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Sweden’S environment ProblemS and Protection

1960–2010

Foreword Changes in environmental policy take time. Being one of the oldest environmental protection agencies in the world, we often receive questions about the priorities, driving forces and overall development of environmental policy. In 2009 the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency published an environmental history of Sweden, Use and Misuse of Nature’s Resources. One of the authors, the historian Lars J. Lundgren, here presents a brief summary of the history of the last fifty years in Sweden’s Environment – Problems and Protection, 1960–2010.

ISBN 978-91-620-8501-8. Print: cm Gruppen, Stockholm, 11-03. ProdUction: Swedish ePa. tranSlation: martin naylor. deSiGn: Peter Hönig. GraPHicS: claes bernes. illUStration: p 31 tobias Flygar. PHoto: Page 1 christer Fliesberg - megapix, p 2-3 roland calvén / ibl bildbyrå, p 4 Jan-michael breider / n, p 7 Ulf claesson - megapix, p 9 Patrick nijhuis / SXc, p 11 Karin lindström / SXc, p 13 lars Pehrson / ScanPiX, p 14 Kenn Kiser / SXc, p 17 björn larsson ask / Svd / ScanPiX, p 19 lennart norström / n, p 21 Jan Grahn / n, p 23 Janusz dymidziuk / SXc, p 24 davide Guglielmo / SXc, p 25 SXc, p 27 Jan töve / n, p 29 Peter lindberg / n, p 33 björn röhsman / n, p 35 Jonas Forsberg / n and (eU) bilderberg / ina agency, p 36 cicero Kal-el / SXc.

Sweden’s environment – Problems and Protection, 1960–2010

Swedish environmental policy today tends to describe efforts to protect the environ-ment in terms of what we wish to achieve, what goals we have for the state of the environment. Previously, the emphasis was on eliminating threats – threats to human health and to fauna and flora from an increasingly polluted environment. Environmental problems were debated in Sweden, sometimes with great intensity, as early as a hundred years ago, but the real breakthrough for protection of the environment did not come until the 1960s.

This booklet describes how environmental protection in Sweden has evolved over the last fifty years, outlining the factors that have shaped it and the obstacles along the way.

sweden’s environment – problems and protection, 1960–20104

dead birds a wake-up call In the 1950s, homes, roads and hydroelectric power stations were being built as never before. Material standards of living were rising. So too were the numbers of road vehicles and second homes: in 1959 there were a million cars in Sweden, nine years later two million. And agricultural and industrial use of chemicals was on the increase.

Since the 1940s, mercury compounds had been employed both in farming, to treat seed (alkyl mercury), and in the pulp industry, to prevent slime formation in paper pulp (phenyl mercury). In the early 1960s, ornithologists found injured and dead birds, and it was suspected that the growing use of mercury-based seed dres-sings in agriculture was to blame. On the basis of many years of entirely informal collaboration, scientists from a wide range of disciplines came to the conclusion that mercury was a toxic pollutant that could ‘biomagnify’ (become increasingly concentrated) in food chains and end up in humans.

The proportion of white-tailed eagle pairs producing young along the east coast of southern and central Sweden has risen markedly since the 1970s, when toxic pollutant concentration were at their highest.

5sweden’s environment – problems and protection, 1960–2010

Sweden’s gross domestic product

100

index (2000 = 100), constant prices

crop failure 1867,agricultural crisis

blockade duringWorld War II

depression afterWorld War I

slower growthafter oil crises

1720 1920 1960 2000

GDP

GDP per capita

17601740 1780 1820 1860 1900 1940 1980

4%/yrGrowthrate 3%/yr

2%/yr1%/yr

18801800 1840

7050

30

20

40

107543

2

10.70.5

In 1966 the use of alkyl mercury as a seed dressing was banned, and in 1967 the pulp industry’s mercury emissions were halted by a ban on phenyl mercury. The same year, around a hundred fishing waters were ‘blacklisted’: the fish from them were not allowed to be sold on account of their high mercury levels.

The idea that there was a threat of poisoning to ourselves and our environ-ment provoked strong feelings and heated debate. The environment became a separate policy area, with a place of its own on the political agenda.

At this time, in 1967, with the debate on mercury at its most intense, the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency was set up, a central government body responsible for the environmental sector as a whole, including nature conserva-tion. It was formed by the merger of a number of smaller authorities responsible for water, air quality, conservation and other areas.

on a per capita basis (and at constant prices), Sweden’s gross domestic product remained al most unchanged during the 18th century. Its sub sequent rise was chiefly a consequence of industrialisation. Up to the beginning of the 20th century per capita GdP trebled, but Sweden was still a poor country, with a long way to go to today’s prosperity and high productivity. – data from edvinsson 2005, historia.se and Swedish National Institute of economic research.


new demands on industry and local councils

Consolidated environmental legislation was also introduced – the 1969 Environment Protection Act – to prevent water and air pollution, noise and other forms of distur-bance from industrial and other stationary installations. Previously, only pollution of water had been regulated. Under the new law, a permit was required to operate any plant posing potential hazards to the environment. Disturbance of the environment from such operations was to be prevented as far as was technically feasible, economi-cally reasonable and environmentally justified. These three factors were to be taken into account in every permit issued.

