The Scandinavian country has some natural advantages. 70% of Sweden is forest land. And forests are very useful when it comes to reducing greenhouse gas emissions because they remove CO2 from the atmosphere. The country is also blessed with a great deal of wind, as well as mountains, streams and lakes — perfect for renewable energy.
But it wasn’t just hitting the natural resources jackpot that got the country to where it is now. Sweden realized its natural potential early on and started investing in renewable energy sources much earlier than many other countries.
“Sweden has had hydropower for more than a century,” according to Goldmann.
They also cut out fossil fuels from their energy mix back in the 1970s, when the global oil crisis hit. When countries were looking for other sources of energy, Sweden substantially built out nuclear energy.
Today, almost 70% of Sweden’s electricity comes from renewables, especially hydropower and wind. The rest of its electricity demand is met by nuclear power. This means their greenhouse gas emissions for electricity production are almost zero right now.
“So, they are almost not using any fossil fuels for producing electricity. If you compare it with other countries, that’s a whole other world,” said Jorre De Schrijver, an energy expert from the European Environment Agency.
And it’s not just electricity that’s now produced without fossil fuels in Sweden — that also goes for heating and energy-intense industrial processes.
Electricity generation is not the only place fossil fuels are used and Sweden had a clean grid in 1990 already. Also 4 of Swedish electricity is from fossil fuels. A lot more is from nuclear, which also is heat based.
Point is that Sweden did not cut emissions, by shutting down fossil fuel power plants since 1990. At least that had nearly no impact, as the grid was clean already.