2019: Report of the Swedish Climate Policy Council

Sweden’s overarching climate target is to reach net-zero emissions of greenhouse gases by 2045, followed by negative emissions. This long-term target is complemented by several interim targets. Those climate targets, the planning and monitoring system regulated under the Swedish Climate Act (2017:720), and the Swedish Climate Policy Council together form Sweden’s climate policy framework. The Climate Act took effect on 1 January 2018 after being adopted by a broad majority of the Riksdag (the Swedish Parliament). The mission of the Swedish Climate Policy Council is to determine if the government’s overall design of policies is compatible with the climate targets adopted by the Parliament and the Government. The Council uses a broad approach to evaluate the comprehensive policy, aiming to assess the effect of different policies on greenhouse gas emission trends. From this broad perspective, we examine the comprehensive policy in two dimensions: leadership and governance, and policy instruments. We define leadership and governance as policy targets, organisation and work procedures. Policy instruments include all the decisions and actions that directly affect citizens, companies and other stakeholders, including taxes, fees, regulations, public-sector consumption and investments. Since 1990, Sweden’s greenhouse gas emissions have decreased by 26%. This reduction mainly took place between 2003 and 2014. Thereafter the rate of reduction slowed, and 2017 was the third consecutive year in which emissions decreased by less than 1%. This rate is far too slow to achieve the climate targets, except for the upcoming 2020 target. The rate of reduction would need to accelerate to between 5% and 8% each year to meet future targets. The Swedish Climate Act states that within the framework of the budget bill, each year the Government must report climate policy decisions and actions taken during the previous year. The first climate assessment was presented to the Parliament together with the 2019 Budget Bill. It lacks assessments of how the reported climate policy decisions and actions might affect emissions. The Government recognised that additional actions are needed in several sectors, but did not state when and how decisions on these actions will be taken. The transitional government at the time said this was due to its limited mandate. This raises the stakes for the four-year Climate Action Plan that the Climate Act requires the Government to present in 2019. To achieve the long-term target, Sweden must reach the interim targets for 2030 and 2040, which include emissions that are not a part of the EU’s Emissions Trading System (EU ETS). All sectors matter, but reaching the 2030 goal depends heavily on progress in the transport sector, because domestic transport accounts for half of Sweden’s current emissions. In light of this, the Climate Policy Council has chosen to more closely examine policies that affect domestic transport emissions in a thematic section in this year’s report. The sectors included in the EU ETS – large-scale industry, civil aviation and power generation – account for almost 40% of Sweden’s greenhouse gas emissions. These sectors are included in the overarching target of net-zero emissions but not in the national interim targets, since the trading system is regulated at the EU level. There is currently no mechanism in place at the EU level to bring emissions covered by the trading system to net-zero in all Member States. Progress on these emissions is not in line with what is required for Sweden to reach its target of net-zero emissions. The report presents ten recommendations to the Swedish government: four general and six for transport policy.Rapporten är en engelska översättning och bearbetning av Klimatpolitiska rådets rapport 2019 på svenska.