The Swedish Environmental Protection Agency (Naturvårdsverket) calculates Sweden’s carbon dioxide emissions incorrectly and does so in such a peculiar way that it is questionable whether they are even interested in getting the numbers right. This is the view of civil engineer Tomas Åbyhammar, who also asserts that Sweden does not have any net emissions of greenhouse gases.
According to Åbyhammar, the basis for Sweden’s climate policy is statistics on the net emissions of greenhouse gases, figures reported by the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency. The unit used for such reporting is MtCO2e/year, million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents per year.
Unlike the Environmental Protection Agency, Åbyhammar discloses both his sources and reasoning as well as his calculations. He also discusses margins of error, and on that point, he argues that Sweden has a net uptake of about 45 MtCO2e per year and historically has never had any net emissions of greenhouse gases.
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“No one has presented any articulated criticism of my reasoning or results,” Åbyhammar notes in a column in Bulletin.
In December 2023, the Environmental Protection Agency replaced the preliminary statistics with “the final data” for 2022. There, the mathematical total of the items reported in the table was 18.70, but the agency states in both the table and diagram that the total is 45.25.
Part of the discrepancy consists of the absorption of greenhouse gases that occurs in the land sector (the forest). The amount is 41.22. This significant amount is not included by the Environmental Protection Agency in their summary, which, of course, leads to errors. The heading says “emissions and uptake,” but uptake is then not included in the total. How can that be?
In the absence of explanations from the Environmental Protection Agency, my interpretation is that 18.70 is an approximation to the real net emissions after administrative considerations, etc., and that 45.25 refers to a politically motivated figure with no real counterpart in reality, driven by international agreements with the UN and EU, among others.
In summary, the Environmental Protection Agency has published many variants of the net emissions. Where is the data behind the sum quoted by the agency, what has happened during this time, and why have the reported figures changed repeatedly, Åbyhammar asks.
No Swedish Net Emissions
He further argues that the national statistics are not an acceptable basis for political decision-making, for the needs of the public, or for Sweden’s participation in international agreements.
Has Sweden entered into international agreements on these grounds? Is this precisely why the basis is incorrect because the absorption of greenhouse gases has been agreed away? What did Sweden’s representatives know at the recent UN meeting in Brazil? How well had they done their homework?
Sweden has no net emissions of greenhouse gases and there is no scientific basis for climate policy in Sweden, according to Åbyhammar’s conclusion. Moreover, there are no climate emissions, and it is likely that there never have been any.
“The establishment guards the climate lies because they depend on climate money and their credibility,” he concludes.