At the same time, a National Licensing Board for Environment Protection was set up, consisting of an experienced judge as chair, two other members with environmen-tal and technical expertise, and a fourth member with industrial or – for applications involving matters of municipal concern – local government experience. The Board was to base its decisions on an individual assessment of each environmentally hazardous undertaking. All forms of disturbance from one operation were to be regulated in a single permit, a system known as integrated permitting.

Anyone contravening the Environment Protection Act could be fined, but such penalties were never common. In practice, implementation of the Act was based more on cooperation and agreement between businesses and the authorities. Day-to-day monitoring to ensure that emissions remained within the limits set was left to companies themselves. The authorities supervised this self-monitoring by operators, as well as giving advice on improvements.

The Licensing Board’s requirements in terms of measures to reduce emissions and other pressures on the environment were guided primarily by the idea of ‘best available technology’ (BAT) – firms were expected to use the most effective abatement equipment and the least environmentally disruptive process techniques on the market. This step-by-step approach proved a success – over time, major improvements in the environment were achieved.

The pulp industry, for example, was able to switch to processes based on more or less closed cycles. Some emissions could also be reduced using filters or other abate-ment technology. In addition, significant environmental improvements followed in the wake of restructuring carried out for purely economic reasons. When numerous relatively small factories with outdated technology were replaced with fewer, but ne-wer, larger and more efficient plants, total pollutant emissions often fell very markedly – despite a continued rise in production volumes.

The Environment Protection Act was undoubtedly the most important of the tools available to the authorities to bring about improvements in the environment. But there were also carrots in the form of government subsidies. Over the period 1969–74, get-ting on for SEK 800 million (at historic prices1) was paid out to industry through the Environmental Protection Agency in investment grants for new, cleaner technology.

1 The equivalent of around SEK 4.7 billion, or €490 million, at 2010 prices.

despite rising production, discharges of oxygen-con-suming organic residues from pulp mills have fallen sharply since the 1960s. According to measurements in the river Göta älv, re duced emissions have appreciably im proved water quality throughout Lake Vänern. – data from Arpi 1959, Swedish Forest Industries Federation and Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences.

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million tonnes COD/yearOrganic dischargesfrom pulp industry

Pulp production

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10

01960 1980 2000

mg KMnO4 / lOrganic matter in outflow from

Lake Vänern

The pulp industry was able to switch to proces-ses based on more or less closed cycles. Some

emissions could also be reduced using filters or other abatement technology.


both people and nature protected from hazardous substances

Mercury was only the start of the debate about toxic pollutants. In 1970, DDT, diel-drin, toxaphene and a number of similar pesticides were banned (although the use of DDT in forestry was exempted until 1975).

PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) had been produced on an industrial scale since 1929, for use, for instance, as plasticisers, in electrical capacitors and in hydraulic fluids. Before 1966, no one had any idea that these chemicals were gradually escaping into and spreading in the natural environment, and that they could be found for example in fish and in human milk, increasing the risk of cancer and damage to the immune system. In 1972 the use of PCBs in sealants, paints and plastics was prohibi-ted, and in 1978 all new use of them was banned, including in closed systems.

In 1973, the Riksdag (the Swedish Parliament) passed an Act on Products Hazardous to Health and the Environment. The aim was to be able to intervene ‘against, in principle, any product that may be suspected of harming human health or the environment’. Unlike earlier legislation on chemicals, the new Act sought to protect the health of both people and nature, and not ‘just’ human health as before.

In 1982, Sweden was the first country in the world to ban certain uses of cad-mium, for example in electroplating, as a stabiliser in plastics and as a pigment.

The Hazardous Products Act was superseded in 1986 by a Chemical Products Act, and an authority concerned exclusively with chemicals, the Swedish Chemicals Agency, was set up. The new law placed greater responsibility than before on manu-facturers and importers of chemical products.

The restrictions on products containing mercury became progressively tighter. New use of the metal fell from 9 tonnes in 1991 to 450 kg in 2003. The first restric-tions on CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons), which destroy ozone molecules in the protec-tive ozone layer of the stratosphere, came as early as 1977. First their use was halted in aerosol cans, and later in insulation materials and refrigerants, and by 1995 they were phased out almost entirely – the most ambitious policy on CFCs in the world.

The Montreal Protocol’s original timetable for phasing out CFCs in the industrialised countries was soon revised at meetings in London and Copenhagen, but Sweden opted for an even more rapid phase-out. – From Vedung & Klefbom 2002.

