Response to interpellation 2025/26:262 on measures to achieve the climate goals
Translated from Swedish by AI; the translation may contain errors. The Swedish text is the original.
Summary AI, written in advance
L argues that Sweden is a pioneering country with low emissions thanks to water, wind, and nuclear power 1 2 3. L advocates for investments in Klimatklivet, climate premiums for electric trucks, electric car premiums in rural areas, as well as increased net uptake in forest and land 1. L argues that the government does not want to lower the climate goals 2, has prioritized offshore wind power 4, and that the abolition of the electric car bonus was necessary 4. L argues that there is more money for Klimatklivet and wetlands than ever before 4. MP argues that the government has dismantled climate policy and scrapped measures such as the reduction obligation 5 6. MP proposes a national emissions trading system and an increased carbon tax 5.
Written by AI in advance and may contain errors. The numbers lead to the speech a statement builds on; check against the text below.
Klimat- och miljöministern Romina Pourmokhtari (L)
Mr. Speaker! Katarina Luhr has asked me what measures the government intends to take to reverse the development and reduce Sweden's emissions to a level that brings the emissions back onto the trajectory towards the 2030 goal, and what political measures, in my opinion, should be prioritized so that Sweden's climate emissions quickly decrease at the rate needed to reach both the EU's and Sweden's national climate goals by 2030.
It is urgent to reduce emissions in the world. Since 1990, Sweden has reduced territorial emissions by a third while our GDP has almost doubled. In 2024, Sweden also had the lowest emissions per capita in the EU, according to the EU Commission's database Edgar. That makes Sweden a pioneer country.
With the government's climate policy, Sweden's emissions are expected to decrease starting this year and every year until 2030. In the government's budget bill for 2026, there are several proposals for measures that bring us closer to the climate goals. This includes, among other things, a billion-kronor investment in Klimatklivet. We are also extending the requested climate premiums for light electric trucks and will soon introduce a targeted electric car premium aimed at households in rural areas. The measures in the budget bill are expected to reduce emissions in the ESR sector by approximately 1.5 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents by 2030.
Mr. Speaker! In the budget bill, the government has also proposed measures to increase net carbon sequestration in forest and land. This includes, among other things, an investment in information and advice to forest owners regarding increased carbon sequestration and biodiversity, a new subsidy for the rewetting of abandoned agricultural land, and increased funds to accelerate the assessment of wetland measures. The government's investments in the restoration of wetlands are historically large.
The government stands firm on our responsibility to work towards achieving the ESR commitment by 2030 in an effective and socially acceptable manner. We are on the right track, but it is clear that more politics and more political measures are required. As part of this, the government has appointed the so-called steering measures investigation, which will present its analysis in May 2026, and in parallel, the government continues to analyze what additional effective and feasible measures are needed for us to succeed in staying the course.
In conclusion, I would like to highlight that it is positive that the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency's statistics for 2024 showed an improvement in the uptake of greenhouse gases in forest and land. Even though the figures are subject to uncertainties, the statistics still show that the trend of decreased uptake has reversed. In recent years, forest growth has recovered, and the net uptake has increased.
Katarina Luhr (MP)
Mr. Speaker! Thank you, the Minister for Climate, for the answer! Since the election, it has been genuinely painful to see how the Tidö parties have dismantled much of the climate policy that had been built up with great effort before the Tidö parties came to power.
When the Minister for Climate and Environment speaks about Sweden as an example with a fossil-free electricity system and low emissions, she is speaking about measures that have been built up by previous governments since the 1990s and which have contributed to Sweden, year after year, reducing its use of fossil energy at a more or less steady pace. The problem has been that even that pace has not been high enough. It was only when the Paris Agreement was put in place that it became clear to more people how quickly the emission reductions actually needed to occur. But that the Tidö parties would turn on the emissions tap and that emissions would increase and increase as much as they have under the Tidö government has not been on the map.
In 2024, Sweden's emissions increased the most in the entire EU. That this occurred during a recession is also extremely remarkable. When the Tidö government's parties campaigned before the 2022 election, the message was that the climate is important but that they had other ideas on how emissions would be reduced. After the election, the government has instead dismantled climate measure after climate measure without replacing the measures with any new policy. Emissions have, of course, increased accordingly.
Following the increased emissions in a welfare state during an ongoing climate crisis has been extremely painful for many, not least when the emissions stem from a short-sighted populist policy that only fuels the climate crisis and provides no long-term climate benefit whatsoever moving forward.
