Climate policies presented by Sweden’s new centre-right coalition will likely contribute to a drastic increase in greenhouse gas emissions during its mandate, equivalent to half of the country’s annual emissions, a new report published on Tuesday has found.
The joint report was published by Klimatkollen, WWF, ClimateView, the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation and Our Children’s Climate.
“The new government’s climate measures could increase greenhouse gas emissions by up to 25 million tonnes during the mandate period, compared to the current climate policy. This is equivalent to half of Sweden’s annual emissions,” WWF wrote in a press release.
According to the organisation, the big boost in emissions is mainly due to the lowering of the fuel reduction obligation.
“The climate measure that has the biggest impact on the final outcome, given the changes proposed by the parties, is the reduction obligation. With the changes to the reduction obligation that SD, the Christian Democrats and the Moderates want to implement, emissions are estimated to increase by 23-24 million tonnes,” the release added.
Green Party spokesperson Per Bolund reacted strongly to the report from the climate organisations.
“This is the real paradigm shift in Swedish politics. Environmental policy is going from full throttle to full speed backwards,” he wrote on Twitter.
However, Sweden’s new Liberal Climate and Environment Minister, Romina Pourmokhtari, stressed that the government had not lowered any ambitions about the Riksdag’s proposal to reduce emissions from transport.
“We have not lowered any ambitions. We will work very hard to see what small measures we can take to get both industry and people to change at the pace we want,” she told TT news agency.
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Source: euractiv.com