MontrealProtocol (1987)

London(1990)

Copenhagen(1992)

Insulating plastics

100

1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010

1,000

0

2,000

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tonnes/yr

1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010

permitted use compared with 1986 (%)

Restrictions on use of CFCs

Swedish CFC emissions

80

60

40

20

0

RefrigerantsDry-cleaning, degreasing etc.Aerosol cans, packaging materialsProduction of plastic foams

Sweden(1988)


All new use of CFCs has been banned in Sweden since 1995, but such compounds continue to leak from older products. This diagram shows rough estimates of the quanti-ties involved. – From IVL Swedish environmental research Institute.

MontrealProtocol (1987)

London(1990)

Copenhagen(1992)

Insulating plastics

100

1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010

1,000

0

2,000

3,000

4,000

tonnes/yr

1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010

permitted use compared with 1986 (%)

Restrictions on use of CFCs

Swedish CFC emissions

80

60

40

20

0

RefrigerantsDry-cleaning, degreasing etc.Aerosol cans, packaging materialsProduction of plastic foams

Sweden(1988)


outdoor recreation – a new reason for protecting nature

Legislation to protect the natural environment was introduced as early as 1909. At the same time, the Riksdag decided to create Sweden’s first national parks: nine of them were established on state land, the first in Europe. Subsequently, progress was slower, but in the 1960s, after several decades of stagnation, nature conserva-tion gathered fresh momentum.

The Nature Conservation Act of 1964 introduced a new form of protection, the nature reserve, a designation that can be used for sites of both scientific and cultural significance, as well as for areas of interest for outdoor recreation. Nature reserves can be created on private as well as state-owned land, by the decision of a county administrative board.

With growing interest in the environment and the setting up of the Environ-mental Protection Agency in 1967, greater resources became available for nature conservation, enabling the state to acquire land or to compensate landowners for restrictions on the use of their land. Since then, nature reserves have become the dominant form of site protection. In 2010, there are over 3,500 of them, covering an area of over 4 million hectares, and the number of national parks has grown to 29. Many reserves and parks form part of the EU’s network of protected natural areas, Natura 2000, which also includes another few million hectares in Sweden.

If all types of protected area are included, a good 15 per cent of Sweden’s total land surface is now safeguarded. The majority (over 80 per cent) of protected land is in the country’s mountain regions. This is partly because these relatively

19100

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1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000

million hectares Protecting the natural environment

Nature conservation areasNature reservesNational parks

Sweden has had national parks for a hundred years, but more recently nature reserves, first created in 1965, have become the dominant form of site protection. Nature conser-vation areas are a weaker form of protection that is no longer used. – From Statistics Sweden 2009.

untouched natural areas are highly valued in a conservation context. Another important explanation is that it costs a good deal more to create reserves in the productive forests and farming regions of the lowlands than in the mountains.

Even before the Nature Conservation Act was passed, powers existed to pro-tect certain shorelines from development. In 1975, general protection for shores was introduced: no new homes were to be built within 100 metres of any seashore, lake or watercourse (with some exemptions). In particularly sensitive areas, the protected zone could be extended to 300 metres.

A key factor behind the strong interest in nature conservation in Sweden is the right of public access, a customary right to roam on land belonging to others (with certain exceptions, such as land in the immediate vicinity of a house, and fields with growing crops).


Government support for sewage treatment

From the mid-1950s, more and more of Sweden’s local authorities began to build sewage treatment plants. Initially, the main concern was secondary (bio-logical) treatment, to reduce the amount of oxygen-consuming organic matter in the effluent, but it soon became clear that this was not enough. New synt-hetic detergents, rich in phosphorus, were increasing nutrient discharges from urban sewers. In many lakes and rivers, the consequences were greatly elevated algal production, excessive plant growth, oxygen depletion and fish kills. To reduce phosphorus levels in wastewater, chemical treatment was also required.

Central government support to local councils for investments in water and sewage systems, introduced in the 1940s, was replaced in 1968 with grants for the building of municipal wastewater treatment plants, guided by the principle ‘the more effective the treatment, the larger the grant from the state’. When this scheme was discontinued in 1982, SEK 1.9 billion (at historic prices2) had been paid out, one of the largest environmental subsidies ever in Sweden.

By 2010, more than 99 per cent of the country’s urban population3 were served by treatment facilities providing phosphorus removal, which on average eliminates a good 95 per cent of the phosphorus in sewage. As a result, total discharges of this nutrient from Swedish towns, which stood at some 7,000 tonnes a year in the late 1960s, have been cut to around 360 tonnes (2005), probably a world record in this field.

In many coastal towns, wastewater is now also treated to remove nitrogen, with the aim of reducing marine eutrophication.

The sludge from sewage treatment plants is rich in nutrients, especially phosphorus. Although contaminant levels in this sludge have been reduced, still only a small proportion of it, around 15 per cent, is used on arable land, owing to resistance from farmers and the food industry.

