Australia is a Corpocracy run by the energy and mining industry, with a plethora of newspapers telling the boomers that offshore wind turbines kill whales....
Australia is a carbon sink. Not that it matters. This is a hoax. Stop treating people like they can’t research that CO2 is 0.004% and dangerously low for plant food reasons. You are frauds. A greenhouse need glass. Sunnis climate.
Mine is being propagandized by conservative grifters out of another country nearby in an attempt to manipulate them into voting for the party that will turn us more into them, selfish, wasteful, and ignorant. *sigh*
How bout some Swedish Oil? *In her book Affärer i blod och olja: Lundin Petroleum i Afrika[26] (Business in blood and oil: Lundin Petroleum in Africa) journalist Kerstin Lundell claims that the company had been complicit in several crimes against humanity, including death shootings and the burning of villages.[27]* *In June 2010, the European Coalition on Oil in Sudan (ECOS)[28] published the report Unpaid Debt,[29] which called upon the governments of Sweden, Austria and Malaysia to look into allegations that the companies Lundin Petroleum, OMV, and Petronas have been complicit in the commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity whilst operating in Block 5A, South Sudan (then Sudan) between 1997-2003.* **The reported crimes include indiscriminate attacks and intentional targeting of civilians, burning of shelters, pillage, destruction of objects necessary for survival, unlawful killing of civilians, rape of women, abduction of children, torture, and forced displacement.** **Approximately 12,000 people died and 160,000 were violently displaced from their land and homes, many forever. Satellite pictures taken between 1994 and 2003 show that the activities of the three oil companies in Sudan coincided with a spectacular drop in agricultural land use in their area of operation.[30]** *Also in June 2010, the Swedish public prosecutor for international crimes opened a criminal investigation into links between Sweden and the reported crimes. In 2016, Lundin Petroleum's Chairman Ian Lundin and CEO Alex Schneiter were informed that they were the suspects of the investigation.* *Sweden’s Government gave the green light for the Public Prosecutor in October 2018 to indict the two top executives[31] On 1 November 2018, the Swedish Prosecution Authority notified Lundin Petroleum AB that the company may be liable to a corporate fine and forfeiture of economic benefits of SEK 3,285 (app. €315 million) for involvement in war crimes and crimes against humanity.[32] Consequently, the company itself will also be charged albeit indirectly, and will be legally represented in court. On 15 November 2018 the suspects were served with the draft charges and the case files.[33]* *They will be indicted for aiding and abetting international crimes and may face life imprisonment if found guilty. The trial is likely to begin by the end of 2020 and may take several years.* *The Swedish war crimes investigation raises the issue of access to remedy and reparation for victims of human rights violations linked with business activities. In May 2016, representatives of communities in Block 5A claimed their right to remedy and reparation and called upon Lundin and its shareholders to pay off their debt.[34] A conviction in Sweden may provide remedy and reparation for a few victims of human rights violations who will be witnesses in court, but not for the app. 200,000 victims who will not be represented in court.* *Lundin Energy endorses the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, acknowledging the duty of business enterprises to contribute to effective remedy of adverse impact that it has caused or contributed to.[35] The company has never refuted publicly reported incriminating facts. Nor has it substantiated its claim that its activities contributed to the improvement of the lives of the people of Sudan.[36] It never showed an interest in the consequences of the oil war for the communities in its concession area. The company maintains a website about its activities in Sudan.[37]* *Criticism has also been directed towards former Minister for Foreign Affairs Carl Bildt, a former board member for the company, responsible for ethics.[38][39] Ethiopia arrested two Swedish journalist Johan Persson and Martin Schibbye and held them for 14 months before the release. Conflict Ethiopian Judicial Authority v Swedish journalists 2011 was caused as the journalist studied report of human rights violation in the Ogaden in connection with activities of Lundin Petroleum.[40]* *The trial against Lundin may become a landmark case because of the novelty and complexity of the legal issues that the Swedish court will have to decide. It would be the first time since the Nuremberg trails that a multibillion-dollar company were to be charged for international crimes. The court is likely to answer a number of important legal questions, including about the individual criminal liability of corporate executives vs. corporate criminal liability of organisations, the applicable standard of proof for international crimes before a national court, and the question whether a lack of due diligence is sufficient for a finding of guilt. On 23 may 2019, the T.M.C. Asser Institute for International Law in The Hague organized a Towards criminal liability of corporations for human rights violations: The Lundin case in Sweden.[41]* *Thomas Alstrand from the Swedish Prosecution Authority in Gothenburg on 13 February 2019 announced that a second criminal investigation had been opened into threats and acts of violence against witnesses in the Lundin war crimes investigation.[42] They have allegedly been pressured not to testify in court. Several witnesses have been granted asylum in safe countries through UNHCR supported emergency protection procedures. The company has confirmed that its CEO and Chairman have been officially informed by the prosecutor about the allegation, noting that it believes that it is completely unfounded.* *Witness tampering is usually intended to prevent the truth from being exposed in court. The second investigation into obstruction of justice seems to contradict the company’s assertions of its good faith cooperation with the war crimes investigation.* *Once court hearings commence in Sweden, the Dutch peace organization PAX and Swedish NGO Global Idé will provide daily English language coverage of proceedings, expert analyses and comments on the website Unpaid Debt.[43]*
I hear ya! Canada is the same way... We used to be a very pitch in together nation, now it's all very Americanized... People can't be bothered unless they benefit financially or in status... Shame...
@@stickynorth I know how you feel. Americans are very standoffish. As if they want to be like China or Russia. Instead of being there for their own neighbors.
Imagine where we would be if the last two hadn't been in decline since mid 2000s. If established parties would've accepted reality instead of doing everything to preserve power we would have exported net 0. Shut down 6 fully functioning nuclear powerplants totaling 4 TW, mostly due to taxation rendering a loss, without building new ones. Total madness when battling CO2 emissions.
@@Kallinihoimagine where we would be if everyone wasn't fighting on the internet and instead tried to cooperate. Politics and social media has become unbearable the last 10 years.
@@moggadah Online is the only place you can voice this concerns without repercussions. If people were just more tolerant in real life, we wouldn't need to fight in real life.
@@1212Diablo I see your point. Sadly I think there's so much darkness online. There's so much hate written. Maybe the internet is a place to air the frustrations, but I'm not sure that it solves the problem? When I read hate I feel hateful myself. Various actors use the hate to promote alternative stories. Before social media the internet was more a place to become enlightened. Today it many times feel like a place to become a bot in some armchair war. There are good things to social media as well, but the bad parts are scary.
Another Canadian here who agrees with that. I would add that currently we have 3 provincial governments that want to take us as far back as possible, including getting rid of our Federal Carbon Tax even though the revenues are returned to Canadians based on their income.
This Albertan wholeheartedly agrees with that statement. The FF industry said Alberta couldn't kill coal or at least not before 2050, but thanks to the short-lived NDP government of 2015-2019, it was on track to kill it by 2020. Instead it was refueled last week thanks to COVID delays in converting Genesee power station to natural gas but it's still more than possible to go from 80% coal powered to 0% coal powered within only a few years. And yes NG is only a bridge fuel until more nuclear is built along with renewables and battery storage...
I say nationalize the energy sector in Canada under Petro-Canada and ban LNG exports which is Big Oil's last large and violent play for attention and power... And also mandate that every Petro-Canada fueling station in Canada also has DC fast-chargers...
Also a Canadian... Our nation is not very resilient against the lies of the fossil fuel industry. "If you don't emit carbon, you won't pay the carbon tax" is such a reasonable stance, but many, many people here believe that they can't chose a better way. The initial outlay of switching to electric heat, or a car-light lifestyle, or even buying a heat pump is out of reach. Making a few short-term sacrifices for a long-term improvement is unfortunately not a popular move here. Sadly, it seems likely that our next government could be even less progressive than our current one, so it's tough to be optimistic here.
I am also a Canuck living in British Columbia. Our progressive government just the other day announced a new full rebate on heat pumps for home owners. The rebate is paid to the contractor at 100% of cost. The current penetration of heat pumps in BC is 14%. I installed one in my rather largish home on a small lake and I only paid $670 for it new. Easy to install and can heat a room of 450 to 750 square feet. But the Conservatives want to stop these incentives, alleging that fossil fuels do not change climate after they are burned.
While almost all of this information is factual, you are omitting or just missing some key points. As a Swede it’s always been incredibly clear to me, even from childhood, that we put in a lot of great work as a nation even before I was born, and throughout my life. The keys were that the government pushed for stuff that would just make it safer and cheaper to live here and business got behind it. All good and well. Today however we have had leadership, from most political parties, for a couple decades, that has been too scared to push for real change and is instead great at shuffling numbers. Most national experts show how we’ve failed miserably in rail (both passenger and cargo), forestry (monoculture, biodiversity loss, inflated carbon capture), and more. Plus we have huge companies that have production and other parts of their business outside of Sweden. That means the emissions can be huge and still not count as being Swedish. Our current government actually shut down the department of environment after like half a century. And many global and local environmental groups have shown very clearly how our current leadership are mostly purposely missing the target and failing to address crises, because private interests and economic growth comes first. We’re a nation that has done a lot well in this arena. But to highlight Sweden now, when we’re doing our worst job in decades, feels very strange to me as a Swede.
Thank you. I was looking for this comment. Particularly about pollution from the Swedish industry outside of Sweden not counting. Not to knock the effort.
100% agreeing with this. Not to mention that our highest environmental impact is in fact not transport, but rather private consumption. (At least from a report I read in ~2014) We tend to look away from those numbers as they viewed as "other countries" problems. But countries like Bangladesh, China etc is just the manufacturing hub catering for our lavish lifestyle. Chinese people themselves are not the ones living in excess, Western countries are. So in order to make the biggest difference in climate politics we need to do something about our reliance on consumption and consumerism. I would much rather see us switch more and more into a service economy. Where we value quality- , repair-, 2nd hand- , and reuse- of existing products.
This proves that decarbonisation isn't a drain on the economy. Edit: I understand it's easier for rich countries to decarbonise, but the point is it didn't cost Sweden it's economic growth.
Sweden's GDP has had the lowest growth in the EU the passed few years. Not saying that is purely because of climate policy, but lets be clear with the facts.
You wouldn’t think it’s going this good listening to the news in Sweden. All we hear is how the government is failing the environment and more needs to be done.
@@christer8964other western European countries are taking in more refugees atm, and with the growing need for engineers and people in healthcare, we need to take in immigrants 😅
@@christer8964 Immigration does not end those things. Also, the new measures from Sweden center-right government have reduced shootings to 2018 year level (2019-2023 was very high) for 2024 and I would expect it to continously be reduced with more measures.
i'm swedish and my dad says "why should we continue and be this good when the rest of the world don't try", i remind him that this is a part of the Swedish pride that we punch above our weight class, for all of history swden have always been punching above it's weight class which beggs the question "why can't countries that's more well of do the same" (USA and other Europe countries)
Hey Frederick! Yes, great distance is a different thing in Australia 😄 Glad you liked our reporting on the topic. We post videos every Friday, we would be happy to see you subscribe ✨
@@alexfy7401 but like 90% of canadians live in a space close to the US border, which is approximately the same size as sweden. Canada may be big, but 80% of the landmass is useless for development, emitting no greenhouse gasses. Most people don't drive from the alaskan border to nova scotia every day
Hey, Swede here. Not claiming to represent all the opinions or feelings over here but still. We definitely were what you described in some ways during the last century. It’s however definitely not the case any more and they missed a ton of the recent history in this piece. Long story short: we’ve been heading towards, and keep heading towards being just as greedy, not about the world or common man, and generally nasty as most western countries. We just used to do smart shit at a slightly higher degree and be slightly more about collective and planet. And we can still ride that wave somewhat
@@markotrieste Let's pretend the Sweden Democrats don't exist. They are basically the Trump party of Sweden. And they are the second most popular party... Let's ignore everything.
You talk of a corrupted govt but don't forget - the purpose of any govt and any politician is to attain power and then retain it. It might be argued that the problem here is democracy: any government has only 5 years in most countries to achieve goals (esp. around climate change) that cannot be achieved in such a short time. This, along withthe threat of losing power through becoming unpopular, is reason enough not to act bravely. China is a leading example of how to create a 30 year plan. Despite having the same dictator for 30 years, Russia is not. This is ultimately about a social mentality and as the U.K.'s and many other countries' societies change culturally, this mentality is probably even more unattainable. Additionally, people only think selfishly and for only their lifetime. They are also unable to recognise the subtle changes in our environment, complaining that it's too hot/cold/wet/dry for them to enjoy their lives.
Well, as oil got expensive noone wanted to use that to heat the house or industry. Sweden has most of its energy from hydro and nuclear plants and lately also wind... This is since way back... Not all countries has hydro possibilities... Hyrdo power is important as you can plan and control the production. Most houses in the norrhern part uses ground heat pumps simply because it saves a huge amount of cost (and energy). A factor 4 for my own house... There has also been goverment taxreduction on energy improvements... So basically greed has effectively gotten us where we are.
The biggest and most important decisions were made in the 70 and 80-tis. It's not like Sweden is on track with its goals today. It will miss the European 2030 goal for example while other countries in Europe will succeed.
Yeah, Sweden is failing the climate goal because the messuring point is the 1990 emissions which is after Sweden started reducing their emissons. Having an emissions per capita goal would make it more fair as the EU 2030 goal punishes early reducers since it becomes harder and harder to reduce one's emissons by a set percentage when one already reduced one's emissions before.
Some what true. But in fact Sweden has all ready met the target for EU 2030 as they where originaly set up by the EU berfore it was setup. That include the reduction of a countrys emission based on areal of forest. But the current goverment at that time chosed to not include our forest areal as a redeuction factor. And that why we may miss the target for EU 2030 emission target.
@@gregorymalchuk272 Germany reduced their debt. It's not really a recession. France has double the debt and doesn't have a official recession. Italy is even worse. Germany has a healthy economy, they do not. The Germans and the Swedes are the ones who will buy the France and Italian assets when those countries fall. Italy and France already had to be saved. The got saved by Germany because the northern EU low debt countries didn't want to save them. That's not happening again, because Italy and France did not learn and have a way to high deficit again. Italy and France should've been in recession for the last 30 years. They will be soon though. Sweden has one of the lowest debt to gdp's in Europe. They could borrow like crazy for the next 20 years and still be under the 60% guideline of EU debt to gdp. 32.7% debt to gdp is nothing.
@@AmanitaMuscaria-w1p150 years ago, Sweden was Europe's poorest country. How do you think welfare is created? Education, transparent and a non-corrupt society, free people, and hard work, is what creates welfare.
The Best time to start was Yesterday. The next best time is Now. It was not magic. A lot of regular people campaigned for change, and took a lot of QoL hits to push for these changes.
do basically a science-based long term policies from a government that cares about it's people and future generations (which is basically a lottery chance for any non-nordic countries)
We who live in sweden think of what we do as shit and not enough so when we se how non swedes react and what other contries act to it react to it we kind of shit our pants.
