We estimate increasing it by 500 million kronor for 2024 and for 2025.
We really see that some of the initiatives have had an effect. They have taken care of the parts that are missing for the transport fleet to be converted, and we are continuing to work on those.
Then there are also certain things where we do not see a desired effect, where billions have been invested and no return has been achieved in the form of reduced carbon emissions and a transition from fossil to fossil-free. In those cases, we remove these measures, because that is how one conducts a climate and environmental policy that is both ambitious and effective and takes the whole into account.
We will continue the work of moving from fossil to fossil-free. It is our direction.
Gunilla Svantorp (S)
Mr. Speaker! Thank you very much for the answer again, Minister! Those are many words. There is a direction, okay, but we also know what has happened. On October 18, Kristersson's government and the Minister took office. It has been almost six months.
Three weeks after October 18, on November 7, the government decided that the following day it would remove the bonus part of the bonus-malus system. It happened overnight - bang! We saw what happened. Car salesmen were allowed to have night openings, and people had to decide very quickly. When they were to make one of the biggest investment decisions of their lives, they had to do it in just a few hours because the government chose to change something that had existed for quite a long time.
And what happens now? Now it is an ice-cold market. Almost no electric cars are being sold at all. Before November 7, Sweden had the highest share of rechargeable cars of the total new car sales. Today, as said, it is ice-cold.
The Minister stands and speaks very much and constantly has the goal that we should expand the charging infrastructure. But then one must also have cars that are to be charged. If new car sales fall, what happens then? It must hang together, and I don't quite think the policy hangs together. It is very good that we are expanding the charging stations, and we also have a joint EU decision that there should be one charging station per ten electric cars. But there, Sweden lags very far behind. It is only 2 of 21 counties and 52 of 290 municipalities that achieve the goal.
We cannot count on reaching the goal by ensuring that fewer electric cars are sold. We must, after all, ensure that we do the right things, and it does not quite feel like the government is doing that. It is strange to increase the pace when it comes to installing more charging stations while simultaneously removing the incentives to buy a new electric car.
But not everything can be solved with charging stations. There are more things that we must do, and that is what I feel is missing in the reasoning and in the answer I have received. What else do we need to do in order to achieve the reduced emissions?
Above all, it is about moving freight from the road to the railway and maritime transport. And what happens then? Then we have a capacity shortage, primarily on the railway, where we lack tracks. What does the government do then? Then they stop the expansion of new tracks for the railway. The policy does not quite hang together.
The Climate Policy Council's report arrived this week, and it clearly states that the EU is holding the course and increasing the pace, but that Sweden has lost momentum and is even increasing emissions. We have an ice-cold electric car market, we have a shortage of railway tracks to move freight, and we have a shortage of long-term rules of the game. How are we then going to be able to achieve the transport policy goal? Furthermore, we are apparently supposed to wait for action until the autumn.
What does the Minister say about these double signals? What should the industry do? What should they invest in?
Statsrådet Romina Pourmokhtari (L)
Mr. Speaker! There are many exciting questions being asked here.
But a very clear statement is also made that we have an ice-cold electric car market. I wonder if there is any evidence for that statement. We have an ice-cold car market. The sale of cars has stalled. But has the sale of just electric cars stalled? As far as I know, no facts have emerged that provide any basis for such an argument. It would be interesting to hear which figures or facts that I, despite quite careful monitoring of the area, have not had access to.
Car sales have stalled. It is a rather natural development that we have an ice-cold car market given the economic situation that Sweden is in. But, Mr. Speaker, that specifically the electric car market should be ice-cold is a statement that at least I would not be able to stand and make at this rostrum.
The government is not conducting our transition of the transport sector in the same way as previous governments have done, and I consider that to be a completely natural part of us having a different government than before.
This government does not only choose to pursue an ambitious climate and environmental policy, which I am completely convinced that the previous government also did. Just as the member explains in their interpellation, this is an issue where Sweden has committed to transitioning to a sustainable world. It is a task that Sweden will continue to do, and I believe that all governments in this country choose to take responsibility for it. That is very good. But we do it in different ways.