In the spring, the government convened the Environmental Goals Commission, which in broad agreement proposed that Sweden should retain the existing climate goal for 2030 and that 17.3 million tonnes should therefore be the emissions cap in 2030 for emissions outside the industrial sector. The reasons for retaining the climate goals are many, but I believe it is clear to many of us that climate change is affecting us already today and that there is no room to weaken any climate policy.
The year after the election, 2023, Sweden's emissions stood at 26.6 million tonnes after a steady decrease year after year. In 2024, emissions increased significantly, to 30.3 million tonnes.
All parties are, as said, in agreement that the goal shall remain, which means that we are now to go from 30 million tons to 17 million tons during the coming mandate period. In the Miljöpartiet budget, we have proposed measures to achieve that. It concerns a national emissions trading system with distribution, an increased carbon tax, increased support for Klimatklivet, a national electric car offensive to facilitate the transition to electric cars, and also Sverigekortet, which shall give everyone access to Swedish public transport for 500 kronor per month. We expect that the measures we have proposed are sufficient to meet and exceed the Swedish climate goal by the year 2030.
But unfortunately, sufficient measures are not in the government's plan, and the time until 2030 is constantly shrinking. It is starting to become very urgent to produce sufficient measures and get them in place.
I perceive today's answer from the Minister as that there are currently no new measures in progress from the government to get back on track. I know that the Minister stands behind the Swedish climate goal, and I would therefore like to hear a reasoning from the Minister for Climate on what she actually believes would need to be done for us to be able to reach the Swedish climate goals by 2030.
Klimat- och miljöministern Romina Pourmokhtari (L)
Mr. Speaker! Thanks to Member Luhr, who is the spokesperson for these issues in Miljöpartiet! I believe we will have many exciting debates on climate policy ahead, and I look forward to that.
Let me begin with the view on climate goals. Since the government took office, I have had to defend myself against allegations from, not least, the spokesperson for the member's own party, Daniel Helldén, but also other representatives from Miljöpartiet, who have claimed that the government wants to abolish or lower the climate goals. This has particularly concerned the work that the member Luhr now mentions and credits, namely the work on the review of the climate goals. That was something that Isabella Lövin herself wrote into the Climate Act when the goals were set.
When I announced that this work would be commenced – the member himself has taken part in it and been a part of it – I had to stand on TV and defend myself against the commentator Daniel Helldén, who claimed that this is the government's way of abolishing climate goals, lowering climate goals and so on. The image that this government is abolishing and lowering climate goals is something I have to defend myself against every day.
I think it is a pity, because in Sweden we have a fantastic unity when it comes to the climate goals, a unity that is worth defending. It is a unity that many other countries are envious of and a unity that the opposition unfortunately seems to want to split by claiming that we want to abolish and lower the climate goals when we do not want to.
But let us instead discuss the content of the climate policy, for that is what is valuable here. What has de facto happened, Mr. Speaker, is that emissions in Sweden decreased in 2023. They increased in 2024 but are judged to decrease again in 2025 and 2026, all the way until 2030. I think it is important to emphasize this.
What we are discussing when we talk about increased emissions is, therefore, a single year during the mandate period, namely 2024. At that time, the government lowered the reduction obligation to the lowest level, 6 percent, a level that we have now raised to 10 percent, where we also include electrification and charging in various ways.
The change is a consequence of a very aggressive fuel policy that, among others, the Miljöpartiet has developed and driven.
I think it is important to have that debate, because I do not want Sweden to once again end up in a situation where one puts all eggs in one basket: one sets the reduction obligation very high and then leans back and claims that the goals will be reached by 2030.
That is why I am very pleased that Miljöpartiet has backed away from the policy it pursued during the previous mandate period and claimed that one could reach the 2030 goals with. Now Miljöpartiet wants to abolish the reduction obligation after a certain number of years. They have simply understood that the transition of the transport sector is not built on a whip of high prices but also on an expanded electrification of our transport sector. It is built on transport efficiency and much more. I welcome that. They join the line on national emission trading systems, which my party Liberalerna has been involved in developing.
Mr. Speaker! In 2024, when emissions increased in Sweden, Sweden continued to have the lowest emissions per person in the entire EU. The member highlights that emissions increased the most of all EU countries, but despite increasing the most, they were therefore still the lowest per person among all EU countries. I think that is worth highlighting in this context.
Why are they then? Well, they are because Sweden, unlike many other EU countries, does not struggle to get clean electricity. In Sweden, on the contrary, we have had hydropower for a long time, which we electrified our nation with, and also nuclear power and wind power. That is where we have the key to continuing to have low emissions in Sweden.
Katarina Luhr (MP)
Mr. Speaker! Thank you, the Minister for Climate, for all the words! Hopefully, we will see that the emissions from the Tidö Government's top level in 2024 decrease. If they do not decrease, it is actually a catastrophe.
