Credibility at stake in Sweden
Summary
Swedens legacy as a global leader in the push to put climate and the environment at the heart of government decision-making may have come to an end on 18 October 2022. The first casualty of the countrys new right-wing government was the Ministry of the Environment, eliminated on Day 1. A key question is the extent to which this change derails progress made toward building a sustainable nation and world.
Sweden has long been a leader in sustainability, both politically and scientifically. In 1972, Stockholm hosted the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, the first meeting to place the environment on the international political agenda. Most recently, Sweden co-hosted the Nobel Prize Summit “Our Planet, Our Future” in 2021. Since helping to found the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 1988, Swedish scientists have led the development of concepts of resilience and planetary boundaries, the notion that a “safe zone” for humanity depends on remaining within a set of nine boundary conditions.