Organicmatter80

thousand tonnes BOD7 /yr

1940 1970 2000

60

40

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0

25

thousand tonnes /yr

1940 1970 2000

20

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thousand tonnes /yr

1940 1970 2000

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0

Phosphorus

Nitrogen

Municipalsewage

discharges

Organicmatter80


1940 1970 2000

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40

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thousand tonnes /yr

1940 1970 2000

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thousand tonnes /yr

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Phosphorus

Nitrogen

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discharges

Organicmatter80


1940 1970 2000

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thousand tonnes /yr

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Phosphorus

Nitrogen

Municipalsewage

discharges

Municipal sewage

discharges

In the post-war period, as urban populations grew, discharges of sewage from towns also increased. Thanks to gradual improvements in treatment, however, the quantities of organic matter and nutrients in these discharges have been much reduced in recent years. – data from Swedish environmental Protection Agency 1993 and Statistics Sweden.

2 Corresponding to just over SEK 5 billion, or €530 million, at 2010 prices. 3 Or around 83 per cent of the total population.


New synthetic detergents, rich in phosphorus, were increasing nutrient discharges from urban sewers. one of the consequences were greatly elevated algal production, also far out in the archipelago.

breakthrough for international action on air pollution

In 1967, a Swedish scientist drew attention to a new environmental problem: the growing acidification of precipitation resulting from increased use of sulphur-bearing fossil fuels in Europe. By the late 1970s, around 17,000 of Sweden’s just over 90,000 lakes were so significantly affected by acid deposition that acid-sensitive plant and animal species were unable to thrive or even survive there.

Only a year after the alarm had been raised, a law was passed to halt the use of high-sulphur fuel oil in Sweden. Convincing the governments of other countries that acid precipitation was a problem requiring action throughout Europe, however, proved much harder. It was considered unthinkable that pollutants could spread hundreds of kilometres across national borders. But in 1979, thirty-five countries signed a UNECE4 Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution, and in 1985 the first proto-col to reduce sulphur emissions was adopted.

The international oil crises and structural changes in the energy sector gave efforts to cut acidifying emissions a significant helping hand. One important change was a major expansion of nuclear power in Sweden. In 1970, the country’s emissions of sulphur dioxide totalled 910,000 tonnes; by 2009, they were down to less than 35,000 tonnes. Across the EU, sulphur oxide emissions fell by 78 per cent over the period 1990–2008.

4 United Nations Economic Commission for Europe.


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pH of precipitationin central Sweden

Sulphur deposition in precipitationover central Sweden

Sulphur deposition to spruce forests

Sulphur dioxideemissions in

Sweden

Acidifying emissions and depositionthousand tonnes/year

Domestic transportInternational shipping and aviation

Energy production*

* including domestic transport prior to 1990.

Pulp industryOther industry

Officially reported data (1990–)Reconstructed data (–1990)

Swedish emissions of sulphur peaked around 1970 and have since fallen very substantially. deposition of sulphur across the country has not decreased to the same extent, since much of it origi-nates in other countries. The acidity of precipitation, being affected not only by sulphur but also by acidifying nitrogen compounds, did not fall appreciably until the 1990s. The maps below show total deposition of sulphur, i.e. depo-sition both in gaseous and particulate form and in precipitation. – emission data from Kindbom et al. 1993 and Sweden’s reports under Climate Change Convention. deposition data from L. Granat (Stockholm University) and IVL.

4.24.44.64.8

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Sulphur deposition in precipitationover central Sweden



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Energy production*




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Energy production*





Separation at source – a key to recycling

Since the beginning of the 20th century, the quantity of household waste per capita in Sweden has risen at roughly the same rate as GDP. Up to the 1980s, the great majority of this waste was disposed of on tips – everything from entirely harmless refuse to hazardous chemicals, including large amounts of industrial waste. Not only did land for disposal sites become harder to find, there were also problems of leaching of pollutants.

During the 1980s, waste incineration with energy recovery was developed on a large scale, and it now provides a fifth of Sweden’s district heating. Separation at source, which also saw a breakthrough in the 1980s, has been crucial both in enabling materials to be recovered from waste and in preventing hazardous wastes going astray.

In 1994 the Riksdag introduced ‘producer responsibility’, transferring the obli-gation to recover and recycle certain products from local authorities to the sectors manufacturing or selling them. Newsprint, cardboard, glass, beer and soft-drink cans, plastics, batteries and electronic equipment are among the products now col-lected for recycling. A tax on landfill was introduced in 2000, and has since been raised several times. A few years later a ban was imposed on landfill disposal both of waste that can be incinerated for energy recovery and of organic waste, which can be composted or turned into biogas.