The question, however, is whether the Tidö government's policy before the mandate period is over will take us down to the emission levels we were at in 2022 and 2023. The mandate period risks being four completely lost years for the Swedish climate work. And unfortunately, it is not just four lost years, because the conditions for conducting strong climate work have deteriorated, which will make the goals even harder to reach after this mandate period. This applies, for example, to all the dismantled reforms that the Tidö government, with the Minister for Climate at the helm, has slaughtered during the mandate period.
I know that the Minister likes to talk about how the previous government put all their eggs in one basket when it comes to climate work, which is, of course, not correct.
Under the Tidö government, the minister has since 2022 been involved in scrapping a large number of climate measures that the previous government introduced. After the dissolution of the Ministry of the Environment, it is much dismantled climate policy that has contributed to the increased emissions. I intended to mention a highlight.
The Tidö parties have lowered the energy tax, lowered the reduction obligation for gasoline and diesel, abolished the carbon tax in combined heat and power plants and heating plants, removed support for energy efficiency in multi-family housing, raised the VAT on repairs, stopped the expansion of new trunk lines for high-speed trains, abolished the reform of the travel deduction, which favors car travel, postponed legislation on climate requirements for new construction, stopped legislation on climate requirements in procurement, stopped credit guarantees for green investments, phased out the urban environment agreements, lowered the tax on fossil fuels, lowered the tax on agricultural diesel, abolished the aviation tax, invested billions in aviation, reduced subsidies for solar cells, abolished the tax reduction for micro-production of renewable electricity, rejected applications for 13 offshore wind farms in the Baltic Sea, weakened the sustainability policy for fossil investments, adopted a new state travel policy for increased flying, and so on. The Riksdag's investigation service has looked into this. The list is quite long, so I will not go through the whole thing.
That the government has removed such a large part of Sweden's climate policy obviously makes it much harder to reach the climate goals. The measures to reach the climate goals are instead conspicuous by their absence.
The Minister for Climate and Environment answers that the steering measures investigation to be presented in May will include an analysis. If the investigation presents measures during an election year, it would be a happy miracle if any measures would have time to be implemented before the parliamentary election. My rather strong gut feeling is that the Tidö parties will be quite reluctant to introduce any measures even after the election, not least because it only took a few weeks after the Environmental Goals Commission's decision before both the Sverigedemokraterna and Kristdemokraterna publicly campaigned against the national climate goal. I also assume that is why the Minister for Climate and Environment writes somewhat cautiously that the government is constantly analyzing the issue, not that they are planning any specific measures.
The question remains: With what measures could the government steer climate policy back to reach the climate goals that we say we agree on? What measures does the Climate Minister believe may be needed? It is now eight months until the election. Will the Climate Minister do anything during his remaining time in the position to facilitate so that Sweden's climate goals can be reached?
Klimat- och miljöministern Romina Pourmokhtari (L)
Mr. Speaker! What a fantastic debate it becomes when we actually get to talk about what we should do to reduce emissions or eliminate emissions, which as a Liberal I like to focus on.
Member of Parliament Luhr lists various dismantled reforms, as she chooses to call them. She mentions, for example, that the government has rejected applications for offshore wind power. What she refrains from mentioning is that the government has approved more applications for offshore wind power than the previous government did. It is thus like this: instead of letting applications for offshore wind power sit on the shelf and gather dust, as the environmentalist Per Bolund did, we ensure that outcomes are reached. This applies to both the rejections and the approvals, and to both the wind turbines that are to be built and those that, for example, the Armed Forces consider unsuitable to build.
I mean that it is positive that the outcomes are coming instead of letting the applications gather dust and leaning back with that it is a more neutral policy for offshore wind power. The reason that the outcomes are coming is that the government has prioritized budget funds to speed up the processing and actually deliver the outcomes. It is not a coincidence or a matter of time, but it is a prioritization from this government. That prioritization is linked to our will to focus on electrification, which we believe is the fundamental and important answer to how Sweden should continue its work with eliminating emissions.
In terms of dismantled reforms, there is very much one can mention. One can, for example, mention that this government has abolished the electric car bonus. I choose to note that neither the Social Democrats nor the Green Party want to reintroduce the car bonus that we abolished, but instead, they take the opportunity to bring forward new, improved models. I think it is very good that they see the same need that I and the government have seen. The previous bonus ensured that expensive brand-new electric cars were subsidized to people who have large economic muscles instead of focusing on lowering the thresholds for those who actually see the climate transition as a threat to their opportunity to, for example, drive a car.