The previous goverment were also great at shuffling numbers, changing goals and redefining problems. Swedish business, especially smaller ones are amazing and a huge driving force and our native workforce is mostly hard working, the politicians, at least the last 20-30 years has just inherited that. They closed down nuclear to burn oil and buy coal power, spent billions in vanity projects that benefit the early investors (government officials) and has tanked our future with crime and the worst performing schools in the EU, and have suggested closing the best performing ones to make the decline the same for all :/
I'm from Sweden. A lot of this is pure green-washing really. 1. We have outsourced much of our production to countries like China and don't count emissions resulting from our ever increasing consumption as part of our emissions. Nor do we count international air travel, of which we are unfortunately masters. 2. We count energy from biomass as carbon-neutral and have converted a lot of our district heating to that. Nothing could be further from the truth however, in fact new studies show that it may be even worse than oil and coal. Decoupling GDP growth and emissions is very very hard and it's not something we have achieved as of yet.
Could you please make a video like this on the climate change reality of Argentina? I'm an environmental scientist and climate change and carbon markets expert from Argentina. Would love to see more content on the global south!
Decaying wood from dead trees produces more CO2 per year than burning fuel does. Trees are carbon neutral over their life, they only remove CO2 when they are growing. Then there is volcanic activity on top.
Meanwhile in scandinavia; the inhabitants thinks theyre waaay behind. - what does that tell us about the rest of the world?? Theyre not only behind, theyre still contributing to the problems of even getting started
Always when countries explicitly talk about their electricity production I get suspicious and check the AIB European Residual Mixes report expecting to see that the total supplier mix will be something completely different. For Sweden, no notes on this front. Share of renewable energy in the top 10 for Europe.
The interesting thing is that Sweden hasn't always been rich, or hoarded a massive imperial wealth like some European countries. 60 years ago it was a small country, with a small economy, and a small population without much capital distributed among them. It comes to show how people unified by clear priorities can develop more constructive political systems and agreements that don't compromise on long term planning.
0:45 Finland has a target of net zero emissions by 2035. That is 10 years before Sweden, so actually, Finland has a tougher target, especially as we have less hydropower. When it comes to electricity, Finland is already practically guaranteed to meet it with a combination of nuclear, wind, hydro, and biomass, with nuclear and wind being the big ones. When it comes to the rest of energy-related emissions, there is still work to do, and Finland has similar problems as Sweden, for example the cold climate and low population density makes it harder to make electric cars viable. Also, agriculture has barely cut its emissions over decades.
@@bjoardar Finland has solved its nuclear waste problem. First country in the World to do so. But Sweden is actually ahead in goals, and the agriculture + transport are problems in Finland too
@@bjoardar No free lunch. All energy generation methods (on large scales, at least) have downsides - hydro power very much included! If my house is on fire, I will happily accept urine being used to put it out and worry about the damage from that afterwards. Or differently put: The rewilding of Chernobyl proves that "business as usual" human activity is worse for the natural world than nuclear radiation.
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My dad was part of the team that first came up with the carbon tax and the road taxes of the big cities (trängselavgift). In both cases, the original plan was to use those funds to fund environmentally friendly things, like railway and public transport. Neither happened. Usually it went to building roads and to give tax breaks to the industrial sector.
Unfortunately what is said in the interviews is not true. Sweden has begun to import big quantities of coal produced electricity since the green party (MP) forced the previous government to close down nuclear power. Also oil fuelled power production has been restarted in winter time. Warmer winters due to warmer climate has also been a factor in reduced emissions. When it comes to fossil free steel the required electricity needed to produce the hydrogen is not available yet and the need is equal to Finlands entire electricity production! This very ambitious project will most certainly fail because of that. If DW would interview other "experts" than representatives from the green party a more true picture would most certainly emerge.
The problem in Sweden isn't lack of electricity, Sweden is one of the biggest electricity exporters in Europe. The problem is that other countries in Europe hasn't secured their electricity production. Yes, there is a couple of times Sweden can't produce their own electricity without import, but that's why the electricity in Europe are connected. If we learn to save electricity in an economy way in big scale there would be less problems fot Sweden, sell less and save it when its needed.. But in the future we need more electricity, the question is should Sweden increase their or should other European countries secure their own electricity?
They said that we in Sweden produce clean energy and it’s all good. What they don’t mention is that the energy price has gone through the roof. Especially in southern Sweden. We’ve had days in the winter where they’ve warned about energy shortages and with possibly shutting down electricity for some areas (didn’t occur though). Because of the energy shortage in winter time we’ve had to start up some oil burning plants to meet the demand for energy and sometimes even import energy from other countries that burn coal and oil. Sweden has done a lot of good when it comes to the environment, but it’s not all good and a lot of people are struggling with paying their electricity bills.
Actually, the increase in CO2 last year does not come from transport but from electricity production. The former green/left goverment shut down nuclear plants to the extent that we had to start using oil/coal plants in mid-winter 2022-23. Personal car transportation has NOT increased drastically due to general high cost, however the EV market has slowed down globally as the public gotten aware of the problems of the infancy of the technology. Also Sweden’s size makes for longer car travels which actuates these issues further; many charging stops etc.
Nice video, here is some more big problems we have in sweden: 1. Only 9% of the 70% forest is actually protected. 2. They are voting against the passage of som really important EU-laws, like the nature-restoration-law. 3. We still emit 8 times more co2 than what the paris-agreement says we should. 4. Our big banks still invests their monney into co2-monsters. The financed emissions is about 76 million tons of co2 per year, which is more than everyone in sweden emits combined.
I don't know what to say. Bangladesh is one of the most severely affected countries in terms of climate change. However, when it comes to adaptability and other capabilities to mitigate climate change issues, we rank much lower. Our government and other institutions have much to learn from the initiatives taken by Swedish authorities to address climate change. It is also very challenging for us to switch to alternative and climate-efficient energy sources. We lack significant wealth, but our government is striving to implement such policies. For example, in 2024, Bangladesh became the 33rd nuclear power nation by establishing a nuclear power plant in Southern Bangladesh to power its industries, reducing dependence on fossil fuels that contribute to global warming. Despite these efforts, we still have much to do, even though we have limited capabilities.
About "hardly burns any fossily fuels anymore": We started to follow in Germanys footsteps about shutting down our nuclear power plants and now we are burning 70.000 liters of oil per hour in the middle of the summer in the warmest part of the country (in Karlshamn). We are losing production of goods to other countries because our power grid is too old and under dimensioned, and even if it wasn't we could not produce the electricity that they need. The wind farms are not profitable and too expensive to maintain and the hydro power has to work harder to compensate for that. We have hydro dams where I live and I've never seen the water level as low as it has been this summer. The summer is almost over and even though it has been raining a lot, the water level is still below where it should be. We also had some wind turbines for winter testing up here and it turns out that they can throw ice blocks weighing up to 60kg several hundred meters during the winter so they had to issue warnings about that in every issue of the local paper through the winters. It would be nice if someone could make a video about the hard and really expensive future Sweden is facing instead of videos about how fantastics everything is. Like: Is it even possible to produce and push out enough electricity for creating steel with hydrogen, and how many years into the future will it take before we have all that extra energy production? Who will finance it? How much will it raise the already really high taxes? How expensive will the electricity become until then?
Sweden’s parliament has voted on a target of the equivalent in 10 new large reactors to be built. One per million inhabitants. And they’re already today one of the most electrified and clean countries in Europe!
«cheaper electricity», green energy is being sold at premium price in EU market, making it more expensive to buy, then energy produced with carbon. everyone wants to be green, this why green energy has become expensive.
The price has increased 3-5 x in only 10 years so no, it has rather resulted in an unstable electrical grid, the use of emergency back-up generators regularly and strain on infrastructure.
This makes me think of a quote from Jerzey Gregorek: "Hard choices, easy life. Easy choices, hard life.” If we keep making the easy choices now (cheep cars, cheep fuel) we will be getting that bill later on. However, if we make the hard choices right now and work for a better future, we will be having a way more easy life after the investment.
Most of the forest area in Sweden, like in Norway, is monoculture plantation forest, which might store some carbon but does a worse job at even that compared to old-growth forest. And of course biodiversity is poor. It might all look "green" from an airplane, but a forest is not just a forest and a tree is not just a tree. (On the upside, this means that replacing a tree plantation with e.g. a wind farm is not as big of a nature loss as one might initially think.)
Hello! Im swedish and my father manages some hectares of forest. According to Skogsindustrierna (the swedish forestry industries) 25% of swedish forests are to some level used for forestry today, with almost none of it being monocultures. We have stricter and stricter regulations on how forestry is conducted. For example, always leaving 10% of trees in an area as older trees fill different functions in forest ecosystems and aid in ecosystem recovery. Many foresters also subscribe to even more precautions as recommendations to lessen the damage done to the ecosystem. Swedish forestry can definitely become more sustainable for biodiversity, but I dont agree with your evaluation of the situation.
@@7UVA The source you cite says the exact opposite of what you claim. 75% of all forest in Sweden is used for forestry while 25% is exempt. Also, monoculture is a matter of definition. For me, planted coniferous forest is leaning towards monoculture and forest inventory has shown that the percentage of mixed broadleaf/coniferous forest has decreased from 34% to 7% in the last 100 years.
And it will happen everywhere else, as indeed it has in Germany, where conventional Green parties (by which I mean, green parties founded as part of the 70s anti-nuclear movement) are allowed influence. It's not based on facts to them, it's based on a lifelong opposition to nuclear that is now old enough to have grandchildren
«cheaper electricity», green energy is being sold at premium price in EU market, making it more expensive to buy, then energy produced with carbon energy. people can’t afford heating.
Here in Sweden, the natuonal councillor Axel Oxelstierna in mid 1600 built a state structure, where government agencies were made independent from politics and should be run by experts. Politicians are only allowed to set the main strategies and goals. This makes that the daily operations are run by experts rooted in facts not populism. The create trust in the society and between people. That is the reason our system works pretty well in the energy transformation but was also seen in the way we handled corona where the expert run the show and politicians were not allowed to intervene... A winning concept for us in Sweden.
This sounds as celestial music to my Norwegian ears. Here in Norway, politician do whatever they fancy in the state, the communities and regions. This spring for instance we had 44 thousand projects destroying nature (ref Baard Tufte Johansen in Tilsynsmannen in NRK).
Sweden embraced nuclear and waste-to-energy plants and they manage their forests in a way that produces lots of timber products and young replanted forest that suck up CO2. The US works hard to block these key components that worked for Sweden.
Young replanted forests emit more than they sequester. Takes decades to get to net positive for most tree species. As a Swede I promise, our timber industry is dirty as all hell.
The US reduced its coal usage by 62% last year, an amazing statistic! In the last quarter(three month period) California produced more energy than it consumed from solar and wind, which is a first for the state. The state of Texas has now become America’s largest producer of solar and wind energy. America now produces 8 times the amount of solar energy it did nine years ago. Some climatologist insist that the burning of wood, biomass, is not as climate friendly as some pose it to be. 😮
Climate is global, not national. Nations, in order to get a good "carbon neutral" score, have to shuffle numbers around, do statistical trickery, pass carbon taxes and policies, change definitions, and do extensive emissions trading. It's all cheating. According to the Global Carbon Budget, annual global emissions have steadily gone up since 1750 and there's no actual decrease except for in 2020 when almost the entire world was quarantined. And even then it was only ~2 billion tonnes. Just a year later in 2021, carbon emissions were back to 2018 levels and in 2022, carbon emissions had exceeded 2019 levels.
As a Swede I can say that the forest management part is quite a controversial topic right now, currently we are having problems with deforestation being faster than replanting which has resulted in the cutting down of ancient natural forests.
This is a very skewed depiction which doesn't point out the horrible political decisions our politicans have made regarding energy policy the past 10-15 years. Shutting down several nuclear reactors have made our entire energy system very unstable (especially in the southern parts of the country) and made us dependent on importing lots of electricity from other countries. Electricity prices has sky-rocketed as the government has spent billions on unreliable windpower. Engineers and professors now estimate that it will take a minimum of 10 years to rebuild the necessary nuclear power stations that's needed to turn it around. This means the unstable power network and insane prices will continue for many many years. It's a fking shitshow and I can't believe the politicans responsible for this aren't in jail.
In 2019, Greta Thunberg wrote that Sweden has not reduced its CO2 emissions at all since 1990, considering all factors. In the Climate Change Performance Index, Sweden ranks only 7th out of 64 countries. So yes, Sweden may be better than many other countries, but just "doing what Sweden has done" is not enough to combat climate change.
TBF, "Doing what Sweden has done" would have to include serious changes starting in the 1970s, so nobody who hasn't done that can "do what Sweden has done". Basically Sweden is the model for if people took Science seriously in the 70s and 80s, then started acting like everyone else for the next 30 years.
@@DWPlanetA They also lowered standards to make it lower priced, which is one of the reasons we will miss the climate goals, thanks to the conservatives and populists in government
- I wouldn't call trees removing CO2 from the atmosphere "reducing emissions". Those trees would have sequestered that CO2 whether it was emitted or not. - You can have a thousand "big lakes" and you won't be producing any hydropower if they are all at the same altitude, you probably meant to say that Swedens mountainous geography is perfect for hydropower. Overall could have used some more nuance in this video as well. @tedforsstromjacobsson4160's comment is great.
Sweden’s forests are key in carbon capture and reduced emissions. Because of this, Sweden is set to become the worlds first industrialized welfare state to reach net zero sometime in the 2020s or 2030s. A shining example for the world that being economically developed, having a big export oriented industry, economic growth and a strong welfare state is compatible with Net zero targets.
DW should have investigated deeper before they made this video. When it came to electricity production they had the best electricity system in the world with no carbon emissions. The whole grid was supplied by either water power or nuclear energy. Back then they had 12 nuclear reactors working and today they have 6. What they have gained is wind turbines that makes an unstable grid, specially in southern Sweden where most of the population lives. Zone 4 has the worst and most unreliable power supply in Europe. Since 2017 the loss from wind power have annually been 2 billion kroner and in average the wind turbine companies have had an annual loss of 39%. I have not heard of any other business sector that have such losses over time and not gone bankrupt. 80% of wind companies have foreign owners with Switzerland,Belgium and China owning most. Why China has such a big share could be politically motivated but for the two other countries it is probably driven by greed. Then you ask how can they make money on something that is loosing money. The answer is quite simple. EU have put up huge warrants for so called green projects. With such a warranty it is easy for these companies to get very cheap bank loans at extremely low interest rate, say 2%. Some banks have less moral than others and will not have second thoughts to lend these companies money as long as they have solid warranty that guarantees the banks will get their money back if the project fails. The companies that now have the loans now establish a mother company either in Luxembourg or Switzerland since the banking system there is not transparent and it is nearly impossible to find out whom owns the companies and how they operate. They could be owned by criminals, banana republic dictators or just billionaires or millionaires that don’t want to pay taxes to their home countries. These companies then establish a daughter company in Sweden that build the wind farms and run them. The daughter company lend the money from the mother company at say 8% interest rate. That means that the mother company can skim 6% of the project to what ever they want and can continue to do so even if the company in Sweden loses money all the time as long as the loss doesn’t get to high. With no income they don’t have to pay tax to Sweden and can probably write off a lot as well. If the mother company have been located in Sweden this would have been a crime but since they operate from an other country it is not , and in Switzerland and Luxembourg it is nearly impossible to investigate companies. As for green steel production it is an insane project that would require more energy than Finland uses today. In fact to comply with the demand for hydrogen you have to build of the same amount of electricity that all the nuclear plants in France produce today. Good luck with that. Yes, Sweden is trying to add biodiesel and methanol into their fuel but to work properly they have to use all the biodiesel they can get from Europe and they import methanol from Brazil. Where is the carbon reduction in that? The only thing you risk is that older machines breaks down because they cannot handle this mix. Companies and politicians like to promote themselves as green but in many cases this is just a false facade for the public and if you digg deeper it is not so nice after all. In many cases the word green would have made it more true if it had been replaced with greed.
