Response to interpellation 2023/24:687 on the biodiversity agreement
Translated from Swedish by AI; the translation may contain errors. The Swedish text is the original.
Summary AI, written in advance
L argues that the government is actively working to restore nature and protect valuable areas through significant investments in, among other things, the rewetting of peatlands 1. L argues that they are taking responsibility for the margins in the state budget and are investing more money in the environment than MP did when they were in power 2. L emphasizes that they are investing almost 3 billion kronor on the protection and management of nature and succeed in allocating more money to this than MP did in 2020 3 2. L considers that the threat to the ozone layer is averted 4. MP claims that the government is not acting, lacks a national strategy, and has halved the funding 5 6. MP argues that they submitted a budget of 14 billion kronor to protect the mountain forests, but that these funds never amounted to anything 7.
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)
Madam Speaker! Rebecka Le Moine has asked me what measures I and the government intend to take to accelerate the protection of valuable nature and implement the biodiversity agreement in Sweden.
The 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity was held in Montreal in December 2022, and the outcome was a new framework that is an important political commitment for the entire 2020s.
The so-called Kunming-Montreal framework, which was adopted during the party meeting, contains global goals aimed at halting and reversing the loss of biodiversity. The loss of biodiversity is a fateful issue for our planet, and the fact that the negotiations on a new global framework were successful is a significant milestone in halting and reversing the negative development.
In Sweden, there are many nature reserves and national parks that protect irreplaceable natural values. Many of the areas need to be managed effectively so that natural values are preserved and developed, ecosystem services are maintained, and more habitats are created for our Swedish species, and so that the areas become accessible to visitors. Allemansrätten, which makes it possible for everyone to move freely in nature, is something that the government wants to safeguard.
The Government continues to work actively to restore nature. Wetlands are important for the work on climate, biodiversity, eutrophication, and the landscape's resilience. The Government wants to develop the work and has therefore decided on a long-term investment in the rewetting of drained peatlands, which, if correctly implemented, is a cost-effective climate measure that can help us solve both the loss of biodiversity and the climate crisis.
The continued work with our national environmental goals contributes significantly to fulfilling the agreement's goals. The Environmental Goals Commission has, through an additional directive, been tasked with developing proposals for a strategy with milestone goals, steering mechanisms, and measures that contribute to fulfilling Sweden's commitments for nature conservation and biodiversity as well as uptake and emissions of greenhouse gases within the land use sector, LULUCF. The assignment shall be reported by December 2, 2024, at the latest.
Finally, Madam Speaker, I would like to emphasize that during 2024, the government is investing a total of almost 3 billion kronor on the protection and management of valuable nature and an additional 1 billion on measures for the marine and water environment. The government intends to actively take measures to counteract species extinction both globally and in Sweden by preserving particularly sensitive species and natural environments, not least through sustainable agriculture, fisheries, and forestry that can contribute to creating environmental and climate benefits.
Rebecka Le Moine (MP)
Madam President! Since the government has chosen not to work actively with this at all, I thought I would explain in more detail what it actually means. The global biodiversity agreement is not just a communication or a declaration, but it was the equivalent of the Paris Agreement for nature, with the overarching goal of halting and reversing the loss of biodiversity. It is about stopping the extinction, the deforestation, the systematic killing and destruction of nature - and this by 2030.
The agreement contains four long-term goals describing the conditions to be achieved by 2050 at the latest. Goal A concerns the status of all biological diversity. Goal B concerns sustainable use and Goal C concerns equitable sharing. Goal D concerns that all types of resources for the implementation of the framework shall be available to all countries of the world. There are also 23 action targets specifying what needs to be done by 2030, Madam President.
The idea was that each country should develop a national plan and strategy, an NBSAP, for how to implement these goals. These national plans shall contain national targets that address or contribute to each of the different goals in the global plan. They shall also contain concrete measures, strategies and instruments, and they shall contain a national monitoring with review and evaluation of how the goals are achieved.
The national strategy, with national goals and measures, shall be developed before COP 16, which takes place in October this year. There are proposals from the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency that were presented in November last year, but since then nothing has happened, Madam President. The ball is in the government's court.
Madam Speaker! The government's track record of delivering late and thinly seems to persist in the environmental area. Since the agreement was concluded, the government has devoted itself to lowering environmental grants and putting an enormous amount of energy into stopping the restoration law. They have opposed the transition to cut-free and allowed the logging of the mountain forests to accelerate. They have pushed for overfishing in the Baltic Sea and worked for more intensive eel fishing. They have worked and are working throughout the EU to lower the protection of wolf, lynx, bear, along with several other endangered species.