Here we differ. We differ in the sense that this government, in our first state budget, makes the clear analysis that there is a great need for investments in, for example, infrastructure so that we can transition to electricity. We need to invest specifically in the charging infrastructure, and we need to do it properly.
We do this by expanding Klimatklivet by 400 million, by investing over 1 billion in charging infrastructure in other expenditure areas, and by expanding the charging infrastructure for heavy transport at depots for destination charging and along the roads in the country. That is what we see a clear need for.
That is why the government is expanding the work within Klimatklivet. That is why the government has expanded the investment in support for public charging stations for heavy vehicles, for tank infrastructure, and for hydrogen for heavy transport with a total of almost 1.1 billion kronor for 2023 and calculates that it will put in further large sums into this.
It is exactly as the member describes: There is a need for large, expensive investments in certain parts of this. But here, you want to make these large, expensive investments by using taxpayers' money to finance purchases for those people who can afford a brand-new electric car in a situation where electric cars do not cost what they did when such a reform was introduced.
This would be inappropriate, and it is not something that the government has invented entirely on its own, but something that is clearly accounted for, among other things, in the Konjunkturläget. It would be inappropriate, inefficient, and bad to continue with this. It is therefore that the government does the responsible thing by ending that policy, which we see costs billions and does not generate reduced emissions.
What does the government do instead? Well, proper investments in charging infrastructure. In addition to this, we look forward and calmly prepare a climate action plan which, in accordance with Sweden's Climate Act, shall account for how we intend to work during the mandate period to have our transport fleet transition as it truly should.
Gunilla Svantorp (S)
Mr. Speaker and Minister! There are many words, but very little is said.
I would like to remind the Minister that until she took office, we had reduced emissions. Now we have increased emissions. So, that policy that the government has pursued since she took office cannot be completely great, because then we would not have increased emissions within the transport sector or increased emissions at all – which we do.
I would like to say this: We have a common challenge regardless of which party we belong to. We must lower emissions. We must do something about the fact that our planet is disappearing if we do not do something now. All parties in the Swedish Riksdag except the Sverigedemokraterna stand behind the fact that we must do something. It is important, and it is an obligation. We must do something regardless of which party we belong to.
Many industries within the transport sector face investment decisions, in the same way as the state does. One must invest in large, heavy, new and expensive machines or trucks. Then one must know what it is one is going to invest in and in which direction one is going to go. In that case, it is not enough to just say that electrification solves everything, but we must include some other things as well.
The S-government invested in incentives and showed which direction it wanted to go. I would like to ask the Minister: Are incentives a good solution moving forward? If so – what incentives does the Minister think can be good tools for us to head in the right direction and for us to succeed in transitioning the transport sector?
The 2030 Secretariat is careful to say that we have a broad political majority that stands behind our climate goals and that we have strong actors who are transitioning. So, what does the government intend to do?
Statsrådet Romina Pourmokhtari (L)
Mr. Speaker! Thank you, Member Svantorp, for an interesting interpellation that made us once again discuss the importance of transitioning our transport sector, a task that all parties are engaged in - but in different ways.
We see that Sweden is leading the work on transition taking place within Europe. We have done this for a long time, and we continue to do so – not least during the presidency, where Sweden, after many efforts, has ensured that we now have a proposal in place regarding a ban on building cars with internal combustion engines after 2035. We see how Sweden is pushing for the transition to electrification on many fronts, not only in the EU by leading the transition that all of Europe is undergoing but also nationally.
This is a task that we continue, not by rolling on as usual with previous governments' policies but by making an analysis: Where are the needs for our transport fleet to actually be able to transition? How can we ensure that both our heavy transports and the passenger cars move from fossil to fossil-free? That is by means of a major investment in electrification and in expanding the infrastructure required for an electrification of our transport fleet.
It is a task that the government not only intends to do but is doing. We have made major investments in our budget this year, and more investments will come.
Source: The Swedish Parliament. The speeches come from the open data of the Riksdag, translated into English by AI, which may contain errors.