That was long..... Didn't read everything. Sorry. But Sweden produced more electricity than they need, right now at least. The biggest problem isn't the nuke power plants in Sweden that's closed. The problem is that other countries in mainly Europe not secured their electricity production at all. And if you look at France, that normally is the biggest electricity export country in Europe had huge problems with their nuke power so the electricity prices in even Sweden was effected. Nuke power isn't a cheap and secure power source, it's good but not at all perfect. And why should Sweden have a lot of nuke power plants so export even more electricity to other countries, wouldn't it be better they produce their own. The biggest problem for Sweden is their power grid, from North sweden to the south.
@@henrikl4244 Sweden have sufficient electricity in the north but have big problems in the south where most of the population lives. In the days when they had 12 nuclear power plants they had no problem balancing the grid because they had the needed base load that was made by large generators. It is the same grid they have today but they can only utilize maximum 75% of the capacity it was built for due to lack of sufficient base load in the south. To make this base load you need big generators and then you can choose between fossil fuel,hydro power or nuclear. In the south they don’t have any rivers they can build out and if you don’t want to emit CO2 your only option is nuclear. Thanks to large export of nuclear energy from France Central Europe have avoided major blackouts. In 2021 Europe was 4 minutes away from a major blackout that would have been felt portion of the continent. Nuclear power is expensive to build but cheap to run and with a lifespan of at least 60 years it will be profitable in the long run. If you understand Swedish I suggest you look up Jan Blomgren on TH-cam. He is a professor in nuclear science and also an expert on electrical power systems. His presentations he speaks in a way that most people understand and not like a know it all professor. He clearly points out how the Swedish power grid has been weakened since 1985 and why.
@@alicequayle4625 In principle,yes. However it is a bad investment and the risk of loosing a lot of money is very high if not certain. If you are alone that might work but the more turbines there are the more likely it is to fail. Simply put if it blows to much there is an overcapacity in the net and you may have to sell with negative profit and if it doesn’t blow you have to buy electricity expensive from other sources to meet your obligations. In the last five years Sweden has had an annual loss of 2 billion Swedish krona every year.
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Sweden is my country and around 994 our power was around 50% hydro, 45% nuclear and 5% fossil, so the wind has only takes those last 5% away from the power emissions. Then we need to increase our power production by 50%-100% too, which may be hard without no new hydro or nuclear..
One of the reasons for this is that in Sweden the climate change is very clearly right in front of us. The weather has changed so much in the last 20 years like crazy hot summers and much more rain in a shorter time compared to before, going from 14 days of 1-2 mm of rain to like 1-2 days of 14 mm rain.
@@svenw-u3f Finland, Denmark, and Norway. With your last sentence, you might want to check up with Google Translate. But if I am to imagine what you said; Happiness index, Corruption Index, and Social Progress Index. And I can keep going: Foundations of well-being, Opportunity index, Nutrition and basic medical care, Housing for the poor, Personal safety, Access to basic knowledge, Access to information and communcations, Health and Wellness, Personal rights, Access to advanced education, etc. Sweden is behind in so many of these areas.
@@svenw-u3f To be fair, Sweden is in the top five, sure ...but that's purely because most countries are even worse. Sweden is utterly terrible, in very many ways and in very many areas. Just less bad, than most of the World ...and very elitist and arrogant, towards it neighbours, despite how it really should learn from them.
crazy that even in a society that managed to reduce their dependance on fossil fuels so much, the moment "the economy" goes bad the conservative solution is to "pump the gas". which economy are they helping really?
Its funny how they forget to mention that the politicians wanted to close the nuclear power plants and therefore have been running Karlshamn that at max capacity use 140,000L oil an hour
Some facts, Karlshamn is a so called strategic reserve. That means that it is put on standby when the grid is strained a few hours per year. Those hours are cheaper environmentally and economically speaking than subsidicing an entire industry. That strategic reserve have never been actually been needed...
@@minip137 in case you didnt know there's a war in europe making energy more of a scarce resourse. I.e forcing sweden to use it's "strstegic" energy production.
@@filipnilsson9514 you make your assumptions seem like the truth? Do you sometimes fool yourself? "Att Karlshamnsverket används alltmer frekvent är en direkt följd av att Sverige stängt ned planerbar kraftproduktion i södra Sverige. Något som flera av våra grannländer också har gjort, säger kraftverkschefen Henrik Svensson, och refererar bland annat till att Sverige och Tyskland under de senaste två decennierna stängt ett 20-tal reaktorer i förtid." "Karlshamnspowerplant is used more regularly is a direct cause of that Sweden shut down plannable energy, something many neighboring countries aswell have done says the powerplant chef Henrik Svensson[...]."
@@minip137 The main reason the Karlshamn plant is running is because there's a shortage in Poland or Germany and we have to offer our electricity on the european market.
What they don't mention in this video is that because we are in the EU we are obligated to sell our green electricity to other EU countries, that would not have been a problem if it wasn't for the amount we sell. Right now we sell too much so we need to buy "dirty" electricity from other countries so everyone here in Sweden can have electricity, the left part here in Sweden actually wanted to make a policy so that the electrical companies here couldn't sell more power then what the Swedish population needs. But who was the biggest adversary to this proposal??, yes the electrical companies are earning huge amounts of money from selling our green electricity. They said it was a terrible idea because they would lose a large amount of income.
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It's true Swedish forestry has been cutting down the landscape for 6 decades now and is cutting on lots of the natural forests all over the country. They are decreasing every year.
Like they do alot. Just look at France that normally is the biggest electricity exporters in Europe but one year Sweden was it because of their huge problems with many nuke power plants.
The problem isn't because of Sweden closing down it's nuclear power plant. Sweden produce at an over capacity. The issue is that the EU imposed a system where Germany could simply bid on Swedish produced electricity just like any other private commodity. EU also forced the country to be split up into regions rather then national prices to create free market incentives. Since there's far less production in Sweden's south and Germany made it self dependent on a genocidial dictator for it's energy, which they were prone to turn off, they replace that plan by draining southern Sweden's electricity production while northern Sweden have no issues what so ever. The problem is Russia in combination with failed German foreign policy and It's naive strategic outlook.
It’s really not, it’s one of the healthiest in Europe. The problem is that it is exporting much of it to neighboring countries like Germany that drives up the price in the winter when it’s needed the most.
Sweden has been a net exporter of energy since several decades - the issue is EU regulations on energy exports that increase Swedish prices (and even at the worst of times during the energy crisis 2022-2023, Sweden still had the cheapest energy in the EU). The closing of some nuclear reactors has been compensated by huge investments in wind power which is a much cheaper, safer and especially faster way of installing new energy compared to nuclear which takes about 20 years and is several times more expensive per megawatt. Nuclear is also fully reliant on tax money while wind power is way more viable for private investments.
This is just an exercise in calculation. Sweden has forests yes but they don't do anything to reduce any carbon anywhere. Any carbon captured will just be admitted once the trees are cut down. Finland has just as much Forest but different legislation means that we don't count the same Way as the sweeds. We used to and got similar results. But the reality is that it's all greenwashing and we are all heavily dependant on Fossil fuels
Sweden said an important example of meeting their climate goals without ruining livelihoods people rely on their income from. And the government is working with the private sector to meet an important goal.
They did ruin people's livelihoods. Sweden has low economic growth, below population growth and the country is getting poorer. Like Germany who has been in recession for 1.5 years now. Even if carbon taxes shave only a few percent off of GDP growth, compound growth means that it gets amplified massively over time.
Sweden is currently in the process of destroying its industries though the removal of nuklear energy while electrifying steel production causing and exporting electricity to germany causing prices to jump by 100:s of percent during winter which destroys the wellbeing of the less fortunate people who can not afford the new price of electricity. Sweden is currently an example of what not to do since every policy that the government implemented since 2018 has just destroyed the economy without much results.
Hi Swedish guy here. This is all true, but there's also a current government that is actively and openly working against this improvement. Lower taxes on plan-tickets, making gasoline and diesel cheaper by lessning the carbon reduction demands etc are examples of policies that have gained them power and elections. So as with many good initiatives and progress - it can be undone (or at least halted) by politicians that don't see the world the same way. keep them real by being informed. Thanks DW Planet!
1:45 This is a paradox, because, while Sweden produces a lot of green energy, it's too expensive to consume, so we sell it and import coal-energy from germany. And that's not a conspiracy, you can look up E-ON and Sydkraft and where their facilities are located. Also, since they recently shut down one of the main nuclear reactors, there's been a major energy crisis where we've had to burn 140 liters of oil per hour to compensate for the nuclear power plant, and no other plant in sight to replace the old one. Sweden is literally F'ed, we already had problems before they shut down the power plant but now it's even worse.
1:03 forests does not reduce CO2 in atmosphere. It is only when a new forest is growing. A mature forest will be in equilibrium, as CO2 will be released as trees rot.
Swede here, small (bank)note! The green 100kr notes flying across the screen at 2:55 are our old ones of Carl von Linné. Nowadays we have a blue note with Swedish actress Greta Garbo, seen as one of the greatest actresses of the 1920’s & 30’s!
Regarding the last note on how Sweden’s conservative parties are un-doing a lot of the changes: we had the highest diesel price per litre only beaten by Hong-Kong. Sweden is a large country by european standards, I have about 70km to work, so it felt as if I was beeing punished every time I fueled up my car to take myself to work and make money. At one point I just wanted to quit and be unemployd due to the high diesel prices. The conservatives made the price for gas and diesel humane and realistic, they’re not un-doing anything apart from not making hard working people suicidal.
It's more about encouraging people to take other forms of transportation I think. I don't know what your situation looks like but a lot of people fuel up their car and drive to work when they could have taken a train or a bus, or even a bike if they live close enough to work. So if gas and diesel are expensive it encourages people to take the transport methods that are both cheaper and better for the environment. It's of course difficult for people in more rural areas, or people who don't have a good transit connection to their job for instance, but it's still a big net gain if it's slightly too expensive for some people but it makes a lot of people choose other transport methods.
@@ViktorVonfuling I can’t use public transport to work, it’d make my commute unrealistically long. Besides, I hate public transportation; even if I had the ability to use public transportation, I wouldn’t. An EV would be my option, but the nice comfortable EV’s required for long commutes are pricey, which I don’t mind in my financial situation, but the loss in value in the car itself due to the km’s I rack up annually makes it too painful. The retirement situation for my generation (zoomer) looks very bleak, so loosing all that cash in car depreciation is something I’m trying to avoid if I wanna have a chance at retiring at all.
@@jgripen969 Right, given how far you have to go it makes sense. But like I said, a lot of people who could easily take transit or even cycle to work (as in they live in the same city as their job) drive anyway, and if those people change their mode of transport that would be a big step in the right direction. So shouldn't government policy try to take that step in the right direction? Lowering gas prices does benefit people in your position, but you are a minority in this case, and lowering gas prices also enables a lot of people who definitely don't *need* to drive to do so without actually paying for the damage they cause.
@@ViktorVonfuling This is why so many are against the left in Sweden. They only think about the city people in topics of environment. A large part of the Swedish population lives in the countryside, especially in the north. And many of us don't have the option to take public transportation even if we wanted to.
@@jgripen969 then move closer to your place of work, or change jobs to a position nearby. Why must everything be worse because a minority, like you, want things both ways?
there is a lot that has been conveniently omitted in this Sweden has been producing almost 80% of their electricity using nuclear power plants and hydroelectric infrastructure for decades they are "green" because they have geography to build hydroelectric and were always investing in nuclear, and recently started swapping nuclear for wind power portraying a country with this massive advantage over others is not a good or fair
They didn't omit this at all. It's one of the first things that are said in the video. They mention advantages in terms of forests, lakes (rivers) and wind: 0:58 They also mention that Sweden started investing in nuclear in the 70s: 2:03
@@ersia87 yes, they mention it in one sentence. Where in reality the whole thing would not be possible to achieve without those advantages. They are praising a rich guy for having nice things but won't go in depth how he got them... he won a lottery
A few items not mentioned: The "green" party managed to close down several nuclear power plants, causing the electricity system to become dangerously unstable and at times prices soar. Even in summertime fossilfuel power plants have had to be started when there has been too little wind. They also stopped plans for building new nuclear power plants, thus delaying by a decade the power base needed for making steel without CO2 emissions. The prices on petrol and above all diesel were extremely high as by law, there had to be a lot fossil-free elements mixed into the fuel. This had the result that Sweden imported a large part or the _world_ supply of materials needed for this. That is not the way to save the climate. Our current government is more concerned with doing things the right way in the long run rather than posing in the media, where the journalists massively support the political left.
Indeed! Sweden was at it is best before the Green party came to power. Now they have kicked us back a century of progress. The fossil power plant in Karlshamn was mouthballed in 1980 to be used as a reserve in case if another power plant got bombed out in a potential war with the Soviet union / Warsaw pact. Today it is spewing out fossil co2 just to keep up with normal demand. There is not enough capacity to transform or electrify the transport sector and there is no tax in the world that can help that. It is just truly sickening what they have done.
You show it's possible, but of course sweden can't change anything alone. If no one does things that wouldn't make a huge difference, then would we then walk forward at all?
Well the left politicians shut down half of our nuclear power plants. And scraped future plans. Now we burn oil instead like Germany. Our grind is unbalanced due to excessive wind build outs.
There are different reasons, first reason, as someone mentioned, is that Sweden is part of the EU electricity single market, meaning Sweden is only allowed to allocate 20 % (or less? Not sure about the exact figure) of its production for itself, but must offer up the rest of the production to the single market (mainly to Finland & Norway in the north and Denmark, Germany and Poland in the south). Germany and Poland has increased demand and plummeting supply since they both, until very recently, relied on Russian gas for producing electricity and heat in the winter. This means, overall demand in the EU market impacts Swedish electricity prices too, especially in the south!
That is the thing with the energy market. MARKETS follow money, by this logic it makes much more sense to sell to Germany wich is desprate for energy and is willing to pay triple the price then to provide for their own citizens. The same thing happened to us in Bosnia ( our heating is also partially reliant on biomass and during the gas shortage our private firms decided to export all the stuff to Germany and Austria and keep the profits for them selves, meanwhile people almost frose) Other than that nuclear fuel seems to be short becouse Sagel military regimes decided to ban export of Uranium made by little black slaves wich was destined for our energy markets.
Maybe a bit optimistic, and that they don't address some of the downsides, hydropower, for example, is quite devastating for the fish in the streams and rivers. However, it is possible to build them more environmentally friendly, unfortunately there are few of them in Sweden that are built that way.
Hydropower historically has pretty bad social and environmental record you're right. We did this video previously you might want to check out 👇 "How to solve our Big Dam Problem" th-cam.com/video/GTFDVZU-Nv0/w-d-xo.html
@sabinajoh depends actually. It's not that hard to manage your money properly. Even a blue collar worker can earn 32k to 50k kr. If you're taking about the immigrants it's the same, some just choose not to work.