Today, almost half the country’s household waste is recycled for materials, and half is burned to produce energy. Only a few per cent is sent to landfill. What is more, as waste separation has expanded, mercury and cadmium have been phased out and flue-gas cleaning has improved, pollutant emissions from waste

Waste incineration

Mercuryemissions

Quantityof waste

Cadmiumemissions

Dioxinemissions

1980

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kg/year kg/year g TCDD equivalents/year

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001990 2000 1990 2000 1990 2000 1990 2000

million tonnes/year

At the same time as more and more waste has been burnt, hazardous emissions from incinerators have been very greatly reduced, chiefly thanks to efficient flue-gas cleaning. – data from Statistics Sweden and Swedish waste Management.


Management of household wastemillion tonnes/year

Materials recoveryBiological treatmentIncinerationLandfill

4

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2

1

01975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005

incineration have been reduced to a minimum. A great many places in Sweden, though, are affected by past emissions, dumping or spil-lage of toxic substances, not least chemical spills from old industrial plants or leachates from the 4,000 abandoned waste tips in the country. The environmental authorities have identified some 13,000 areas of land and water with signs of contamination that could pose a greater or lesser risk to health or the environment. Many of these areas are small, but levels of pollutants can be high.

Almost 5,000 contaminated sites have been investigated, and remediation or other measures have been carried out at some 1,500. The main responsibility for clean-up rests with the company or individual that caused the problem. But large state grants have also been made available to remediate over 90 priority areas in the highest risk cate-gory, above all when those responsible for the contamination can no longer be traced.

The Högdalen combined heat and power station in Stockholm is one of the plants now fuelled by household waste.

In the 1970s the majority of household waste was sent to landfill, but today most of it is incinerated or recycled for materials. – data from Swedish waste Management.


land use conflicts and debate on nuclear energy

During the 1960s, a marked regional imbalance arose in Sweden, with large move-ments of the population from north to south and from rural to urban areas. In the south, competition and conflicts grew over how land and water were to be used.

As the decade drew to a close, the Government decided that, as a complement to local authorities’ responsibilities for planning the use of land and water (physi-cal planning), there should be a role for the state. National guidelines for physical planning were to be introduced, although municipalities would still decide on land use in individual cases. The idea was to ‘plan away’ conflicts by identifying areas of national significance for certain interests in society, such as transport, energy production and nature conservation. This framework for state planning gave rise in 1987 to a Natural Resources Act.

Conflicts of interest arose, not least, over hydroelectric power. The 1940s and 1950s saw very rapid development of this resource. Indigenous energy was essenti-al during the war, and became a cornerstone of industrial expansion after the war. In the end, though, both local communities and conservationists had had enough, and after many years of debate they found support in the Riksdag (the Swedish parliament). In 1985 it was decided that the four major rivers still untapped for power – the Torne älv, Kalix älv, Pite älv and Vindelälven, all in northern Sweden – were to be left undisturbed. A few years later they were declared ‘national rivers’.

Nuclear power meanwhile changed, in a short space of time, from a promise to a threat. At the beginning of 1973, the Government had taken it as read that twenty-four reactors would be built by 1990. Two years later, a Riksdag decision limited expansion to thirteen reactors. Nuclear energy was called into question: it was based on a non-renewable resource, uranium, carried a risk of enormous ac-cidents, and involved hazardous storage of radioactive waste.

The accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in the United States in 1979 prompted a decision to hold a referendum on nuclear energy in Sweden in 1980. On the face of it, the vote was about the pace at which this form of energy was to be phased out, but in practice the outcome permitted a continued expan-sion. The number of reactors was limited to twelve, however, and they were to be closed down by 2010.

One nuclear power station, with the two smallest reactors, has now been closed, but once again the ground rules have changed. In 2010 the Riksdag deci-ded that old nuclear reactors could be replaced with new ones, provided that the owners assumed unlimited liability in the event of an accident.


0

12

345

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789 million

Urban and rural population

1800 1840 1880 1920 1960 2000

Urban population

Rural population

From a peak around 1880, the rural population of Sweden has now returned to its 18th-century level. In the 1980s, however, its decline came to a halt. – data from Statistics Sweden 2006.

Pite älv is one of the four ‘national rivers’ in northern Sweden to be left undisturbed, untapped for power.


breakthrough for environmental policy in the 1960s

Over a ten-year period, from the early 1960s to the early 1970s, the basic elements of Swedish environmental policy were put in place and the three most important environmental laws passed: the Nature Conservation Act (1964), the Environment Protection Act (1969) and the Hazardous Products Act (1973).

But why had so little been done when environmental problems had appeared around the beginning of the 20th century? The reason was that, at that time, the environment was not considered sufficiently important. Poverty and a lack of democracy prevented the emergence of a body of opinion in favour of protecting it. Many other issues were more pressing: jobs, food, the vote, the right of associa-tion, better housing and so on. Care of the environment would have to wait.

