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2022 SWEDISH ELECTION

Greta Thunberg deplores lack of climate debate in Swedish vote

Sweden's most famous climate activist, Greta Thunberg, on Friday deplored the lack of debate on the climate as the nation prepares to go to the polls on Sunday.

Published: 10 September 2022 13:58 CEST
Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg marches during a protest
Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg (C) marches during a 'Fridays for Future' movement protest in Stockholm, Sweden on September 9, 2022, ahead of the country's general elections on September 11, 2022. Photo: Jonathan NACKSTRAND / AFP

Climate concerns have taken a backseat in the election campaign. Voters are more focused on rising gang violence and soaring energy prices.

“The climate crisis has been more or less ignored in this election campaign. At best it’s been reduced to an issue about energy. So we have a lot to do,” she told AFP.

Sporting a striped T-shirt, the young activist took part in a protest with several hundred others in central Stockholm on Friday.

Sweden’s legislative elections on Sunday, where 349 seats in parliament are up for grabs, are expected to be a nail-biter, with the left- and right-wing blocs polling dead even.

READ ALSO: Your guide to The Local’s Swedish election coverage

“I am protesting because only voting is not enough,” Thunberg said, criticising politicians for not doing enough on the climate.

“Right now none of the political parties are delivering,” she added.

The 19-year-old activist, who is eligible to vote in her first election this year, has said she had not yet made up her mind which party to vote for.

But she stressed it was important for people to voice their concerns “to show politicians that the climate and the environmental emergency is something that we care about and we are not going to let them get away with another four years of nothing”.

In recent years, Sweden’s left-wing Green party has struggled to attract voters and stay above the four-percent threshold needed to be represented in parliament.

READ ALSO: LATEST POLLS: Who is in the lead with two days to go until Sweden’s election?

The latest polls credit the Greens with between 4.5 and 7.9 percent of voter support.

Thunberg, who began her “School strike for the climate” outside Sweden’s parliament two weeks ahead of the 2018 election when she was 15, has risen to become one of the world’s most famous champions of action on climate change.

Spearheading a global youth movement, Thunberg has spoken at the United Nations, been named a Time person of the year and been tipped as a favourite to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

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Member comments

  1. more effective than repeating “how dare you…” would be to run for office and try to implement whatever she think is the solution. Hope she will, someday soon.

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ENVIRONMENT

Swedish government to scrap flight tax from next summer

Sweden's government has announced that it is abolishing the country's flight tax in its latest measure rolling back the environmental policies of the previous government.

Published: 3 September 2024 16:40 CEST
Swedish government to scrap flight tax from next summer

At a joint press conference with the far-right Sweden Democrats, Sweden’s prime minister, Ulf Kristersson, said that the tax had been an obstacle to Swedish competitiveness. 

“If you want to make sure of the ability to have good air connections and keep Sweden as an international hub, you must make sure not to discriminate against the very competitive advantage that Sweden has,” he said. “This is both in line with long-term climate policy and to protect the long country’s travel opportunities.” 

The flight tax was brought in back in 2018 by the previous government coalition of the Social Democrats and the Green Party, and was set at a deliberately low level, with the idea that it could then be successively raised. 

At the level it is set at this year, it adds about 76 kronor extra per passenger to a flight to Europe, about 315 kronor to a flight to the USA and about 504 kronor to a flight to Thailand. This year, it is expected to bring in total tax revenues of about 1.8 billion kronor. 

At the press conference, the government said that the tax would be scrapped entirely from July 1st next year. 

“We are doing this to promote air traffic across the country and to improve accessibility across the country. This will mean, quite simply, lower ticket prices,” the Sweden Democrats’ group leader, Linda Lindberg, said at the press conference. 

The government had previously considered halving the tax but has instead opted to abolish it. 

The country’s energy and business minister, Ebba Busch, brushed away the concerns that boosting air traffic would increase emissions. 

“As far as Sweden’s climate goals are concerned, it won’t make a huge amount of difference,” she said. “Our ambition is that this is going to increase the amount of air passengers which in the long run will mean more air traffic. This is going to affect climate emissions, but that’s something we’ll look at later on.”

Busch said that as most countries in the EU lacked a flight tax, it had been harming Sweden’s competitiveness. 

“This is extremely important for many companies and for large sections of Swedish industry — that we can keep our flight connections,” she said. “Only a minority of countries in the EU have a flight tax, so this has been a very tough competitive disadvantage for Sweden.”

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