Except Sweden has made its energy mixture unstable and unreliable. Having to periodically start its coal plant Karlshamnsverket, a plant for wartime and emergencies - just to keep a stable current (avoiding blackouts) even in summer time. But especially to keep homes warm during winter when wind and solar has been to on and off. The electricity prices during winter has had huge fluctuations with increases up to 300-12000%. Sweden has cut down on its nuclear power by regulating and taxed it to the extent that it's barely economically viable creating similar problems as in Germany.
One fact overlooked in this video... Sweden generates more electricity from nuclear power than from wind. They have also repealed their nuclear phase-out plan, and will build more nuclear reactors.
Yeah that is definitely an issue in all Nordic countries and elsewhere too. Have you heard of SDI before? This index addresses the situation pretty well 👉 www.sustainabledevelopmentindex.org/
Canada shares many of the same characteristics with regards to natural resources and energy mix. One thing I’ve never understood is the claim that by contributing to the global stockpile of hazardous nuclear waste we are somehow 'greener'.
I'm sorry to say that this video gives a somewhat inaccurate view of Sweden. I moved here twenty years ago from the UK and it was a paradise by comparison. In the last 20 years quality of life has fallen drastically in Sweden. What I experienced 20 years ago is not what I experience now. Electricity is 3 times more expensive. And it's many times more for house owners. Heath cuts have demolished a fantastic health service that was a shadow of it's former self. The police cuts have resulted in Sweden having one of the worst gun crime problems in Europe if not in the world. Irresponsible immigrantion policy has also contributed to both of the above. People work harder now and are more stressed. Psychological and stress breakdowns are the norm along with suicide. Defense cuts leave us vulnerable and unprepared for disasters. The mood of the nation is crashing. Much of Swedens heavy industry and farming has been moved abroad which reduces Swedens emissions but just moves the problem to another country that just makes Sweden look good but doesn't reduce emissions globally and leaves Sweden no longer being self sufficient and dependent in imports. Millions of small and private businesses and shops are closing. All the while the rich get richer, the numbers look good on paper and the common man pays.
Current government, yes. The left-dominated government blocked all attempts to build new nuclear plants and made sure several were shut down. If they win the next election most likely the same will happen again, attempts to build new and modern nuclear plants will be stopped and the electricity system will deteriorate even further.
If you like nuclear, check out our channel for multiple videos on it! ☢️ Here's one we made at the time on Germany's nuclear exit 👉 th-cam.com/video/eWuGP_aBoYg/w-d-xo.html
More pro than Germany recently but I wouldn't call our politicians pro nuclear, at least historically. A referendum in 1980 that both called for a gradual winddown of operations and no new nuclear power plants. Since the referendum was held as a reaction to fears surrounding nuclear power after the Three Mile Island accident no party argued for an option to keep our nuclear power. As a result we had 3 options: 1: gradual winddown, 2: gradual winddown and state/local government ownership, and 3: a shutdown within 10 years. In the end option 2 won and it was decided that since the brand new reactors that were set to start in '85 had a 25 year technical life, we would be nuclear free in 2010. That obviously didn't happen, in fact the government allowed new reactors in current facilities in 2010 instead. The state/local ownership didn't really happen either, it called for all nuclear and future "significant" electricity production facilities to be in state ownership, and a tax on excessive profits from hydroelectric power. So we kinda got option 1, the least popular option (with 20% of the vote). But for the carbon neutral steel we need a lot more electricity (1 company estimates they need 70 TWh by 2050, that alone would be a 50% increase), so the government has more or less repealed the 1980 referendum. Allowing for more than 10 reactors to be in use at the same time and making it possible to build nuclear reactors in new facilities.
@@Cerulean_Frost True, but that referendum was skewed as there was really only no, no and no to nuclear as possible votes. In those days no one spoke about global warming so the importance of fossil free alternatives were not really clear then.
According to Transparency International's report from year 2023 Sweden has a score of 82, which places it as number 6 out of 180 countries. 🔗 www.transparency.org/en/countries/sweden
Contrary at some false beliefs, GREEN ECONOMY is better, a lot better for that country, economy, citizens !!! When you generate ALL ENERGY locally you don't need to import oil & gas from Russia or Arab countries, Iran, USA, not even from Norway. The greener the country is, the more electrified economy has, the richier country it become. ❤
Carbon taxes are an admission that green energy is not as cheap as conventional energy, and reduced GDP growth, and by compound interest, makes the country much poorer over time.
@@gregorymalchuk272 "Carbon taxes are an admission that green energy is not as cheap as conventional energy" Uhhh, no. Carbon taxes are levied to help us stop burning fossil fuels so we don't cause catastrophic ecological or societal collapse, but maybe you don't know that large changes in CO2 levels were THE main "kill mechanism" for most extinction events in Earth's history and that our past emissions are already hurting people and the planet in hundreds of ways. " reduced GDP growth, and by compound interest, makes the country much poorer over time." Because humans are currently overshooting Earth's sustainable carrying capacity by ~71% per year, and because GDP is tightly tied to the size of our ecological footprint, we must shrink the global economy by about 55% to prevent catastrophic ecological and societal collapse. Thus, countries trying to grow their GDP and become more industrialized is a mutual suicide pact. We need GDP to shrink dramatically while enacting policies to make sure everyone's needs get met fairly.
@@karlwheatley1244 Carbon taxes can only function to push people from fossil energy to "green" energy if they alter the economics of it. It gives away the green lie that green energy is cheaper than fossil energy, which it isn't. The government shouldn't be centrally planning energy or carbon emissions. Even the worst global warming scenarios don't constitute "catastrophic ecological and societal collapse". The IPCC simply doesn't believe that. So you are contracting your own professed climate experts. Reduced GDP growth is the difference between us having green energy that actually delivers versus a cargo cult which isn't capable of powering industrial civilization. A few relatives percentage points off of global economic growth means there is less money available for research and development, healthcare, education, arts, engineering, and leisure. Never mind the 3 billion people living in abject poverty, and 1 billion with no access to grid electricity. Trying to shrink global GDP is a homicide pact. Where do you even get 55% from anyway?
I freeze every winter in Sweden. 15-18 degrees because the tax on electricity is high. In 2022, Sweden sold so much electricity to Germany and Denmark in particular the price of electricity went up and, so then I could only afford a maximum of 15 degrees indoors. Torture I would say. This film is a bit well painted.
Same here, I freeze every winter now in spite of the heat pumps efficiency. The greens managed to make the electricity system unstable and love to talk about the _energy_ created by wind turbines but never mention a word about the fact that we must be able to produce electricity also when there is no wind or sunshine.
I think you're giving too much credit to be honest. Sweden is not an energy efficient country, quite the opposite, it's just that the electricity is green and almost all of that is explained by the abundance of hydro power (which is completely unfeasible for 99% of the world). Nuclear power was a good choice, but neither that nor hydro power were choices made for environmental reasons. It's also worth remembering that hydro and nuclear were the only green alternatives until recently and both of them are situational and difficult to implement.
When you have a high concentration of educated and unpolarised individuals, you get the non-English speaking countries like Sweden, France and Germany. Hope to see this level cooperation being implemented everywhere.
Counting exports/imports, Sweden's emissions are 77% higher. All of Europe is like this except for Poland. Switzerland is the worst in the world at +231%.
You're right that in Sweden and many other European countries, there is a significant difference between regional and consumption-based emissions. It is vital to also reflect on this global nature of production and trade. 🌱
@@DWPlanetA If it's vital, why don't you do it instead of this superficial fluff piece? It's really bad reporting. Sweden's growth was done on the back of foreign countries. When that isn't enough, you get conservatives in power.
Tl;dr the point about the forests collecting carbon dioxide is wrong. As a Swede, I was very confused by this. We aren't doing very much. The governing parties are actively going against a lot of climate friendly actions. I was wondering what was the big deal here. I got to 1:10 and the video claimed that forests are good at collecting carbon dioxide. For a forest that is just existing, that is false. Old forests are CO² neutral. They emit as much as they collect. A growing forest is collecting more than it emits, but that isn't what Sweden has got. Sure, a lot of forests are cut down to regrow. The trees cut down are used for construction, furniture and decorations, as well as for burning. However, nearly all of it is burned in the end. The collected CO² is released again. Now, back to watching the rest of the video.
6:21 there are several parties questioning the carbon tax. They are questioning how it is implemented, how high it is etc. The one of the top 3 parties made a promise of reducing the cost of fuel for cars by about 50% simply by lowering the tax. I would very much call that "questioning the carbon tax".
8:09 it is one of the biggest parties that is promoting scrapping the net 0 target altogether. It is the party that is said to be the shadow government. The shadow government party didn't win the election but there is a minority rule dependent on non-allied parties to make policies and the government is mostly "following" this shadow government party. It is so blatant that a lot of the biggest newpapers are openly calling out the government to grow a spine and make the policies they believe in instead of repeatedly caving to the demands of this other party.
10:10 they brought up the reduced tax on diesel and petrol. However, the prices didn't change much. Gas stations kept high prises and took the difference as profit.
The transport sector is huge, and a lot of the mining sector is dependent on transports. The mining sector has got railway upkeep and new railway on its wish list for a long time. The government is not investing in railway as much as is needed for upkeep on the existing tracks, let alone expansion. There is a project of expanding the coastal railway, but it isn't in the budget to keep going. The railway is falling apart. It is getting worse than the German railway system. We recently got news that the night train between the north and the south will not be running for at least 2 years due to the tracks needing maintenance. The people are willing to pay more than double the money to ride the eco friendly train, but now we are forced to take the plane instead. At least the shorter transit trains are still going. They are the most populated routes. The connection to Copenhagen being one of the newer ones (opened in 2000, so 20+ years ago) is saving that part for now. If the trains don't move, trucks will have to. It's so bad that the railways aren't getting the funding it needs. It also lacks clear supervision. As it is there are several different departments working together and the funding is not separate from other infrastructure.
"They didn't sacrifice economic growth", well we most certainly did, we just didn't go in to the negatives. Also a big part of the strategy has been outsourcing emissions to other countries and sucking up the world supplies of HVO
How does your country stack up against Sweden's progress?
Das wissen wir doch alle....Diesel Dieter und seine Freunde haben das Land im Griff mit ihren Ölheizungen😅
Australia is a Corpocracy run by the energy and mining industry, with a plethora of newspapers telling the boomers that offshore wind turbines kill whales....
Australia is a carbon sink. Not that it matters. This is a hoax. Stop treating people like they can’t research that CO2 is 0.004% and dangerously low for plant food reasons. You are frauds. A greenhouse need glass. Sunnis climate.
Mine is being propagandized by conservative grifters out of another country nearby in an attempt to manipulate them into voting for the party that will turn us more into them, selfish, wasteful, and ignorant. *sigh*
How bout some Swedish Oil?
*In her book Affärer i blod och olja: Lundin Petroleum i Afrika[26] (Business in blood and oil: Lundin Petroleum in Africa) journalist Kerstin Lundell claims that the company had been complicit in several crimes against humanity, including death shootings and the burning of villages.[27]*
*In June 2010, the European Coalition on Oil in Sudan (ECOS)[28] published the report Unpaid Debt,[29] which called upon the governments of Sweden, Austria and Malaysia to look into allegations that the companies Lundin Petroleum, OMV, and Petronas have been complicit in the commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity whilst operating in Block 5A, South Sudan (then Sudan) between 1997-2003.*
**The reported crimes include indiscriminate attacks and intentional targeting of civilians, burning of shelters, pillage, destruction of objects necessary for survival, unlawful killing of civilians, rape of women, abduction of children, torture, and forced displacement.**
**Approximately 12,000 people died and 160,000 were violently displaced from their land and homes, many forever. Satellite pictures taken between 1994 and 2003 show that the activities of the three oil companies in Sudan coincided with a spectacular drop in agricultural land use in their area of operation.[30]**
*Also in June 2010, the Swedish public prosecutor for international crimes opened a criminal investigation into links between Sweden and the reported crimes. In 2016, Lundin Petroleum's Chairman Ian Lundin and CEO Alex Schneiter were informed that they were the suspects of the investigation.*
*Sweden’s Government gave the green light for the Public Prosecutor in October 2018 to indict the two top executives[31] On 1 November 2018, the Swedish Prosecution Authority notified Lundin Petroleum AB that the company may be liable to a corporate fine and forfeiture of economic benefits of SEK 3,285 (app. €315 million) for involvement in war crimes and crimes against humanity.[32] Consequently, the company itself will also be charged albeit indirectly, and will be legally represented in court. On 15 November 2018 the suspects were served with the draft charges and the case files.[33]*
*They will be indicted for aiding and abetting international crimes and may face life imprisonment if found guilty. The trial is likely to begin by the end of 2020 and may take several years.*
*The Swedish war crimes investigation raises the issue of access to remedy and reparation for victims of human rights violations linked with business activities. In May 2016, representatives of communities in Block 5A claimed their right to remedy and reparation and called upon Lundin and its shareholders to pay off their debt.[34] A conviction in Sweden may provide remedy and reparation for a few victims of human rights violations who will be witnesses in court, but not for the app. 200,000 victims who will not be represented in court.*
*Lundin Energy endorses the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, acknowledging the duty of business enterprises to contribute to effective remedy of adverse impact that it has caused or contributed to.[35] The company has never refuted publicly reported incriminating facts. Nor has it substantiated its claim that its activities contributed to the improvement of the lives of the people of Sudan.[36] It never showed an interest in the consequences of the oil war for the communities in its concession area. The company maintains a website about its activities in Sudan.[37]*
*Criticism has also been directed towards former Minister for Foreign Affairs Carl Bildt, a former board member for the company, responsible for ethics.[38][39] Ethiopia arrested two Swedish journalist Johan Persson and Martin Schibbye and held them for 14 months before the release. Conflict Ethiopian Judicial Authority v Swedish journalists 2011 was caused as the journalist studied report of human rights violation in the Ogaden in connection with activities of Lundin Petroleum.[40]*
*The trial against Lundin may become a landmark case because of the novelty and complexity of the legal issues that the Swedish court will have to decide. It would be the first time since the Nuremberg trails that a multibillion-dollar company were to be charged for international crimes. The court is likely to answer a number of important legal questions, including about the individual criminal liability of corporate executives vs. corporate criminal liability of organisations, the applicable standard of proof for international crimes before a national court, and the question whether a lack of due diligence is sufficient for a finding of guilt. On 23 may 2019, the T.M.C. Asser Institute for International Law in The Hague organized a Towards criminal liability of corporations for human rights violations: The Lundin case in Sweden.[41]*
*Thomas Alstrand from the Swedish Prosecution Authority in Gothenburg on 13 February 2019 announced that a second criminal investigation had been opened into threats and acts of violence against witnesses in the Lundin war crimes investigation.[42] They have allegedly been pressured not to testify in court. Several witnesses have been granted asylum in safe countries through UNHCR supported emergency protection procedures. The company has confirmed that its CEO and Chairman have been officially informed by the prosecutor about the allegation, noting that it believes that it is completely unfounded.*
*Witness tampering is usually intended to prevent the truth from being exposed in court. The second investigation into obstruction of justice seems to contradict the company’s assertions of its good faith cooperation with the war crimes investigation.*
*Once court hearings commence in Sweden, the Dutch peace organization PAX and Swedish NGO Global Idé will provide daily English language coverage of proceedings, expert analyses and comments on the website Unpaid Debt.[43]*
Basically, there’s a sense of “we are in this together” altruism. Wish we could have the same attitude here in India
India is too reliant on subsistence farming too
I hear ya! Canada is the same way... We used to be a very pitch in together nation, now it's all very Americanized... People can't be bothered unless they benefit financially or in status... Shame...
