Being at the top of the class isn't always a good thing

In December 2019, the European Council agreed on the goal that the EU should achieve climate neutrality by 2050, while Sweden has set the same goal by 2045. For Sweden, which is a small country with already extremely low emissions, an expedited climate target would not mean any difference whatsoever to the world's total emissions. On the other hand, the cost to Swedish taxpayers will be huge since Sweden must always be top of the class.

In order to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, one approach is to leave agricultural land fallow, which Sweden considers to have good conditions for. At the same time, Sweden has a food strategy which means that Swedish food production must increase.

One of Sweden's climate ambitions is the reduction obligation for petrol and diesel, which was introduced in July 2018 and aims to promote the use of climate-efficient biofuels. The successive increase in the requirements in the reduction obligation for petrol and diesel was paused by the current government until 2023. Biofuels are vehicle fuels produced from renewable biomass. The raw material can come from the forest or from the field or be biogenic waste. Adapting Sweden's food strategy at the same time as additional agricultural land is left fallow or prepared for the cultivation of raw materials for biofuels is problematic.

Sweden's climate ambitions mean higher food inflation for Sweden than for the other Nordic countries.