With this in mind, one might perhaps see it as a success that the Minister for the Environment at least does not deny the existence of the biodiversity agreement. It is simply an embarrassingly large gap, Madam Speaker, between on the one hand, fine words and justified high ambitions and goals, and on the other hand, the condition in which Sweden's nature finds itself and the direction that the government has chosen for nature policy.
Madam President! It is also shameful considering that Sweden is one of the world's richest countries. Through the Minister for the Environment, we have, together with countries that have much worse conditions than we do, signed on to that we will meet the goals. Yet the government fails to produce the national plan. My question to the Minister for the Environment is: When will Sweden be able to present its national strategy?
Statsrådet Romina Pourmokhtari (L)
Madam Speaker! We hear here that Member Le Moine says that it is only rhetoric and fine words behind what I, as Minister for the Environment, do.
Let me first inform Member Le Moine that it is not an agreement but a framework. Secondly, it is not called NBSAB, as it sounded like the Member said, but NBSAP. The Government is also working full-time on presenting the national plan.
The Government, in the form of myself, was present when the framework was adopted. I was personally appointed by our EU group to, together with my German colleague from the Green Party, lead the EU's voice in a part of the negotiations. I have a great commitment to this work, and I can only regret that the member chooses to argue for her cause in this way. Instead of highlighting what the Green Party considers to be sensible policy and measuring it against the work the Government is doing, she claims that the Government only engages in rhetoric and fine words regarding nature policy and the work to stop the extinction of species.
As the member is certainly aware, my party the Liberals is very appreciated for its strong environmental policy, Madam Speaker, and it is something that we have traditionally often joined forces with the Green Party to work on. But if the member wants to test the strength against the work I am carrying out, claiming that it is just empty words and that the government is only worsening all the work that is being done, then that is what I must devote myself to countering here, instead of discussing how the policy could have been improved and developed.
This government, Madam Speaker, is investing 3 billion in the protection and management of valuable areas. We decide at regular intervals on new nature reserves and on the development of the protection we have both at sea and on land. The government has established a project from the Swedish Agency for Marine and Water Management to set up a trial fishing limit along the Baltic Sea coast, something that the previous government failed to achieve during its long time in power. They did not get started on limiting the trawling that takes place in our seas and waters. If the Baltic Sea is suffering so much now, I can wonder how it is that environment-party-aligned environment and climate ministers failed to address the trawling for so many years.
Madam President! Sweden has for a long time carried out ambitious work in this area. We work to protect nature throughout our long country, and we also work internationally to get more countries to follow Sweden's example and establish environmental goals that can be monitored, as well as contribute to restoring and maintaining valuable land and nature both at sea and on land.
Sweden decided 25 years ago to establish environmental goals, Mr. Speaker, and since then work has continued. Some of these environmental goals are achieved and complete, and for others we have a long way to go to succeed.
There is an ongoing assignment, and we need to await the Environmental Goals Commission's report, which will not arrive until December. The reason why it cannot go faster is quite simply that it was the previous government that gave the assignment. This is, therefore, a reason why a protection goal for land will be delayed. We will simply have to wait until December; it is nothing that I personally can influence.
We are working as fast as we can, Madam Speaker. I can only regret that the member chooses to place weight on questioning my commitment to the work for biodiversity, when I, for example, was on site and ensured that this framework, not the agreement, became as strong as it did.
Rebecka Le Moine (MP)
Madam Speaker! For those of you who have not seen the debate from the beginning or have joined a little later, I can tell you that I have questioned the government's implementation, so to speak – that they have not produced this national strategy. There, I have probably stepped on a sore point – hence the high tone.
I would like to say that one can distinguish between the issue and the person. I believe for sure that the Minister for the Environment has a personal commitment to this. The problem is that the government is not acting on it. What I, as the opposition, base my argument on is that no national strategy is being produced and that sufficient funds and financing are not being provided.
Speaking of funding, the Minister for the Environment speaks warmly of 3 billion kronor. This can be compared to the last time Miljöpartiet got its initiative through; then it was 6 billion. It is therefore a matter of a halving. This has had very large consequences.
I receive many calls from landowners who call me with tears in their throats and say: I would have entered into this agreement for my beautiful, worthy-of-protection forest - I just want to protect it. One has inventoried and reached a deal, but then the money is not there. What is one to do? People are forced to sell their farms and end a long chapter against their will because the money is not there.
It is this that is very paradoxical. One says to want to protect landowners. One speaks warmly about these issues, but one actively scales back. In the first year it was 70 percent, but in total, compared to the last time we sat and negotiated, one has now halved this support.
Then I become a bit thoughtful when the Minister for the Environment says that we speak internationally about the fantastic environmental goals we have in this area. But the fact is that we have no interim target for biodiversity, as it expired in 2020. Then, from the agency world, this has been pointed out and it has been said that we need some type of extension and concretization regarding what we are actually going to work on, what our objective is. This is, therefore, extremely urgent.
