Swedish model: Balancing emission cuts with economic growth

Anne-Sophie Brandlin

Sweden seems to have found the recipe to growing its economy while protecting the climate.

"You don't need to reduce welfare to reduce your climate impact," said Mattias Goldmann, founder of the Swedish 2030-secretariat, who works towards Sweden reaching its climate target for the national transport sector.

Sweden outperforms all other European countries when it comes to reducing net greenhouse gas emissions, according to the European Environment Agency.

The country already emitted five times less carbon dioxide, or CO2, per capita than the European average back in 1990. Since then, Sweden has reduced its net greenhouse gas emissions by another 80%, while the average reduction in the EU has only been 30%.

What's most stunning, though, is that Sweden, a heavily industrialised country which produces steel, cement and cars, managed to clean up its act — while also growing its economy twofold.

So how do you successfully decarbonise an economy while still growing it? The Scandinavian country has some natural advantages. 70% of Sweden is forest land. And forests are very useful when it comes to reducing greenhouse gas emissions because they remove CO2 from the atmosphere. The country is also blessed with a great deal of wind, as well as mountains, streams and lakes — perfect for renewable energy.

But it wasn't just hitting the natural resources jackpot that got the country to where it is now. Sweden realised its natural potential early on and started investing in renewable energy sources much earlier than many other countries. "Sweden has had hydropower for more than a century," according to Goldmann.

They also cut out fossil fuels from their energy mix back in the 1970s, when the global oil crisis hit. When countries were looking for other sources of energy, Sweden substantially built out nuclear energy.

Today, almost 70% of Sweden's electricity comes from renewables, especially hydropower and wind. The rest of its electricity demand is met by nuclear power. This means their greenhouse gas emissions for electricity production are almost zero right now.

"So, they are almost not using any fossil fuels for producing electricity. If you compare it with other countries, that's a whole other world," said Jorre De Schrijver, an energy expert from the European Environment Agency. And it's not just electricity that's now produced without fossil fuels in Sweden — that also goes for heating and energy-intense industrial processes. So, what was the trick there?

The first step was that Sweden invested in district heating systems early on, which are more efficient. This means that instead of having a heater in each home, you build big, centralised heaters that are connected to many houses and industrial areas through insulated pipes and underground infrastructure. "You need the government and the private sector to work together to provide this infrastructure," said Asa Persson, who advises the Swedish government on climate policy and rates its performance.

It's also quite expensive — just think of all the piping you need to lay across entire neighbourhoods. Nonetheless, the government decided to go for this approach early on and stuck with it.

"They saw the benefits of having these bigger system solutions. Sweden as a cold country had a real incentive to have a sort of energy efficient and sort of rational heating system in place to serve inhabitants," said Persson.

The good thing about district heating is that you can shift the fuels that such a system uses. In the past, Sweden relied on fossil fuels like oil and coal. But since the 1990s, the country attached particular importance to the development of renewable energy and energy efficiency, investing in the use of energy, especially wood fuels. Today, 97% of the heating in Sweden comes from biofuels and burning waste.