The United States as well.
Too much bullying, troll farms, and bribery.
@@stickynorth I know how you feel. Americans are very standoffish.
As if they want to be like China or Russia. Instead of being there for their own neighbors.
Swedes are taught to work together as part of their educational program .
Lagom is its name.
If you had this cyulture you could do miracles in India
Science, education, democracy
All of which in 'Merika run into Corporate GREED ..I mean WELFARE where unless corporate interest is not aligned IT SHALL NOT PASS!..sadly
Imagine where we would be if the last two hadn't been in decline since mid 2000s. If established parties would've accepted reality instead of doing everything to preserve power we would have exported net 0. Shut down 6 fully functioning nuclear powerplants totaling 4 TW, mostly due to taxation rendering a loss, without building new ones. Total madness when battling CO2 emissions.
@@Kallinihoimagine where we would be if everyone wasn't fighting on the internet and instead tried to cooperate. Politics and social media has become unbearable the last 10 years.
@@moggadah Online is the only place you can voice this concerns without repercussions. If people were just more tolerant in real life, we wouldn't need to fight in real life.
@@1212Diablo I see your point. Sadly I think there's so much darkness online. There's so much hate written. Maybe the internet is a place to air the frustrations, but I'm not sure that it solves the problem? When I read hate I feel hateful myself. Various actors use the hate to promote alternative stories. Before social media the internet was more a place to become enlightened. Today it many times feel like a place to become a bot in some armchair war. There are good things to social media as well, but the bad parts are scary.
Canada could follow Sweden's example but won't. We have a powerful fossil fuel industry which has a stranglehold on our governments.
Another Canadian here who agrees with that. I would add that currently we have 3 provincial governments that want to take us as far back as possible, including getting rid of our Federal Carbon Tax even though the revenues are returned to Canadians based on their income.
This Albertan wholeheartedly agrees with that statement. The FF industry said Alberta couldn't kill coal or at least not before 2050, but thanks to the short-lived NDP government of 2015-2019, it was on track to kill it by 2020. Instead it was refueled last week thanks to COVID delays in converting Genesee power station to natural gas but it's still more than possible to go from 80% coal powered to 0% coal powered within only a few years. And yes NG is only a bridge fuel until more nuclear is built along with renewables and battery storage...
I say nationalize the energy sector in Canada under Petro-Canada and ban LNG exports which is Big Oil's last large and violent play for attention and power... And also mandate that every Petro-Canada fueling station in Canada also has DC fast-chargers...
Also a Canadian... Our nation is not very resilient against the lies of the fossil fuel industry.
"If you don't emit carbon, you won't pay the carbon tax" is such a reasonable stance, but many, many people here believe that they can't chose a better way. The initial outlay of switching to electric heat, or a car-light lifestyle, or even buying a heat pump is out of reach. Making a few short-term sacrifices for a long-term improvement is unfortunately not a popular move here.
Sadly, it seems likely that our next government could be even less progressive than our current one, so it's tough to be optimistic here.
I am also a Canuck living in British Columbia. Our progressive government just the other day announced a new full rebate on heat pumps for home owners. The rebate is paid to the contractor at 100% of cost. The current penetration of heat pumps in BC is 14%. I installed one in my rather largish home on a small lake and I only paid $670 for it new. Easy to install and can heat a room of 450 to 750 square feet. But the Conservatives want to stop these incentives, alleging that fossil fuels do not change climate after they are burned.
While almost all of this information is factual, you are omitting or just missing some key points. As a Swede it’s always been incredibly clear to me, even from childhood, that we put in a lot of great work as a nation even before I was born, and throughout my life. The keys were that the government pushed for stuff that would just make it safer and cheaper to live here and business got behind it. All good and well.
Today however we have had leadership, from most political parties, for a couple decades, that has been too scared to push for real change and is instead great at shuffling numbers. Most national experts show how we’ve failed miserably in rail (both passenger and cargo), forestry (monoculture, biodiversity loss, inflated carbon capture), and more. Plus we have huge companies that have production and other parts of their business outside of Sweden. That means the emissions can be huge and still not count as being Swedish.
Our current government actually shut down the department of environment after like half a century. And many global and local environmental groups have shown very clearly how our current leadership are mostly purposely missing the target and failing to address crises, because private interests and economic growth comes first.
We’re a nation that has done a lot well in this arena. But to highlight Sweden now, when we’re doing our worst job in decades, feels very strange to me as a Swede.
Thank you. I was looking for this comment. Particularly about pollution from the Swedish industry outside of Sweden not counting. Not to knock the effort.
Tack 🙏
Sounds like Neoliberalism is at it again 😢
100% agreeing with this. Not to mention that our highest environmental impact is in fact not transport, but rather private consumption. (At least from a report I read in ~2014) We tend to look away from those numbers as they viewed as "other countries" problems. But countries like Bangladesh, China etc is just the manufacturing hub catering for our lavish lifestyle. Chinese people themselves are not the ones living in excess, Western countries are. So in order to make the biggest difference in climate politics we need to do something about our reliance on consumption and consumerism. I would much rather see us switch more and more into a service economy. Where we value quality- , repair-, 2nd hand- , and reuse- of existing products.
Exactly what I was going to say
This proves that decarbonisation isn't a drain on the economy. Edit: I understand it's easier for rich countries to decarbonise, but the point is it didn't cost Sweden it's economic growth.
It still depends on the country and it's resources.
Still very nice example. Nobody wants to pay more in summer. It is just getting hotter and hotter.
It absolutely is we are broke as fk lol
No it does not.
How do you know Sweden's GDP wouldn't be 10x greater had they ignored climate reforms?
Sweden's GDP has had the lowest growth in the EU the passed few years. Not saying that is purely because of climate policy, but lets be clear with the facts.
You wouldn’t think it’s going this good listening to the news in Sweden. All we hear is how the government is failing the environment and more needs to be done.
Swedish people has always been innovative and hard working👍🏻
But with the massive immigration that will just be memories
@@christer8964other western European countries are taking in more refugees atm, and with the growing need for engineers and people in healthcare, we need to take in immigrants 😅
@@doomass4ever No way! I wouldn't be so naive that I would close down nuclear. And if you want expensive diesel I don't mind selling you some.
They have also successfully exploited other nations.
@@christer8964 Immigration does not end those things. Also, the new measures from Sweden center-right government have reduced shootings to 2018 year level (2019-2023 was very high) for 2024 and I would expect it to continously be reduced with more measures.
I’ve been to Sweden lots of times, it’s an amazing place with high standards of life
I live in sweden but not going to lie im jelaous of people living in south of europe with warmer weather 😅
But otherwise life is good here :)
@@letsbefreeletsbefree7183 you go to Las Palmas for holiday no?
@@boathemian7694 yeah haha every winter i go their its crazy you knew exactly the place i take the vacation too 😅 i like some parts of greece too :)
in some parts of the coutnry sadly, others not so much.
i'm swedish and my dad says "why should we continue and be this good when the rest of the world don't try", i remind him that this is a part of the Swedish pride that we punch above our weight class, for all of history swden have always been punching above it's weight class which beggs the question "why can't countries that's more well of do the same" (USA and other Europe countries)
Love the optimism. As an Australian though I did snort at their claim to be a country of great distances.
Hey Frederick! Yes, great distance is a different thing in Australia 😄 Glad you liked our reporting on the topic. We post videos every Friday, we would be happy to see you subscribe ✨
Mother Russia is bigger than your Australia mate.
Same here as a Canadian.
@@alexfy7401 but like 90% of canadians live in a space close to the US border, which is approximately the same size as sweden. Canada may be big, but 80% of the landmass is useless for development, emitting no greenhouse gasses. Most people don't drive from the alaskan border to nova scotia every day
Always relative. Great distances in a European context compared to population density.
Basically: less greedy and less corrupted government, when compared to most Europe..
Less polarized parties, that can agree on plans that span beyond an electoral cycle.
Hey, Swede here. Not claiming to represent all the opinions or feelings over here but still.
We definitely were what you described in some ways during the last century. It’s however definitely not the case any more and they missed a ton of the recent history in this piece. Long story short: we’ve been heading towards, and keep heading towards being just as greedy, not about the world or common man, and generally nasty as most western countries.
We just used to do smart shit at a slightly higher degree and be slightly more about collective and planet. And we can still ride that wave somewhat
@@markotrieste Let's pretend the Sweden Democrats don't exist. They are basically the Trump party of Sweden. And they are the second most popular party... Let's ignore everything.
You talk of a corrupted govt but don't forget - the purpose of any govt and any politician is to attain power and then retain it. It might be argued that the problem here is democracy: any government has only 5 years in most countries to achieve goals (esp. around climate change) that cannot be achieved in such a short time. This, along withthe threat of losing power through becoming unpopular, is reason enough not to act bravely. China is a leading example of how to create a 30 year plan. Despite having the same dictator for 30 years, Russia is not. This is ultimately about a social mentality and as the U.K.'s and many other countries' societies change culturally, this mentality is probably even more unattainable. Additionally, people only think selfishly and for only their lifetime. They are also unable to recognise the subtle changes in our environment, complaining that it's too hot/cold/wet/dry for them to enjoy their lives.
Well, as oil got expensive noone wanted to use that to heat the house or industry. Sweden has most of its energy from hydro and nuclear plants and lately also wind...
This is since way back... Not all countries has hydro possibilities... Hyrdo power is important as you can plan and control the production.
Most houses in the norrhern part uses ground heat pumps simply because it saves a huge amount of cost (and energy). A factor 4 for my own house...
There has also been goverment taxreduction on energy improvements...
So basically greed has effectively gotten us where we are.
The biggest and most important decisions were made in the 70 and 80-tis. It's not like Sweden is on track with its goals today. It will miss the European 2030 goal for example while other countries in Europe will succeed.
Thank you. More people need to know this and DW definitely should have had more about our enormous failures in terms of recent policy.
Yeah, Sweden is failing the climate goal because the messuring point is the 1990 emissions which is after Sweden started reducing their emissons. Having an emissions per capita goal would make it more fair as the EU 2030 goal punishes early reducers since it becomes harder and harder to reduce one's emissons by a set percentage when one already reduced one's emissions before.
Sweden has a stagnating economy and declining median income. Just like Germany who has been in recession for a year and a half now.
Some what true. But in fact Sweden has all ready met the target for EU 2030 as they where originaly set up by the EU berfore it was setup. That include the reduction of a countrys emission based on areal of forest. But the current goverment at that time chosed to not include our forest areal as a redeuction factor. And that why we may miss the target for EU 2030 emission target.
@@gregorymalchuk272 Germany reduced their debt. It's not really a recession. France has double the debt and doesn't have a official recession. Italy is even worse. Germany has a healthy economy, they do not. The Germans and the Swedes are the ones who will buy the France and Italian assets when those countries fall. Italy and France already had to be saved. The got saved by Germany because the northern EU low debt countries didn't want to save them. That's not happening again, because Italy and France did not learn and have a way to high deficit again.
Italy and France should've been in recession for the last 30 years. They will be soon though.
Sweden has one of the lowest debt to gdp's in Europe. They could borrow like crazy for the next 20 years and still be under the 60% guideline of EU debt to gdp. 32.7% debt to gdp is nothing.
So the learning point here is: start 50 years ago.
And be super rich. :-)
@@AmanitaMuscaria-w1p150 years ago, Sweden was Europe's poorest country. How do you think welfare is created? Education, transparent and a non-corrupt society, free people, and hard work, is what creates welfare.
@P6009D Then we expected the refugees to do the sam or at least be grateful.
or make today that 50 years ago in the future
The Best time to start was Yesterday. The next best time is Now.
It was not magic. A lot of regular people campaigned for change, and took a lot of QoL hits to push for these changes.
Once again proving investing in advancements in energy and infrastructure is worth it and is always a net positive.
And burn lots of biomass. Which isn't very green at all and a lot of it is not 'renewable'.
do basically a science-based long term policies from a government that cares about it's people and future generations (which is basically a lottery chance for any non-nordic countries)
We who live in sweden think of what we do as shit and not enough so when we se how non swedes react and what other contries act to it react to it we kind of shit our pants.
@@droork1137 You have good government, a gold standard for the world to emulate, appreciate it more, and strive to make it better or the world is lost
@@duck1ente its not good enough
The previous goverment were also great at shuffling numbers, changing goals and redefining problems. Swedish business, especially smaller ones are amazing and a huge driving force and our native workforce is mostly hard working, the politicians, at least the last 20-30 years has just inherited that.
They closed down nuclear to burn oil and buy coal power, spent billions in vanity projects that benefit the early investors (government officials) and has tanked our future with crime and the worst performing schools in the EU, and have suggested closing the best performing ones to make the decline the same for all :/
I'm from Sweden. A lot of this is pure green-washing really.
1. We have outsourced much of our production to countries like China and don't count emissions resulting from our ever increasing consumption as part of our emissions. Nor do we count international air travel, of which we are unfortunately masters.
2. We count energy from biomass as carbon-neutral and have converted a lot of our district heating to that. Nothing could be further from the truth however, in fact new studies show that it may be even worse than oil and coal.
Decoupling GDP growth and emissions is very very hard and it's not something we have achieved as of yet.
Mankind must do alot more to fight climate and pollution
Could you please make a video like this on the climate change reality of Argentina? I'm an environmental scientist and climate change and carbon markets expert from Argentina. Would love to see more content on the global south!
Thanks for the suggestion! 🌱🦾
The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago.
The second best time to plant a tree is now.
Decaying wood from dead trees produces more CO2 per year than burning fuel does. Trees are carbon neutral over their life, they only remove CO2 when they are growing. Then there is volcanic activity on top.
Meanwhile in scandinavia; the inhabitants thinks theyre waaay behind.
- what does that tell us about the rest of the world??
Theyre not only behind, theyre still contributing to the problems of even getting started
Always when countries explicitly talk about their electricity production I get suspicious and check the AIB European Residual Mixes report expecting to see that the total supplier mix will be something completely different. For Sweden, no notes on this front. Share of renewable energy in the top 10 for Europe.
The interesting thing is that Sweden hasn't always been rich, or hoarded a massive imperial wealth like some European countries. 60 years ago it was a small country, with a small economy, and a small population without much capital distributed among them. It comes to show how people unified by clear priorities can develop more constructive political systems and agreements that don't compromise on long term planning.
0:45 Finland has a target of net zero emissions by 2035. That is 10 years before Sweden, so actually, Finland has a tougher target, especially as we have less hydropower. When it comes to electricity, Finland is already practically guaranteed to meet it with a combination of nuclear, wind, hydro, and biomass, with nuclear and wind being the big ones. When it comes to the rest of energy-related emissions, there is still work to do, and Finland has similar problems as Sweden, for example the cold climate and low population density makes it harder to make electric cars viable. Also, agriculture has barely cut its emissions over decades.
yes, but Sweden still has lower co2 per capita than Finland
Nuclear isn't renewable energy though, and the waste products are a big problem in the long term.