Madam Speaker! One of the action goals that the government and the Minister for the Environment himself are very proud of and have signed off on is that 30 percent of valuable and representative ecosystems shall be protected. This requires that one can also respond with funding.
I asked the Riksdag's investigation service how it is going with incorporating this. How is the financing? The answer I received was that in the best case, if one is very optimistic, it will go from 15.5 percent to 17.7 percent by 2030. We are therefore going to be up to 30 percent by 2030. The total area that, in the best case, calculated very optimistically, will be protected by that year is therefore much smaller than the area of valuable nature that will be further exploited.
Madam Speaker! The protection rate is approximately 20 times lower than the logging rate in Sweden. There is neither a plan nor funding from the government and neither, I believe, any genuine will. Perhaps it exists, Madam Speaker, with the Minister for the Environment herself, but in that case, it is not shared. It simply offers no return that we can share in.
Statsrådet Romina Pourmokhtari (L)
Madam President! If Member Le Moine is serious in suggesting that the fact that I do not provide enough money for this work means that I am not ambitious enough and am failing to achieve what is to be implemented, I wonder: How is it that the government where Miljöpartiet held the ministerial post and was one of two parties and thus had great power to influence what this sum would land on - now we are translating from billions to millions, so everyone can follow along - was at 2,020 million kronor in 2020, while this government in 2023, when it is economically very tough for Sweden and we have high inflation and a recession, manages to allocate 2,600 million kronor, that is, 580 million kronor more than Miljöpartiet allocated in 2020?
If we instead look at this year, when we know that it has become a little easier and there is a little more room in the budget, we see that for 2024 we manage to allocate 2,882 million kronor, that is 862 million more than Miljöpartiet allocated in 2020. How is it that it is claimed that there have been sharp cuts when one only compares with the two most recent years, when it is starting to approach the election and the barns are full and there is an opportunity to step on the gas in the economy?
Perhaps it would be a bit more responsible to state that Sweden has for a long time taken great responsibility to be able to protect and maintain the management of our protected areas and that this is a work that continues. Sometimes it is affected by the economy because not all parties, such as Miljöpartiet, choose to borrow 100 billion to successfully carry out everything they want in their made-up budget that does not become reality.
In the state budget, we take responsibility for the margins that exist, and that is what the Green Party also did when they were in power and did not just stand at the rostrum as the opposition but were in power and held the position of Minister for the Environment. Then, in 2020, they invested 580 million kronor less than this government did in 2023 and 862 million kronor less than this government does in 2024.
Rebecka Le Moine (MP)
Madam Speaker! In her previous contribution, Romina Pourmokhtari mentioned that work has been done on the environmental goals and, if I heard correctly, also that they have been achieved. My question then is: Which environmental goals does the government mean that have been achieved? This is very important.
The second point concerns these figures. I simply have to ask Romina Pourmokhtari and her colleagues to look again at the figures that are in the budget. That can be done, and clear comparisons can be presented. So, please do take another look at them!
During the previous parliamentary term, we conducted a forest investigation which depicted what is called Sweden's or Europe's Amazon – the mountain forests. It is a huge area. To ensure that this does not just become wishful thinking, one must also respond with funding. We therefore presented a budget, with a long-term plan, totaling 14 billion kronor. These funds never became anything. They were pulled back when the Centerpartiet chose to support the Sverigedemokraternas budget instead. These forests have, unfortunately, still not received any protection to this day. It is incredibly urgent that the Minister for the Environment ensures that this protection is accelerated in order to actually protect Sweden's Amazon, which is now being logged at a very rapid pace.
Then I note that the Minister for the Environment thinks it is lovely to sit in power and thinks it is something one can enjoy. I suppose I must envy her that. But I would not want to be in the Minister for the Environment's shoes, considering the party one has made oneself dependent on and how they also use their power to poison the entire climate of discussion and debate, not least on social media. Everything has its price, but it is not a price that I would have been comfortable paying.
Statsrådet Romina Pourmokhtari (L)
Madam Speaker! I see no reason to once again take a look at the tables where figures are compared, as Member Rebecka Le Moine requests that I do. I have them here in my hand, if the Member wishes to look to inform herself about what Miljöpartiet was doing when they themselves had power and compare it with what I am doing now. She is warmly welcome to look at my tables and discuss the work with me.
If the member wonders which of Sweden's environmental goals have been achieved since they were established 25 years ago, I can say that the threat to the ozone layer has been averted.
Source: The Swedish Parliament. The speeches come from the open data of the Riksdag, translated into English by AI, which may contain errors.