On Monday, the government will present its budget for 2026, which also includes an appendix showing the climate impact of the government's policies.
It appears that the government will miss the EU's climate target for 2030 by 5.8 million tons of carbon dioxide, a significantly worse situation than when last year's budget was presented, when the Minister for Climate and Environment Romina Pourmokhtari (The Liberals) expected Sweden to achieve the target with some margin.
Not enough
The measures proposed and announced by the government in the 2026 budget are not sufficient to close the gap, as they will reduce emissions by 1.5 million tons by 2030, according to the government's assessment, including proposals for an electric car premium targeting rural areas, which has not yet been introduced, more money for the Climate Leap to build more charging stations, and environmental compensation for rail transport.
The effect next year is estimated to be a reduction in emissions of 111,000 tons of carbon dioxide.
The reason for the unexpectedly large gap is that emissions from road traffic have increased more than expected, while electrification has slowed down.
In an interview with SvD earlier in the week, Pourmokhtari launches a harsh attack on the Environmental Protection Agency, which in April assessed that the increase in emissions would be significantly smaller than what they later reported to the government in June, with Pourmokhtari saying she is furious and that this has made it more difficult to work on climate policy.
Missing all targets
However, in last year's budget, the Environmental Protection Agency already flagged that there were significant uncertainties in the forecasts and presented two scenarios, and the Minister for Climate received much criticism for the government relying on the most optimistic scenario as the most likely.
Just like in previous climate reports, Sweden does not meet any of the national climate targets, but missing the EU's climate target for 2030, which mainly concerns transport and agriculture, may be costly, as countries that miss the target may have to pay fines.
An additional concern for Sweden is the requirements for Sweden regarding forests, in the cumbersome EU legislation LULUCF, where Sweden is currently far from the target, but the government is trying to influence the EU's view on how the Swedish forest should be managed.
Sweden's overall climate target is for Sweden to have no net emissions of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere by 2045 at the latest.
An intermediate target is for emissions in 2030 to be 63 percent lower than emissions in 1990.
Another intermediate target is for emissions from domestic transport, except for domestic flights, to decrease by at least 70 percent by 2030 compared to 2010.
The EU's so-called ESR commitment for 2030, which mainly covers transport and agriculture, means that Sweden must reduce emissions by 50 percent by 2030 compared to 2005.
Source: The Government