By 1965, Sweden was one of the richest countries in the world and had long been a parliamentary democracy. The reason substantial resources were invested in environmental protection from that point on was that the changes in nature arising from different activities in society were now seen as a problem. There was a groundswell of opinion for efforts to look after the environment, which citizens felt they could now afford.

Another factor that helped to put environmental issues on the agenda in the 1960s was scientific evidence that the use and release of mercury and other substances could harm both the natural environment and human beings – even far from emission sources and long after they had been used. Everything in nature was connected: air, soil and water. And man was part of nature’s web.

What is more, the environment now figured far more prominently in the media than before, with column and air space given over to scientists and others wishing to put their knowledge and views across to the public. Images of oiled birds and dead fish were brought straight into people’s living rooms, provoking reactions and shaping opinion. But there was also a growing realisation that it was in fact possible to do quite a lot about the problems.

The political parties’ 1960 and 1964 election manifestos had little to say on the environment, but by 1968 all the parties were talking about it. The subject took up even more space in the election campaigns of the early 1970s. And now the environmental movement also began to grow. In 1959 the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation had 15,000 members; twenty years later it had 65,000.

In the 1960s, the changes in nature arising from different activities in society were seen as a problem. Substantial resources were invested in environmental protection from that point.


environment at the centre of political debate, 1985–1991

Interest in the environment reached a peak during the 1988 election, which saw the Green Party elected to the Riksdag, the first new party to gain seats there for seventy years.

By 1987 the membership of the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation had grown to 150,000. Greenpeace Sweden was set up in 1983, and within five years it had 210,000 supporting members.

In the late 1980s, industry went on the offensive, intent on solving environ-mental problems on its own, a step ahead of the politicians. More and more major companies appointed environmental affairs officers and made them part of their senior management. They adopted environmental policies and conducted internal environmental audits. The watchword now was no longer the Polluter Pays Princi-ple, but Pollution Prevention Pays.

In 1987 the Government set up a separate Ministry of the Environment and Energy – environmental issues had previously come under the Ministry of Agri-culture. Environmental policy became more proactive generally, and funding for research on the environment was increased. The Government and the Riksdag adopted detailed goals and timetables in wide-ranging environment bills.

Up to the mid-1980s, the environment had been placed in a compartment of its own: nature conservation was not to be dragged into farming or forestry policy, and environmental protection was to be kept apart from energy, transport and, above all, fiscal policy. At the end of the 1980s, this approach was turned on its head: all areas of society were now to be ‘greened’. In 1991 there was talk of de-veloping environment-friendly energy and transport systems, environment-friendly agriculture and so on.

It has become a cornerstone of Swedish environment policy that every sector of society is responsible for addressing its own environmental problems. And all the relevant government agencies are required to take steps to ensure that this ‘sectoral responsibility’ is discharged.

Talk about environment-friendly energy became mainstream.


From point to diffuse sources, from production to consumption

Until the late 1980s, protection of the environment was concerned above all with reducing pollutant emissions to water and air from towns, factories and other major point sources. Environmental monitoring data showed that the action taken was producing results, particularly in the immediate vicinity of sources. But as emissions from outfalls and chimneys abated, the numerous small, ‘diffuse’ emissions – such as nutrients leaching from fields and forests, or vehicle exhausts – became relatively more important.

Emissions via factory gates also increased in relative terms: manufactured pro-ducts could be harmful to the environment while in use or when scrapped. Increas-ingly, the focus shifted to products and consumption: the public were urged to think about the environment when buying goods, travelling, heating their homes and so on. Environmental protection became an issue with implications for every citizen and his or her everyday behaviour.

Towards the end of the 1980s, ‘Buy green’ emerged as a slogan. To be able to do so, though, consumers needed clear and credible information about the charac-teristics of different products. It was against this backdrop that a number of eco-labelling schemes were introduced in the early 1990s – schemes whereby products judged to meet certain environmental criteria could be marked with a symbol.


climate change the dominant issue so far this century

At the end of the 19th century, the Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius worked out that, in the long run, emissions of carbon dioxide could warm the earth. A hundred years later, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) agreed that the balance of evidence suggested ‘a discernible human influence on global climate’.

Climate did not begin to emerge as a major concern of Swedish environmental policy until the late 1980s, however. A tax on carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels was introduced in 1991 and was later gradually increased. Since the adoption of the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, the global climate issue has completely dominated the environmental debate. There is a tendency, both in Sweden and across the EU, to begin to separate climate policy from other areas of environmental policy.

Sweden’s involvement in international efforts to tackle climate change has built on the work of successful scientists, including Bert Bolin, the first chairman of the IPCC. Progress has also been facilitated by the fact that fossil fuels account for a relatively small share of the country’s energy supply, compared with other industrial nations.