@@bjoardar need base load power, and nuclear similar to coal helps stabilize grid frequency
@@bjoardar Finland has solved its nuclear waste problem. First country in the World to do so. But Sweden is actually ahead in goals, and the agriculture + transport are problems in Finland too
@@bjoardar No free lunch. All energy generation methods (on large scales, at least) have downsides - hydro power very much included!
If my house is on fire, I will happily accept urine being used to put it out and worry about the damage from that afterwards.
Or differently put: The rewilding of Chernobyl proves that "business as usual" human activity is worse for the natural world than nuclear radiation.
My dad was part of the team that first came up with the carbon tax and the road taxes of the big cities (trängselavgift). In both cases, the original plan was to use those funds to fund environmentally friendly things, like railway and public transport. Neither happened. Usually it went to building roads and to give tax breaks to the industrial sector.
Unfortunately what is said in the interviews is not true. Sweden has begun to import big quantities of coal produced electricity since the green party (MP) forced the previous government to close down nuclear power. Also oil fuelled power production has been restarted in winter time. Warmer winters due to warmer climate has also been a factor in reduced emissions. When it comes to fossil free steel the required electricity needed to produce the hydrogen is not available yet and the need is equal to Finlands entire electricity production! This very ambitious project will most certainly fail because of that. If DW would interview other "experts" than representatives from the green party a more true picture would most certainly emerge.
The problem in Sweden isn't lack of electricity, Sweden is one of the biggest electricity exporters in Europe.
The problem is that other countries in Europe hasn't secured their electricity production.
Yes, there is a couple of times Sweden can't produce their own electricity without import, but that's why the electricity in Europe are connected.
If we learn to save electricity in an economy way in big scale there would be less problems fot Sweden, sell less and save it when its needed..
But in the future we need more electricity, the question is should Sweden increase their or should other European countries secure their own electricity?
They said that we in Sweden produce clean energy and it’s all good. What they don’t mention is that the energy price has gone through the roof. Especially in southern Sweden. We’ve had days in the winter where they’ve warned about energy shortages and with possibly shutting down electricity for some areas (didn’t occur though). Because of the energy shortage in winter time we’ve had to start up some oil burning plants to meet the demand for energy and sometimes even import energy from other countries that burn coal and oil.
Sweden has done a lot of good when it comes to the environment, but it’s not all good and a lot of people are struggling with paying their electricity bills.
Actually, the increase in CO2 last year does not come from transport but from electricity production. The former green/left goverment shut down nuclear plants to the extent that we had to start using oil/coal plants in mid-winter 2022-23.
Personal car transportation has NOT increased drastically due to general high cost, however the EV market has slowed down globally as the public gotten aware of the problems of the infancy of the technology. Also Sweden’s size makes for longer car travels which actuates these issues further; many charging stops etc.
Nice video, here is some more big problems we have in sweden:
1. Only 9% of the 70% forest is actually protected.
2. They are voting against the passage of som really important EU-laws, like the nature-restoration-law.
3. We still emit 8 times more co2 than what the paris-agreement says we should.
4. Our big banks still invests their monney into co2-monsters. The financed emissions is about 76 million tons of co2 per year, which is more than everyone in sweden emits combined.
And the 70% of "forests" aren't even proper forests, most of it is just tree plantations at this point.
I don't know what to say. Bangladesh is one of the most severely affected countries in terms of climate change. However, when it comes to adaptability and other capabilities to mitigate climate change issues, we rank much lower. Our government and other institutions have much to learn from the initiatives taken by Swedish authorities to address climate change.
It is also very challenging for us to switch to alternative and climate-efficient energy sources. We lack significant wealth, but our government is striving to implement such policies. For example, in 2024, Bangladesh became the 33rd nuclear power nation by establishing a nuclear power plant in Southern Bangladesh to power its industries, reducing dependence on fossil fuels that contribute to global warming. Despite these efforts, we still have much to do, even though we have limited capabilities.
About "hardly burns any fossily fuels anymore":
We started to follow in Germanys footsteps about shutting down our nuclear power plants and now we are burning 70.000 liters of oil per hour in the middle of the summer in the warmest part of the country (in Karlshamn).
We are losing production of goods to other countries because our power grid is too old and under dimensioned, and even if it wasn't we could not produce the electricity that they need.
The wind farms are not profitable and too expensive to maintain and the hydro power has to work harder to compensate for that.
We have hydro dams where I live and I've never seen the water level as low as it has been this summer. The summer is almost over and even though it has been raining a lot, the water level is still below where it should be. We also had some wind turbines for winter testing up here and it turns out that they can throw ice blocks weighing up to 60kg several hundred meters during the winter so they had to issue warnings about that in every issue of the local paper through the winters.
It would be nice if someone could make a video about the hard and really expensive future Sweden is facing instead of videos about how fantastics everything is.
Like: Is it even possible to produce and push out enough electricity for creating steel with hydrogen, and how many years into the future will it take before we have all that extra energy production? Who will finance it? How much will it raise the already really high taxes? How expensive will the electricity become until then?
Wow almost as if investment in renewable energy results in cheaper electricity and is actually good for the economy.
Then you get people like Pumpkinhead who claims wind turbines cause cancer....
....uuuh, and nuclear of course..
Sweden’s parliament has voted on a target of the equivalent in 10 new large reactors to be built. One per million inhabitants. And they’re already today one of the most electrified and clean countries in Europe!
«cheaper electricity», green energy is being sold at premium price in EU market, making it more expensive to buy, then energy produced with carbon. everyone wants to be green, this why green energy has become expensive.
The price has increased 3-5 x in only 10 years so no, it has rather resulted in an unstable electrical grid, the use of emergency back-up generators regularly and strain on infrastructure.
This makes me think of a quote from Jerzey Gregorek: "Hard choices, easy life. Easy choices, hard life.” If we keep making the easy choices now (cheep cars, cheep fuel) we will be getting that bill later on. However, if we make the hard choices right now and work for a better future, we will be having a way more easy life after the investment.
Most of the forest area in Sweden, like in Norway, is monoculture plantation forest, which might store some carbon but does a worse job at even that compared to old-growth forest. And of course biodiversity is poor.
It might all look "green" from an airplane, but a forest is not just a forest and a tree is not just a tree.
(On the upside, this means that replacing a tree plantation with e.g. a wind farm is not as big of a nature loss as one might initially think.)
Hello! Im swedish and my father manages some hectares of forest. According to Skogsindustrierna (the swedish forestry industries) 25% of swedish forests are to some level used for forestry today, with almost none of it being monocultures. We have stricter and stricter regulations on how forestry is conducted. For example, always leaving 10% of trees in an area as older trees fill different functions in forest ecosystems and aid in ecosystem recovery.
Many foresters also subscribe to even more precautions as recommendations to lessen the damage done to the ecosystem.
Swedish forestry can definitely become more sustainable for biodiversity, but I dont agree with your evaluation of the situation.
@@7UVA Thank you for the info, that's good to hear.
@@7UVA The source you cite says the exact opposite of what you claim. 75% of all forest in Sweden is used for forestry while 25% is exempt.
Also, monoculture is a matter of definition. For me, planted coniferous forest is leaning towards monoculture and forest inventory has shown that the percentage of mixed broadleaf/coniferous forest has decreased from 34% to 7% in the last 100 years.
The current administration is slaughtering the climate ambition, missing all the goals we previously set up.
"Find where your main climate impact is":
Actually Sweden forgot what it was, and thought nuclear power wasn't part of the equation.
And it will happen everywhere else, as indeed it has in Germany, where conventional Green parties (by which I mean, green parties founded as part of the 70s anti-nuclear movement) are allowed influence.
It's not based on facts to them, it's based on a lifelong opposition to nuclear that is now old enough to have grandchildren
Except that they did sacrifice the economy, and the everyday swede is paying a heavy price for it ..
That's more than I ever expected when reading the title of the video ! Definetely worthy of more attention and studying. Good for you Sweden.
«cheaper electricity», green energy is being sold at premium price in EU market, making it more expensive to buy, then energy produced with carbon energy. people can’t afford heating.
Here in Sweden, the natuonal councillor Axel Oxelstierna in mid 1600 built a state structure, where government agencies were made independent from politics and should be run by experts. Politicians are only allowed to set the main strategies and goals. This makes that the daily operations are run by experts rooted in facts not populism. The create trust in the society and between people. That is the reason our system works pretty well in the energy transformation but was also seen in the way we handled corona where the expert run the show and politicians were not allowed to intervene... A winning concept for us in Sweden.
This sounds as celestial music to my Norwegian ears. Here in Norway, politician do whatever they fancy in the state, the communities and regions. This spring for instance we had 44 thousand projects destroying nature (ref Baard Tufte Johansen in Tilsynsmannen in NRK).
Amazing, and very possible for warmer countries.
Sweden embraced nuclear and waste-to-energy plants and they manage their forests in a way that produces lots of timber products and young replanted forest that suck up CO2. The US works hard to block these key components that worked for Sweden.
Young replanted forests emit more than they sequester. Takes decades to get to net positive for most tree species. As a Swede I promise, our timber industry is dirty as all hell.
The US reduced its coal usage by 62% last year, an amazing statistic! In the last quarter(three month period) California produced more energy than it consumed from solar and wind, which is a first for the state. The state of Texas has now become America’s largest producer of solar and wind energy. America now produces 8 times the amount of solar energy it did nine years ago. Some climatologist insist that the burning of wood, biomass, is not as climate friendly as some pose it to be. 😮
Climate is global, not national. Nations, in order to get a good "carbon neutral" score, have to shuffle numbers around, do statistical trickery, pass carbon taxes and policies, change definitions, and do extensive emissions trading. It's all cheating.
According to the Global Carbon Budget, annual global emissions have steadily gone up since 1750 and there's no actual decrease except for in 2020 when almost the entire world was quarantined. And even then it was only ~2 billion tonnes. Just a year later in 2021, carbon emissions were back to 2018 levels and in 2022, carbon emissions had exceeded 2019 levels.
@@joehowe9532 some good news to hear
As a Swede I can say that the forest management part is quite a controversial topic right now, currently we are having problems with deforestation being faster than replanting which has resulted in the cutting down of ancient natural forests.
This is a very skewed depiction which doesn't point out the horrible political decisions our politicans have made regarding energy policy the past 10-15 years. Shutting down several nuclear reactors have made our entire energy system very unstable (especially in the southern parts of the country) and made us dependent on importing lots of electricity from other countries. Electricity prices has sky-rocketed as the government has spent billions on unreliable windpower. Engineers and professors now estimate that it will take a minimum of 10 years to rebuild the necessary nuclear power stations that's needed to turn it around. This means the unstable power network and insane prices will continue for many many years.
It's a fking shitshow and I can't believe the politicans responsible for this aren't in jail.
Agree!
In 2019, Greta Thunberg wrote that Sweden has not reduced its CO2 emissions at all since 1990, considering all factors. In the Climate Change Performance Index, Sweden ranks only 7th out of 64 countries. So yes, Sweden may be better than many other countries, but just "doing what Sweden has done" is not enough to combat climate change.
TBF, "Doing what Sweden has done" would have to include serious changes starting in the 1970s, so nobody who hasn't done that can "do what Sweden has done".
Basically Sweden is the model for if people took Science seriously in the 70s and 80s, then started acting like everyone else for the next 30 years.
Greta Thunberg is not a reliable source😂
Greta wants everyone to live in huts made of mud, human hair and feces.
Sweden can only take care of sweden. What are we supposed to do about the rest of the world?
What a marvelously competent source you cite
They have huge carbon taxes yet gasoline is cheaper in sweden than in almost half of other EU countries
Yes, that is a measure by the current conservative government. They have lowered petrol and diesel taxes.
@@DWPlanetA Thank fucking god. I was sick of paying the highest diesel prices in the entire world.
@@DWPlanetA They also lowered standards to make it lower priced, which is one of the reasons we will miss the climate goals, thanks to the conservatives and populists in government
- I wouldn't call trees removing CO2 from the atmosphere "reducing emissions". Those trees would have sequestered that CO2 whether it was emitted or not.
- You can have a thousand "big lakes" and you won't be producing any hydropower if they are all at the same altitude, you probably meant to say that Swedens mountainous geography is perfect for hydropower.
Overall could have used some more nuance in this video as well. @tedforsstromjacobsson4160's comment is great.
"I wouldn't call trees removing CO2 from the atmosphere "reducing emissions". Bingo!
Sweden’s forests are key in carbon capture and reduced emissions.
Because of this, Sweden is set to become the worlds first industrialized welfare state to reach net zero sometime in the 2020s or 2030s. A shining example for the world that being economically developed, having a big export oriented industry, economic growth and a strong welfare state is compatible with Net zero targets.
DW should have investigated deeper before they made this video. When it came to electricity production they had the best electricity system in the world with no carbon emissions. The whole grid was supplied by either water power or nuclear energy. Back then they had 12 nuclear reactors working and today they have 6. What they have gained is wind turbines that makes an unstable grid, specially in southern Sweden where most of the population lives. Zone 4 has the worst and most unreliable power supply in Europe. Since 2017 the loss from wind power have annually been 2 billion kroner and in average the wind turbine companies have had an annual loss of 39%. I have not heard of any other business sector that have such losses over time and not gone bankrupt.
80% of wind companies have foreign owners with Switzerland,Belgium and China owning most. Why China has such a big share could be politically motivated but for the two other countries it is probably driven by greed. Then you ask how can they make money on something that is loosing money. The answer is quite simple. EU have put up huge warrants for so called green projects. With such a warranty it is easy for these companies to get very cheap bank loans at extremely low interest rate, say 2%. Some banks have less moral than others and will not have second thoughts to lend these companies money as long as they have solid warranty that guarantees the banks will get their money back if the project fails. The companies that now have the loans now establish a mother company either in Luxembourg or Switzerland since the banking system there is not transparent and it is nearly impossible to find out whom owns the companies and how they operate. They could be owned by criminals, banana republic dictators or just billionaires or millionaires that don’t want to pay taxes to their home countries. These companies then establish a daughter company in Sweden that build the wind farms and run them. The daughter company lend the money from the mother company at say 8% interest rate. That means that the mother company can skim 6% of the project to what ever they want and can continue to do so even if the company in Sweden loses money all the time as long as the loss doesn’t get to high. With no income they don’t have to pay tax to Sweden and can probably write off a lot as well. If the mother company have been located in Sweden this would have been a crime but since they operate from an other country it is not , and in Switzerland and Luxembourg it is nearly impossible to investigate companies.
As for green steel production it is an insane project that would require more energy than Finland uses today. In fact to comply with the demand for hydrogen you have to build of the same amount of electricity that all the nuclear plants in France produce today. Good luck with that.
Yes, Sweden is trying to add biodiesel and methanol into their fuel but to work properly they have to use all the biodiesel they can get from Europe and they import methanol from Brazil. Where is the carbon reduction in that? The only thing you risk is that older machines breaks down because they cannot handle this mix.
