The Swedish forest industry plays a vital role in addressing climate change while supporting jobs och economic growth. By providing renewable materials and fossil free energy, the sector contributes to reducing emissions, strengthening Europe’s resilience, and enabling a competitive, sustainable bioeconomy.
In this context, a credible and effective climate framework should be based on the following principles:
- Substitution of fossil-intensive energy and materials should be the primary objective, mainly driven by emission trading, without overlapping national targets under ESR and RED.
- Fossil emissions and the biogenic carbon cycle should be treated separately in targets and policy instruments.
- LULUCF should not compensate for insufficient fossil emission reductions in other sectors.
- Permanent removals should only compensate for truly hard-to-abate fossil emissions and should not delay fossil phase-out.
- Financing of permanent removals should follow the polluter-pays principle.
- Frontrunners (businesses and Member States) should not be penalised, for example, by the ETS 95% threshold for biomass.
- A strong forest-based bioeconomy and active sustainable forestry should be recognised as foundational to the climate transition.
- Regulatory simplification and improved competitiveness for the EU bioeconomy are essential.
The 2030 climate framework is divided in three sectors that contribute towards a future net-zero target. It is still uncertain if the same sectors remain post 2030.
- Emission trading for fossil emissions from industry, electricity, heating and transport (ETS)
- Effort sharing with Member State targets for emissions in heating and transport, partially overlapping with (ESR)
- Land use, land use change and forestry sector
The emission reductions are also supported by other legislation, for example, the Renewable Energy Directive (RED).
