Despite Sweden already being more or less climate neutral, largely thanks to its forests, Stockholm’s red-green administration has decided to spend almost two billion kronor on purchasing so-called negative emissions.

Since 2022, the city of Stockholm has been governed by a red-green majority consisting of the Social Democrats, the Green Party, and the Left Party. In environmental programs and climate action plans, the city has set the goal for Stockholm to be “climate positive” by 2030 and fossil-free by 2040 at the latest. To achieve this, emissions within the city’s boundaries must decrease drastically by 2030, and the uptake of greenhouse gases must surpass emissions.

– The city of Stockholm will be territorially climate positive by 2030 and completely free from fossil fuels by 2040. Through this purchase, Stockholm is taking a :censored:6:cdd6bbaa89: leading role among climate-ambitious cities and will become the fifth largest buyer of permanent negative emissions in the world. This is an important signal at a time when the green transition needs to accelerate to counter the climate crisis, says Karin Wanngård (S), Finance Commissioner of Stockholm.

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Reducing the climate footprint from the city’s own companies is identified as an important part of the work.

– The city of Stockholm has long been at the forefront of the climate transition. They are now continuing to set an example for how municipalities, companies, and others should act by combining significant emissions reductions with the purchase of permanent negative emissions. At the same time, they become part of building a new industry and creating a market for negative emissions, says Anders Egelrud, CEO of Stockholm Exergi.

The negative emissions will be used to offset emissions that are difficult to completely eliminate, for example, from building materials and wastewater treatment. The agreement is worth up to 120 million kronor per year for 15 years, totaling up to 1.8 billion kronor.

Photo: Alexandar Vujadinovic, CC BY-SA 4.0

It Costs to Save the Climate

– It’s going to cost a lot of money to save the climate, but I think it’s worth spending that much money to do it. Historically, we have profited greatly from destroying our climate, says Karin Wanngård to Mitt i.

Stockholm Exergi is building a facility to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere that will be ready by 2028. The captured carbon dioxide will then be transported by ship to Bergen, Norway, where it will be stored in bedrock deep beneath the seabed.

The facility will have the capacity to capture 800,000 tons of carbon dioxide annually, which is more than the fossil emissions from Stockholm’s road traffic in a year.

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