I welcome that this time is used to improve one's own policy. It is good for Sweden. It is good for the Swedish people. But one must also be honest. If one does not want to reintroduce the reforms that one accuses us of dismantling, it becomes a bit strange to criticize us for the dismantling.
Mr. Speaker! It can also be noted that under the Tidö government, there is more money than ever before for Klimatklivet, more money than ever before for the work of restoring wetlands, and a clear focus on several different parts that a liberal and bourgeois government sees as solutions to the climate challenges in Sweden.
For example, we have work with Industriklivet, something that was initiated during the Miljöpartiets time and which is being built upon with this government. The same applies to Klimatklivet, which, among other things, is about expanding the infrastructure required for electrification in our entire elongated country.
There is much one can focus on. There are also certain parts of politics where one can absolutely point out that we disagree. We have, for example, abolished symbolic sprinkles such as electric bike subsidies, plastic bag taxes, and other things. But what one cannot criticize the Tidöre Government for is railway maintenance. There is, therefore, no occasion where we have had larger investments in railway maintenance than we have right now in Sweden. I believe the Swedish people notice it – that there is a lot of work on our railways and that there is a lot going on. One can see for oneself what the authorities say: We cannot receive more money for railway maintenance than for what we are working on now.
The budget has doubled in ten years and now amounts to 16 billion kronor per year. That is good for Sweden.
Katarina Luhr (MP)
Mr. Speaker! I find it interesting when the Minister for Climate highlights that we both want to discuss content and measures, because that is actually what is important to reach the climate goals. I have still not heard of any new measures from the Minister for Climate so that we can get back on track and steer towards the climate goals that we actually clearly agree on.
I am quite astonished at how Romina Pourmokhtari, Sweden's Minister for Climate during nearly four years, can still stand here and defend the Tidö parties' climate policy. It is completely obvious that the policy has not been good for Sweden's climate and environmental work, nor for Sweden's climate reputation internationally. This became clear, for example, in the autumn's international climate review, where Sweden, not least in the category of climate policy, continued to plummet in the ranking.
The dismantling of Sweden's climate policy has, as far as I can see, also not led to the much-talked-about popular support for a new climate policy. It also does not seem that the Liberals' climate policy has led to any strong liberal voter figures. I simply do not understand what there is to gain from this theater from the Minister for Climate and Environment. What can be more important for a Minister for Climate and Environment than to reduce climate emissions? What is it that makes it worth going to work for a liberal Minister for Climate and Environment right now?
I had a suspicion that I would not get many answers regarding clear new reforms right now. But I still wish that the Minister for Climate and Environment will leave behind something better than a running note when the mandate period is over, and I still wonder what there will be to build on when the Minister for Climate and Environment hands over the job to someone else.
It is difficult to conclude a debate where one has received quite few answers, but I would nevertheless like to thank you for the opportunity to debate and wish everyone a pleasant weekend when the time comes.
Klimat- och miljöministern Romina Pourmokhtari (L)
Mr. Speaker! Let me answer Member Luhrs' question directly. What is it that makes one feel so secure as a liberal Minister for Climate and Environment in a bourgeois government? What makes one feel so secure is that there is a fundamental understanding within the bourgeoisie that it is a catastrophe in terms of emissions when coal power is needed in the electricity system. This is what we see in countries where the Greens rule. We have seen it historically in Sweden. We see it also in Germany today.
One can look at the amount of emissions in Germany per person and especially in total. In comparison with Sweden, the emissions are absurdly high. The Greens in Germany are very proud that they have the fantastic train pass – one can pay a small amount and travel by train in all of Germany. It is something that Miljöpartiet in Sweden has been inspired by. Now they are talking about the Sweden pass, which we are to have in Sweden. One feels a great sense of pride over that.
But what does it matter that subsidized train passes are distributed to all citizens when the trains run on coal power? Is it good for the planet? Is that how one solves climate challenges?
I do not think so. I am very proud that my party Liberalerna, which was then called Folkpartiet, took the fight against many other parties here in this chamber so that we in Sweden would build nuclear power and so that we in Sweden would have clean electricity – against forces such as Miljöpartiet and the Greens who thought that nuclear power seemed scary, and against the Socialdemokraterna who at that time wanted to build coal-fired power plants along the entire Baltic coast.
In a bourgeois cooperation, one understands that the fundamental core of the fact that Sweden, even in 2024, the specific year when emissions increased, had the lowest emissions per capita of all EU countries is our fantastic clean electricity based on hydropower, wind power, and nuclear power. One can be confident of that.
Source: The Swedish Parliament. The speeches come from the open data of the Riksdag, translated into English by AI, which may contain errors.