Thirty years ago, in 1980, fossil fuels provided two-thirds, 66 per cent, of Sweden’s energy. By 2008, the proportion had fallen to just over a third, or 38 per cent. The strong expansion of nuclear power in the early 1980s enabled almost all of the country’s oil-fired generating stations to be closed. At the same time, many house owners switched from oil-based to electric heating, not least because of price increases in the wake of the oil crises. As a result, Swedish carbon dioxide emissions were cut by almost a third in just a few years.

In 2009, some 90 per cent of Sweden’s electricity came from nuclear and hydro-electric plants. In addition, wood and other biofuels are now used on a larger scale than in the 19th century, when they were the country’s dominant energy source.

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Swedish emissions of carbon dioxidemillion tonnes/yr

Burning of natural gas

Cement production

Burning of oil, petrol etc.Burning of coal etc.

Most of Sweden’s carbon dioxide emissions arise from the burning of fossil fuels. Following a steep increase in the post-war decades, the use of such fuels began to decline again around 1980, a result of energy-saving measures and a shift from oil to nuclear power and biofuels. – data up to 1990 from Marland, Boden & Andres, Carbon dioxide In-formation Analysis Center, oak ridge; later data from Sweden’s reports under Climate Change Convention.


both grants and chargesThe subsidies of the 1970s for investments in direct environmental pro-tection measures were restricted in the 1980s to support for new techno-logy, liming of acidified lakes and streams, and protection of the farmed landscape. The focus shifted instead to charges on various products and emissions: in 1984, for example, levies were imposed on chemical fertili-sers and pesticides. Later, grant funding increased again, with the emphasis on a transition to cleaner energy and as a component of climate policy. In 1997 the Riksdag allocated SEK 6.2 billion to local investment programmes (1998–2002) to improve ecological sustainability – projects to promote en-ergy efficiency, renewable energy, good residential environments, abatement of emissions to air and water, and biodiversity.

Various forms of renewable energy – wind power, small-scale hydro, domestic solar heating, biofuel-based district heating and combined heat and power – have been encouraged by state grants. In addition, from 2003 to 2008, local authorities and companies received almost SEK 2 billion in government support for ‘climate investments’ in the form of energy-saving measures and other initiatives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Biofuels were exempted from the general energy tax as early as 1984.

When the carbon dioxide tax was introduced in 1991, it was part of a ‘green tax shift’, whereby SEK 18 billion previously levied in income tax began to be raised instead from taxes on energy and emissions.

Alongside these taxes and other conventional economic instruments, more and more ‘market-based’ instruments are also now being used, like the Emissions Trading Scheme introduced by the EU in 2005.


Biofuels are exempted from general energy tax to promote renewable energy.


Fifteen laws became an environmental code

In the decades after 1960, a patchwork of environmental legislation in closely related areas emerged. After many years of inquiries, provisions from fifteen laws in this field were, in 1999, brought together in a single Environmental Code, as part of the coordination of Swedish and EU environmental legislation following Sweden’s membership of the European Union in 1995. The Code has, in addition, made environmental law more preventive in approach. It requires all types of acti-vities with potential impacts on the environment to follow certain general rules of consideration. When the Code was introduced, the National Licensing Board and the water rights courts were replaced with regional environmental courts and an Environmental Court of Appeal.

In 1998 the Government announced that the overarching goal of environ-ment policy was to be able to ‘hand over to the next generation a society in which Sweden’s major environmental problems have been solved’. Over the next few years, the Riksdag adopted sixteen generally worded environmental quality objec-tives, together with some 70 interim targets staking out, with figures and dates, the road to achieving them. Environmental issues should not, it was felt, be associated solely with threats and difficulties. By formulating visionary objectives, the Go-vernment wanted to strike a more positive note and create greater confidence.

The environmental objectives were revised by the Riksdag in 2010, with the clarification that conditions for achieving them were to be created by 2020, but that it had to be accepted that it would then take time for ecosystems to recover. Even so, it looks as if it will be very difficult to meet the objectives relating to climate change, clean air and toxic pollutants. The various objectives will also require ambitious environmental efforts in Sweden, at EU level and internationally. And care must be taken to ensure that measures to solve environmental problems in Sweden do not give rise to environmental and health problems outside the country’s borders.


THe 16 SwedISH eNVIroNMeNTAL qUALITy oBjeCTIVeS (www.miljomal.se/environmental-objectives-Portal)

1. reduced climate impact

2. clean air

3. natural acidification only

4. a non-toxic environment

5. a Protective ozone layer

6. a Safe radiation environment

7. Zero eutrophication

8. Flourishing lakes and Streams

9. Good-Quality Groundwater

10. a balanced marine environment, Flourishing coastal areas and archipelagos

11. thriving wetlands

12. Sustainable Forests

13. a varied agricultural landscape

14. a magnificent mountain landscape

15. a Good built environment

16. a rich diversity of Plant and animal life


much has improved, but far from everything

The environmental problems of 1960 and 2010 are not identical, and yet not so terribly different either. New issues on the agenda since the mid-1980s are deple-tion of the stratospheric ozone layer, eutrophication of coastal and marine waters, and the risk of large-scale climate change. Conservation of biodiversity became a major concern in the 1990s. Diffuse sources of pollution also assumed greater importance, as did an awareness of our dependence on environmental protection efforts in other countries.