Companies and politicians like to promote themselves as green but in many cases this is just a false facade for the public and if you digg deeper it is not so nice after all.
In many cases the word green would have made it more true if it had been replaced with greed.
That was long.....
Didn't read everything. Sorry.
But Sweden produced more electricity than they need, right now at least.
The biggest problem isn't the nuke power plants in Sweden that's closed.
The problem is that other countries in mainly Europe not secured their electricity production at all.
And if you look at France, that normally is the biggest electricity export country in Europe had huge problems with their nuke power so the electricity prices in even Sweden was effected.
Nuke power isn't a cheap and secure power source, it's good but not at all perfect.
And why should Sweden have a lot of nuke power plants so export even more electricity to other countries, wouldn't it be better they produce their own.
The biggest problem for Sweden is their power grid, from North sweden to the south.
@@henrikl4244 Sweden have sufficient electricity in the north but have big problems in the south where most of the population lives. In the days when they had 12 nuclear power plants they had no problem balancing the grid because they had the needed base load that was made by large generators. It is the same grid they have today but they can only utilize maximum 75% of the capacity it was built for due to lack of sufficient base load in the south. To make this base load you need big generators and then you can choose between fossil fuel,hydro power or nuclear. In the south they don’t have any rivers they can build out and if you don’t want to emit CO2 your only option is nuclear.
Thanks to large export of nuclear energy from France Central Europe have avoided major blackouts. In 2021 Europe was 4 minutes away from a major blackout that would have been felt portion of the continent. Nuclear power is expensive to build but cheap to run and with a lifespan of at least 60 years it will be profitable in the long run. If you understand Swedish I suggest you look up Jan Blomgren on TH-cam.
He is a professor in nuclear science and also an expert on electrical power systems. His presentations he speaks in a way that most people understand and not like a know it all professor. He clearly points out how the Swedish power grid has been weakened since 1985 and why.
Wind power should be locally owned thanks for the scam info. Interesting.
@@alicequayle4625 In principle,yes. However it is a bad investment and the risk of loosing a lot of money is very high if not certain. If you are alone that might work but the more turbines there are the more likely it is to fail. Simply put if it blows to much there is an overcapacity in the net and you may have to sell with negative profit and if it doesn’t blow you have to buy electricity expensive from other sources to meet your obligations. In the last five years Sweden has had an annual loss of 2 billion Swedish krona every year.
This gives me some hope :)
Hey Aaron! Glad to hear that the video gave you hope :) We approach our reporting in a solution-oriented way and publish videos every Friday. We would be happy to see you subscribe ✨
Sweden is my country and around 994 our power was around 50% hydro, 45% nuclear and 5% fossil, so the wind has only takes those last 5% away from the power emissions. Then we need to increase our power production by 50%-100% too, which may be hard without no new hydro or nuclear..
One of the reasons for this is that in Sweden the climate change is very clearly right in front of us. The weather has changed so much in the last 20 years like crazy hot summers and much more rain in a shorter time compared to before, going from 14 days of 1-2 mm of rain to like 1-2 days of 14 mm rain.
Crazy hot might be a stretch but much hotter then before.
Something that makes me proud of my country!
You're behind many countries like Finland and Denmark still. Sweden isn't leading in much.
@@Thor.Jorgensen Name 3 countries Sweden is behind plz. And name 3 things Sweden has the lead in since you say its few. Thx
@@svenw-u3f Finland, Denmark, and Norway.
With your last sentence, you might want to check up with Google Translate.
But if I am to imagine what you said; Happiness index, Corruption Index, and Social Progress Index.
And I can keep going: Foundations of well-being, Opportunity index, Nutrition and basic medical care, Housing for the poor, Personal safety, Access to basic knowledge, Access to information and communcations, Health and Wellness, Personal rights, Access to advanced education, etc.
Sweden is behind in so many of these areas.
...except that the current government, is doing their best to reverse the progress.
@@svenw-u3f To be fair, Sweden is in the top five, sure ...but that's purely because most countries are even worse. Sweden is utterly terrible, in very many ways and in very many areas. Just less bad, than most of the World ...and very elitist and arrogant, towards it neighbours, despite how it really should learn from them.
crazy that even in a society that managed to reduce their dependance on fossil fuels so much, the moment "the economy" goes bad the conservative solution is to "pump the gas".
which economy are they helping really?
Its funny how they forget to mention that the politicians wanted to close the nuclear power plants and therefore have been running Karlshamn that at max capacity use 140,000L oil an hour
Some facts, Karlshamn is a so called strategic reserve. That means that it is put on standby when the grid is strained a few hours per year. Those hours are cheaper environmentally and economically speaking than subsidicing an entire industry. That strategic reserve have never been actually been needed...
@@lars7628 2022 it ran for 1000hours.
I wouldnt call that "a few hours"?
@@minip137 in case you didnt know there's a war in europe making energy more of a scarce resourse. I.e forcing sweden to use it's "strstegic" energy production.
@@filipnilsson9514 you make your assumptions seem like the truth?
Do you sometimes fool yourself?
"Att Karlshamnsverket används alltmer frekvent är en direkt följd av att Sverige stängt ned planerbar kraftproduktion i södra Sverige. Något som flera av våra grannländer också har gjort, säger kraftverkschefen Henrik Svensson, och refererar bland annat till att Sverige och Tyskland under de senaste två decennierna stängt ett 20-tal reaktorer i förtid."
"Karlshamnspowerplant is used more regularly is a direct cause of that Sweden shut down plannable energy, something many neighboring countries aswell have done says the powerplant chef Henrik Svensson[...]."
@@minip137 The main reason the Karlshamn plant is running is because there's a shortage in Poland or Germany and we have to offer our electricity on the european market.
It is as simple as making carbon energy expensive and keeping it expensive. just like supply & demand would say.
Good example for the future
What they don't mention in this video is that because we are in the EU we are obligated to sell our green electricity to other EU countries, that would not have been a problem if it wasn't for the amount we sell. Right now we sell too much so we need to buy "dirty" electricity from other countries so everyone here in Sweden can have electricity, the left part here in Sweden actually wanted to make a policy so that the electrical companies here couldn't sell more power then what the Swedish population needs. But who was the biggest adversary to this proposal??, yes the electrical companies are earning huge amounts of money from selling our green electricity. They said it was a terrible idea because they would lose a large amount of income.
Thanks DW, I love your work on TH-cam (hate YT tho).
Hey there! Thank you. Very glad to hear that you watch our videos on TH-cam even though you hate the platform. 😄 We publish new videos every Friday. Would be happy to see you subscribe ✨
This feels so weird bc in sweden you get the news articles that sweden does so poorly when it comes to climate we might get fines this year
We have a lot of trees but almost no forests. Huge difference
vad snackar du om, det är ju jätte mycket skog????
...68% of Sweden's area is covered by forest..
go on..
According to Skogsstyrelsen (Swedish Forest Agency) less than 5% is natural forest. Less than 1% is old-growth / primary forest.
@@reason3581 so sad
It's true Swedish forestry has been cutting down the landscape for 6 decades now and is cutting on lots of the natural forests all over the country. They are decreasing every year.
Nuclear gave us super cheap electricity and let us electrify heating.
The backside is that Sweden's energy market is in a crisis after the nuclear power stations were closed down.
Like they do alot. Just look at France that normally is the biggest electricity exporters in Europe but one year Sweden was it because of their huge problems with many nuke power plants.
The problem isn't because of Sweden closing down it's nuclear power plant. Sweden produce at an over capacity. The issue is that the EU imposed a system where Germany could simply bid on Swedish produced electricity just like any other private commodity. EU also forced the country to be split up into regions rather then national prices to create free market incentives. Since there's far less production in Sweden's south and Germany made it self dependent on a genocidial dictator for it's energy, which they were prone to turn off, they replace that plan by draining southern Sweden's electricity production while northern Sweden have no issues what so ever.
The problem is Russia in combination with failed German foreign policy and It's naive strategic outlook.
It’s really not, it’s one of the healthiest in Europe. The problem is that it is exporting much of it to neighboring countries like Germany that drives up the price in the winter when it’s needed the most.
Sweden has been a net exporter of energy since several decades - the issue is EU regulations on energy exports that increase Swedish prices (and even at the worst of times during the energy crisis 2022-2023, Sweden still had the cheapest energy in the EU). The closing of some nuclear reactors has been compensated by huge investments in wind power which is a much cheaper, safer and especially faster way of installing new energy compared to nuclear which takes about 20 years and is several times more expensive per megawatt. Nuclear is also fully reliant on tax money while wind power is way more viable for private investments.
This is just an exercise in calculation. Sweden has forests yes but they don't do anything to reduce any carbon anywhere. Any carbon captured will just be admitted once the trees are cut down.
Finland has just as much Forest but different legislation means that we don't count the same Way as the sweeds. We used to and got similar results.
But the reality is that it's all greenwashing and we are all heavily dependant on Fossil fuels
POV: DW saying Sweden has lots of hydroelectric dams and then shows a hydroelectric dam from Norway..:)
Also, none of the Swedish nuclear plants have cooling towers. 😂😂😂
The houses looked like German ones as well.
You're welcome
Sweden said an important example of meeting their climate goals without ruining livelihoods people rely on their income from. And the government is working with the private sector to meet an important goal.
They did ruin people's livelihoods. Sweden has low economic growth, below population growth and the country is getting poorer. Like Germany who has been in recession for 1.5 years now. Even if carbon taxes shave only a few percent off of GDP growth, compound growth means that it gets amplified massively over time.
Sweden is currently in the process of destroying its industries though the removal of nuklear energy while electrifying steel production causing and exporting electricity to germany causing prices to jump by 100:s of percent during winter which destroys the wellbeing of the less fortunate people who can not afford the new price of electricity.
Sweden is currently an example of what not to do since every policy that the government implemented since 2018 has just destroyed the economy without much results.
@@swedishboomstick3362 Germany is also bidding up hydropower prices in Norway, to the detriment of the locals.
Hi Swedish guy here.
This is all true, but there's also a current government that is actively and openly working against this improvement. Lower taxes on plan-tickets, making gasoline and diesel cheaper by lessning the carbon reduction demands etc are examples of policies that have gained them power and elections.
So as with many good initiatives and progress - it can be undone (or at least halted) by politicians that don't see the world the same way.
keep them real by being informed. Thanks DW Planet!
It did that because of nuclear power and hydro power not wind
1:45 This is a paradox, because, while Sweden produces a lot of green energy, it's too expensive to consume, so we sell it and import coal-energy from germany.
And that's not a conspiracy, you can look up E-ON and Sydkraft and where their facilities are located.
Also, since they recently shut down one of the main nuclear reactors, there's been a major energy crisis where we've had to burn 140 liters of oil per hour to compensate for the nuclear power plant, and no other plant in sight to replace the old one. Sweden is literally F'ed, we already had problems before they shut down the power plant but now it's even worse.
gotta love how free-market capitalism shows itself to truly benefit the people :)
/s
1:03 forests does not reduce CO2 in atmosphere. It is only when a new forest is growing. A mature forest will be in equilibrium, as CO2 will be released as trees rot.
Swede here, small (bank)note! The green 100kr notes flying across the screen at 2:55 are our old ones of Carl von Linné. Nowadays we have a blue note with Swedish actress Greta Garbo, seen as one of the greatest actresses of the 1920’s & 30’s!
Regarding the last note on how Sweden’s conservative parties are un-doing a lot of the changes: we had the highest diesel price per litre only beaten by Hong-Kong.
Sweden is a large country by european standards, I have about 70km to work, so it felt as if I was beeing punished every time I fueled up my car to take myself to work and make money. At one point I just wanted to quit and be unemployd due to the high diesel prices.
The conservatives made the price for gas and diesel humane and realistic, they’re not un-doing anything apart from not making hard working people suicidal.
It's more about encouraging people to take other forms of transportation I think. I don't know what your situation looks like but a lot of people fuel up their car and drive to work when they could have taken a train or a bus, or even a bike if they live close enough to work. So if gas and diesel are expensive it encourages people to take the transport methods that are both cheaper and better for the environment. It's of course difficult for people in more rural areas, or people who don't have a good transit connection to their job for instance, but it's still a big net gain if it's slightly too expensive for some people but it makes a lot of people choose other transport methods.
@@ViktorVonfuling
I can’t use public transport to work, it’d make my commute unrealistically long.
Besides, I hate public transportation; even if I had the ability to use public transportation, I wouldn’t.
An EV would be my option, but the nice comfortable EV’s required for long commutes are pricey, which I don’t mind in my financial situation, but the loss in value in the car itself due to the km’s I rack up annually makes it too painful. The retirement situation for my generation (zoomer) looks very bleak, so loosing all that cash in car depreciation is something I’m trying to avoid if I wanna have a chance at retiring at all.
@@jgripen969 Right, given how far you have to go it makes sense. But like I said, a lot of people who could easily take transit or even cycle to work (as in they live in the same city as their job) drive anyway, and if those people change their mode of transport that would be a big step in the right direction. So shouldn't government policy try to take that step in the right direction? Lowering gas prices does benefit people in your position, but you are a minority in this case, and lowering gas prices also enables a lot of people who definitely don't *need* to drive to do so without actually paying for the damage they cause.
@@ViktorVonfuling This is why so many are against the left in Sweden. They only think about the city people in topics of environment. A large part of the Swedish population lives in the countryside, especially in the north. And many of us don't have the option to take public transportation even if we wanted to.
@@jgripen969 then move closer to your place of work, or change jobs to a position nearby. Why must everything be worse because a minority, like you, want things both ways?
Sweden could be lesson in how to tackle global warming problem 😊😊❤
Great video
there is a lot that has been conveniently omitted in this
Sweden has been producing almost 80% of their electricity using nuclear power plants and hydroelectric infrastructure for decades
they are "green" because they have geography to build hydroelectric and were always investing in nuclear, and recently started swapping nuclear for wind power
portraying a country with this massive advantage over others is not a good or fair
They didn't omit this at all. It's one of the first things that are said in the video. They mention advantages in terms of forests, lakes (rivers) and wind: 0:58
They also mention that Sweden started investing in nuclear in the 70s: 2:03
@@ersia87 yes, they mention it in one sentence. Where in reality the whole thing would not be possible to achieve without those advantages. They are praising a rich guy for having nice things but won't go in depth how he got them... he won a lottery
Thanks DW! Please take a critical look at Norway. We need a view from the outside!
Hey there! Thanks for the suggestion. We would love to see you subscribe as we post videos like this one every week ✨
A few items not mentioned: The "green" party managed to close down several nuclear power plants, causing the electricity system to become dangerously unstable and at times prices soar. Even in summertime fossilfuel power plants have had to be started when there has been too little wind. They also stopped plans for building new nuclear power plants, thus delaying by a decade the power base needed for making steel without CO2 emissions. The prices on petrol and above all diesel were extremely high as by law, there had to be a lot fossil-free elements mixed into the fuel. This had the result that Sweden imported a large part or the _world_ supply of materials needed for this. That is not the way to save the climate.
Our current government is more concerned with doing things the right way in the long run rather than posing in the media, where the journalists massively support the political left.
