Page 62 - European Energy Innovation - summer 2018 publication

62 Summer 2018 European Energy Innovation

SWEDEN ENERGY

How to make everybody agree
on a 100% renewables

By Jakop Dalunde, MEP a suitable place for extensive solar Swedish Parliament has agreed that
energy programs. Sweden should be 100 % renewable
The idea that any advanced in 20 years and the industry is making
economy can be run solely Thus, when the Swedish Greens big adjustments to reach it. How did
with renewable energy has first proposed a 100% renewable we achieve this? I hope some lessons
often – and Sweden is no energy system we were at best might be learned from our experience
exception here – been described as met with ill-concealed laughter. by other European politicians and
a fool's errand. Sweden in particular The proposal was according to popular movements, hoping to
should be bad testing ground for an most commentators and politicians achieve similar things in their own
energy system that is renewable in supposed to be scientifically unviable countries.
its entirety. Half of the year the and economically disastrous. Yet,
country is too cold for most sensible seven years later, our proposal has First of all it was crucial that the
people, underscoring the need for become official government policy. majority of the parties in the Swedish
a reliable energy system. According A large bipartisan majority of the parliament came to share the
to popular opinion Sweden was overarching understanding of the
also supposed to be too dark to be importance of 100% renewables.
2/3 of the global emissions derive
from the energy sector. To reach the
targets from the Paris Agreement
the emissions from the energy
sector must be addressed. Luckily,
the momentum given by the Paris
Agreement, made other parties and
actors more susceptible for real
climate action.

A determined but pragmatic green
movement – willing to make allies
of unexpected partners – is another
key lesson for getting conservative
parties and large sectors of the
industry on board with the program.
It is challenging to change an
energy system quickly and business
friendly politicians have traditionally
been understandably reluctant to
adopt high renewable energy targets.

By being pragmatic, we managed
to show how demands for reduced
climate impact are also an
opportunity for Swedish companies,
which are often the world’s leading
producers of environmentally friendly
products and services. Presenting

www.europeanenergyinnovation.eu