Adverse human impacts on Sweden’s natural environment were most pronoun-ced in the 1960s and 1970s and have since abated. Measures to tackle pollutant emissions have appreciably enhanced air and water quality in urban and industrial areas, i.e. in people’s local environment.

The acidification status of lakes and watercourses is markedly improved. On the other hand, no overall reduction of phosphorus levels in the country’s lakes has been observed in recent years, chiefly owing to inputs from arable land. Nitrogen, likewise, is lost from farmland to rivers, much of it ending up in the sea. Eutrophication and the depletion of oxygen resulting from it are the most serious problems facing the Baltic, a semi-enclosed sea which Sweden shares with eight other countries.

In forestry, nature conservation requirements have gradually been introduced to mitigate the effects on landscape and biodiversity, but only in the 1990s was the sector’s interest in the environment awakened in earnest. Today, conservation is a well-established concern among forest owners, but it is unclear whether forest biodiversity has yet been affected in a positive direction.

Overall, biodiversity has been reduced, in forest and farming areas, in inland waters and in coastal and marine environments. This decline is due in part to pollution, but above all to more intensive agriculture, forestry and fisheries and to hydroelectric schemes and other forms of development.

Thanks to long-term management, positive trends have been seen for certain renewable biological resources that were previously more or less depleted. Timber and game resources were already well on the way to recovery in the first half of the 20th century. Marine fish stocks, on the other hand, continue to be overfished.

In Sweden’s human population, levels of DDT, PCBs and several similar toxic pollutants have fallen markedly since the 1970s. DDT and PCBs have also, slowly but surely, continued to decline in the country’s natural environment.

In recent years, policy on chemicals has been guided by two main principles: the precautionary principle, i.e. no chemicals should be introduced without a care-ful assessment of the environmental and health hazards they may represent, and the substitution or product choice principle, which means that dangerous substan-ces must be replaced with less harmful ones if alternatives exist. But legislation in this area is still hard pressed to keep up with the fast-moving chemical products market.

There are several reasons why the state of Sweden’s environment has not improv-ed as quickly as was hoped. One is that there is often a long delay in nature’s response to external changes. Even if human pressures were immediately to cease altogether, it would be some time before pollutant concentrations in the environ-ment had fallen to natural levels, displaced plants and animals returned, and undesirable traces of our physical interference with nature disappeared. The task of achieving the environmental quality objectives extends over the terms of office of many governments.

Another reason is that the Swedish environment is affected to a large degree by transboundary pollution. Roughly half the national environmental quality objectives can only be met if other countries also do more. The environmental objectives call for continued efforts both nationally and internationally.


a small country in the international arena

Since the Second World War, Sweden has focused on three issues in the internatio-nal arena: peace and security, development cooperation, and the environment. On Sweden’s initiative, the UN arranged a conference in Stockholm in 1972 with the motto ‘Only One Earth’.

Sweden has been particularly active internationally on acidification, chemicals and climate change. Efforts to tackle acidification were successful largely thanks to a restructuring of the European coal industry. The chemicals issue has been energetically pursued in all the relevant international forums since preparations for the UN Conference on Environment and Development in Rio in 1992. So far, the biggest success in this field has been the chemicals legislation introduced by the EU, requiring registration and making manufacturers responsible for assembling data and assessing risks.

Sweden’s accession to the EU in 1995 changed the basis for the country’s environment policy. In the debate leading up to the referendum on membership in 1994, the environment figured prominently. Membership would give Sweden greater opportunities to influence environmental policy throughout Europe, but leave it less space to pursue more ambitious policies of its own. What was better? Eight million Swedes ‘going out in front’, or helping to ensure that 380 million EU citizens took a step forward? Following membership, opinion polls have shown that environment and climate are regarded by Swedes as the highest priorities for the EU.

Many environmental issues previously addressed under international conven-tions are now largely being pursued within the European Union, which has far greater scope to take decisions that are legally binding on its member states than exists in the framework of a convention. In international environmental cooper-ation, too, the EU countries coordinate their positions. The EU has long played a leading and pace-setting role in environmental negotiations at the international level, such as those on climate change.

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swedishepa.se

the Swedish environmental Protection agency

Se-106 48 Stockholm

visiting address: Stockholm - valhallavägen 195

Östersund - Forskarens väg 5, hus Ub

Kiruna - Kaserngatan 14

tel: +46 8 698 10 00, fax: +46 8 20 29 25

sweden’s environment problems and protection 1960–2010€¦ · in 1982, sweden was the first...

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