Indeed! Sweden was at it is best before the Green party came to power. Now they have kicked us back a century of progress. The fossil power plant in Karlshamn was mouthballed in 1980 to be used as a reserve in case if another power plant got bombed out in a potential war with the Soviet union / Warsaw pact. Today it is spewing out fossil co2 just to keep up with normal demand. There is not enough capacity to transform or electrify the transport sector and there is no tax in the world that can help that. It is just truly sickening what they have done.
I am Swedish its useless to be the best you need to make everyone else to do the same thing a small country wont make a difference alone.
You show it's possible, but of course sweden can't change anything alone.
If no one does things that wouldn't make a huge difference, then would we then walk forward at all?
With a largely renewable and nuclear mix for energy generation, why would their domestic energy prices incease so much?
Because we're hooked up to the European market so that when their prices go up, ours also go up even tho production cost remain the same...
everyone wants to be green, this why green energy as become expensive, when its sold to the highest bidder in the EU energy market.
Well the left politicians shut down half of our nuclear power plants. And scraped future plans. Now we burn oil instead like Germany. Our grind is unbalanced due to excessive wind build outs.
There are different reasons, first reason, as someone mentioned, is that Sweden is part of the EU electricity single market, meaning Sweden is only allowed to allocate 20 % (or less? Not sure about the exact figure) of its production for itself, but must offer up the rest of the production to the single market (mainly to Finland & Norway in the north and Denmark, Germany and Poland in the south). Germany and Poland has increased demand and plummeting supply since they both, until very recently, relied on Russian gas for producing electricity and heat in the winter. This means, overall demand in the EU market impacts Swedish electricity prices too, especially in the south!
That is the thing with the energy market. MARKETS follow money, by this logic it makes much more sense to sell to Germany wich is desprate for energy and is willing to pay triple the price then to provide for their own citizens. The same thing happened to us in Bosnia ( our heating is also partially reliant on biomass and during the gas shortage our private firms decided to export all the stuff to Germany and Austria and keep the profits for them selves, meanwhile people almost frose)
Other than that nuclear fuel seems to be short becouse Sagel military regimes decided to ban export of Uranium made by little black slaves wich was destined for our energy markets.
Kudos to Sweden. They have definitly set the goal to reach. Sadly my country has big oil companies so accomplishing that goal is slim to none.
Maybe a bit optimistic, and that they don't address some of the downsides, hydropower, for example, is quite devastating for the fish in the streams and rivers. However, it is possible to build them more environmentally friendly, unfortunately there are few of them in Sweden that are built that way.
Hydropower historically has pretty bad social and environmental record you're right. We did this video previously you might want to check out 👇
"How to solve our Big Dam Problem"
th-cam.com/video/GTFDVZU-Nv0/w-d-xo.html
Imposing a 38% tax increase on cheap electric vehicles will surely help with those transport emissions 🙄
We have one of the best welfares and the class differences aren't that big.
@@Dex_Destroyer our class divide is bigger than ever though
@sabinajoh depends actually. It's not that hard to manage your money properly. Even a blue collar worker can earn 32k to 50k kr. If you're taking about the immigrants it's the same, some just choose not to work.
@sabinajoh and if you're taking about those who earn more than 80k it's probably because they are the top of their fields or a ceo, entrepreneur etc.
Is that supposed to be the border to Norway on the thumbnail?
Have Norway secretly invaded us and moved the border?
Except Sweden has made its energy mixture unstable and unreliable. Having to periodically start its coal plant Karlshamnsverket, a plant for wartime and emergencies - just to keep a stable current (avoiding blackouts) even in summer time. But especially to keep homes warm during winter when wind and solar has been to on and off. The electricity prices during winter has had huge fluctuations with increases up to 300-12000%. Sweden has cut down on its nuclear power by regulating and taxed it to the extent that it's barely economically viable creating similar problems as in Germany.
One fact overlooked in this video... Sweden generates more electricity from nuclear power than from wind. They have also repealed their nuclear phase-out plan, and will build more nuclear reactors.
What about consumerism? Such as rise in imported goods & increase in transporting them?
Yeah that is definitely an issue in all Nordic countries and elsewhere too. Have you heard of SDI before? This index addresses the situation pretty well 👉 www.sustainabledevelopmentindex.org/
Canada shares many of the same characteristics with regards to natural resources and energy mix. One thing I’ve never understood is the claim that by contributing to the global stockpile of hazardous nuclear waste we are somehow 'greener'.
Hopefully, California can learn from Sweden.
Where would you build more hydro electric plants in California?
I'm sorry to say that this video gives a somewhat inaccurate view of Sweden.
I moved here twenty years ago from the UK and it was a paradise by comparison.
In the last 20 years quality of life has fallen drastically in Sweden.
What I experienced 20 years ago is not what I experience now.
Electricity is 3 times more expensive. And it's many times more for house owners.
Heath cuts have demolished a fantastic health service that was a shadow of it's former self.
The police cuts have resulted in Sweden having one of the worst gun crime problems in Europe if not in the world.
Irresponsible immigrantion policy has also contributed to both of the above.
People work harder now and are more stressed. Psychological and stress breakdowns are the norm along with suicide.
Defense cuts leave us vulnerable and unprepared for disasters.
The mood of the nation is crashing.
Much of Swedens heavy industry and farming has been moved abroad which reduces Swedens emissions but just moves the problem to another country that just makes Sweden look good but doesn't reduce emissions globally and leaves Sweden no longer being self sufficient and dependent in imports.
Millions of small and private businesses and shops are closing.
All the while the rich get richer, the numbers look good on paper and the common man pays.
Because at least they are pro nuclear. unlike the Germans who prefer to continue using coal.
Current government, yes. The left-dominated government blocked all attempts to build new nuclear plants and made sure several were shut down. If they win the next election most likely the same will happen again, attempts to build new and modern nuclear plants will be stopped and the electricity system will deteriorate even further.
If you like nuclear, check out our channel for multiple videos on it! ☢️ Here's one we made at the time on Germany's nuclear exit 👉 th-cam.com/video/eWuGP_aBoYg/w-d-xo.html
More pro than Germany recently but I wouldn't call our politicians pro nuclear, at least historically.
A referendum in 1980 that both called for a gradual winddown of operations and no new nuclear power plants.
Since the referendum was held as a reaction to fears surrounding nuclear power after the Three Mile Island accident no party argued for an option to keep our nuclear power. As a result we had 3 options: 1: gradual winddown, 2: gradual winddown and state/local government ownership, and 3: a shutdown within 10 years.
In the end option 2 won and it was decided that since the brand new reactors that were set to start in '85 had a 25 year technical life, we would be nuclear free in 2010. That obviously didn't happen, in fact the government allowed new reactors in current facilities in 2010 instead.
The state/local ownership didn't really happen either, it called for all nuclear and future "significant" electricity production facilities to be in state ownership, and a tax on excessive profits from hydroelectric power.
So we kinda got option 1, the least popular option (with 20% of the vote).
But for the carbon neutral steel we need a lot more electricity (1 company estimates they need 70 TWh by 2050, that alone would be a 50% increase), so the government has more or less repealed the 1980 referendum. Allowing for more than 10 reactors to be in use at the same time and making it possible to build nuclear reactors in new facilities.
@@Cerulean_Frost True, but that referendum was skewed as there was really only no, no and no to nuclear as possible votes.
In those days no one spoke about global warming so the importance of fossil free alternatives were not really clear then.
How's corruption in Sweden?, because most countries are dragged by it.
According to Transparency International's report from year 2023 Sweden has a score of 82, which places it as number 6 out of 180 countries. 🔗 www.transparency.org/en/countries/sweden
Meanwhile germany closed down 170TWh of nuclear instead of lignite 🤡🤡🤡
Do you think Germany's nuclear exist was a mistake? 🤔 We did a video on this you can watch here 👇
th-cam.com/video/eWuGP_aBoYg/w-d-xo.html
@@DWPlanetA your video is out of date lol, the minsiter changed the report you quote 🤡🤡
@@matthiasknutzen6061calm down lil bro with the clown emojis
Contrary at some false beliefs, GREEN ECONOMY is better, a lot better for that country, economy, citizens !!!
When you generate ALL ENERGY locally you don't need to import oil & gas from Russia or Arab countries, Iran, USA, not even from Norway.
The greener the country is, the more electrified economy has, the richier country it become. ❤
Carbon taxes are an admission that green energy is not as cheap as conventional energy, and reduced GDP growth, and by compound interest, makes the country much poorer over time.
Carbon taxes are proof green energy is more expensive and a drag on the economy.
@@gregorymalchuk272 what you said is a nonsense.
Carbon taxes are imposed only on non green energy...
@@gregorymalchuk272 "Carbon taxes are an admission that green energy is not as cheap as conventional energy" Uhhh, no. Carbon taxes are levied to help us stop burning fossil fuels so we don't cause catastrophic ecological or societal collapse, but maybe you don't know that large changes in CO2 levels were THE main "kill mechanism" for most extinction events in Earth's history and that our past emissions are already hurting people and the planet in hundreds of ways.
" reduced GDP growth, and by compound interest, makes the country much poorer over time." Because humans are currently overshooting Earth's sustainable carrying capacity by ~71% per year, and because GDP is tightly tied to the size of our ecological footprint, we must shrink the global economy by about 55% to prevent catastrophic ecological and societal collapse. Thus, countries trying to grow their GDP and become more industrialized is a mutual suicide pact. We need GDP to shrink dramatically while enacting policies to make sure everyone's needs get met fairly.
@@karlwheatley1244 Carbon taxes can only function to push people from fossil energy to "green" energy if they alter the economics of it. It gives away the green lie that green energy is cheaper than fossil energy, which it isn't. The government shouldn't be centrally planning energy or carbon emissions. Even the worst global warming scenarios don't constitute "catastrophic ecological and societal collapse". The IPCC simply doesn't believe that. So you are contracting your own professed climate experts.
Reduced GDP growth is the difference between us having green energy that actually delivers versus a cargo cult which isn't capable of powering industrial civilization. A few relatives percentage points off of global economic growth means there is less money available for research and development, healthcare, education, arts, engineering, and leisure. Never mind the 3 billion people living in abject poverty, and 1 billion with no access to grid electricity. Trying to shrink global GDP is a homicide pact. Where do you even get 55% from anyway?
I freeze every winter in Sweden. 15-18 degrees because the tax on electricity is high. In 2022, Sweden sold so much electricity to Germany and Denmark in particular the price of electricity went up and, so then I could only afford a maximum of 15 degrees indoors. Torture I would say. This film is a bit well painted.
Get better heating
Germany is bidding up formerly cheap hydropower prices in Norway too. The locals there aren't happy either.
I agree, there were too many salespeople in it.
Same here, I freeze every winter now in spite of the heat pumps efficiency. The greens managed to make the electricity system unstable and love to talk about the _energy_ created by wind turbines but never mention a word about the fact that we must be able to produce electricity also when there is no wind or sunshine.
@@oyuyuy Give me money pleas!
I feel genuine pride in being Swedish when I come across videos like these.
How come Sweden seems to be on the forefront of most things these days?
Sweden has gone from being the 2nd wealthiest country per capita to being the ~15th. It's not exactly 'a good development'
You sound like our politicians and their coordinated media, when they are trying to motivate more sacrifice, while we are getting poorer.
@@oyuyuy though that drop in wealth happened in the 1990s after our government fumbled the bag so god damn hard in the 1980s, iirc.
Climate is like the only thing we discuss in school 😭😭😭
I think you're giving too much credit to be honest. Sweden is not an energy efficient country, quite the opposite, it's just that the electricity is green and almost all of that is explained by the abundance of hydro power (which is completely unfeasible for 99% of the world). Nuclear power was a good choice, but neither that nor hydro power were choices made for environmental reasons.
It's also worth remembering that hydro and nuclear were the only green alternatives until recently and both of them are situational and difficult to implement.
Yep, the greens were opposing nuclear (and even hydro power) for 50 year when they were the only green possibilities. They are bad faith actors.
When you have a high concentration of educated and unpolarised individuals, you get the non-English speaking countries like Sweden, France and Germany. Hope to see this level cooperation being implemented everywhere.
Counting exports/imports, Sweden's emissions are 77% higher. All of Europe is like this except for Poland. Switzerland is the worst in the world at +231%.
You're right that in Sweden and many other European countries, there is a significant difference between regional and consumption-based emissions. It is vital to also reflect on this global nature of production and trade. 🌱
@@DWPlanetA If it's vital, why don't you do it instead of this superficial fluff piece? It's really bad reporting. Sweden's growth was done on the back of foreign countries. When that isn't enough, you get conservatives in power.
Tl;dr the point about the forests collecting carbon dioxide is wrong.
As a Swede, I was very confused by this. We aren't doing very much. The governing parties are actively going against a lot of climate friendly actions. I was wondering what was the big deal here. I got to 1:10 and the video claimed that forests are good at collecting carbon dioxide. For a forest that is just existing, that is false. Old forests are CO² neutral. They emit as much as they collect. A growing forest is collecting more than it emits, but that isn't what Sweden has got. Sure, a lot of forests are cut down to regrow. The trees cut down are used for construction, furniture and decorations, as well as for burning. However, nearly all of it is burned in the end. The collected CO² is released again.
Now, back to watching the rest of the video.
6:21 there are several parties questioning the carbon tax. They are questioning how it is implemented, how high it is etc. The one of the top 3 parties made a promise of reducing the cost of fuel for cars by about 50% simply by lowering the tax. I would very much call that "questioning the carbon tax".
8:09 it is one of the biggest parties that is promoting scrapping the net 0 target altogether. It is the party that is said to be the shadow government. The shadow government party didn't win the election but there is a minority rule dependent on non-allied parties to make policies and the government is mostly "following" this shadow government party. It is so blatant that a lot of the biggest newpapers are openly calling out the government to grow a spine and make the policies they believe in instead of repeatedly caving to the demands of this other party.
10:10 they brought up the reduced tax on diesel and petrol. However, the prices didn't change much. Gas stations kept high prises and took the difference as profit.
The transport sector is huge, and a lot of the mining sector is dependent on transports. The mining sector has got railway upkeep and new railway on its wish list for a long time. The government is not investing in railway as much as is needed for upkeep on the existing tracks, let alone expansion. There is a project of expanding the coastal railway, but it isn't in the budget to keep going.
The railway is falling apart. It is getting worse than the German railway system. We recently got news that the night train between the north and the south will not be running for at least 2 years due to the tracks needing maintenance. The people are willing to pay more than double the money to ride the eco friendly train, but now we are forced to take the plane instead. At least the shorter transit trains are still going. They are the most populated routes. The connection to Copenhagen being one of the newer ones (opened in 2000, so 20+ years ago) is saving that part for now.
If the trains don't move, trucks will have to. It's so bad that the railways aren't getting the funding it needs. It also lacks clear supervision. As it is there are several different departments working together and the funding is not separate from other infrastructure.
Sweden is a good example of how democracy works when everyone gets involved to develop solutions to a huge problem.
👍
I think you mean to an inexistent problem (political created one)
the system for recycling pet cans is a tiny thing but so easy to do and other countries should do the same...
Oh, don't worry! The current Swedish government, is doing their very utmost, to increase their emissions, and reverse the progress!
"They didn't sacrifice economic growth", well we most certainly did, we just didn't go in to the negatives. Also a big part of the strategy has been outsourcing emissions to other countries and sucking up the world supplies of HVO