Sweden is net-negative! Now what?
Yes that's a good thing and climate contributions to other countries are not even included
Swedish forests are a powerful ally as we try to reduce our impact on the global climate. Not only do the managed forests accumulate very large quantities of carbon from the atmosphere. They also provide massive volumes of renewable wood that prevent fossil emissions - not only in Sweden but throughout Europe and world-wide.
On December 16th, Sweden’s official annual report of emissions and removals was released, covering the period 1990-2024. The results were astonishing. Sweden was net-negative in 2024 by as much as 7 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents!
Sweden is the first high-income country to achieve - and surpass - the net-zero goal set out by the Paris agreement and enshrined in EUs climate law. There are several underlying reasons, which are explained below, but the bottom line is that well managed Swedish forests and the products we get from them is a main factor.
We had several years of lower growth in Swedish forests due to drought years in 2018-19, and at the same time higher harvest to salvage trees that were dying from drought-induced insect attacks. As a result the net sink was considerably lower for a few years. But in 2024 the forest growth was back on track and harvests had receded to a slightly lower level. The result was a massive recovery of the net sink in forests. For the land sector as a whole (LULUCF), the net sink was 22 million tonnes higher in 2024 compared to previous year’s report for 2023!
It is as if all road transport in Sweden went fully electrical and the large domestic steel production went fossil-free. In one year. For free!
As a result Sweden is now net-negative.
And this still doesn’t tell the full story of how Sweden helps EU towards climate neutrality, because climate benefits that accrue from exported goods are not included in conventional climate book-keeping. With 85% of wood-based products being exported from Sweden, there is more to say. More on this below.
But the big news did not make headlines
Subsequent news stories to the new report were not about Sweden going climate-negative, but mainly about the much smaller increase in emissions - about 3 million tonnes from 2023 to 2024.
This was a result of the previous red-”green” government pushing too hard towards national climate emission targets. They demanded high blending of imported biofuels in transport fuels. Emissions from transport did go down somewhat, but fuel prices skyrocketed. The government was ousted. The new government lowered blending requirements and thereby fuel prices, which significantly increased the territorially accounted emissions. Whether any of this had any impact on the global climate is another story as those biofuels anyway most likely would have been used somewhere.
Lesson 1: Climate action by governments that go against economics and citizens will not be appreciated or successful. Better look for solutions that align with economic development and people’s needs.
Lesson 2: In climate politics, it’s more important how emissions are accounted for, than what actually happens to the climate. Importing biofuels means they were not used elsewhere. High prices in Sweden meant many filled up before they crossed the border - not least trucks. In both cases emission accounts abroad were debited. Out of sight and out of mind to nationalistic climate politics.
Lesson 3: Media will always avoid the bigger picture if some details provide for a better story and more clicks. The bumped-up emissions was the main story of the day as many wanted to blame the current government. Potentially unachieved national climate targets can always be thoroughly spinned in the news. Never mind connections with economy or citizens.
What took Sweden to net-negative?
First, “net-negative” builds on the “net-zero” concept that came with the Paris agreement. A zero sum game that sets removals to compensate for emissions. One should be very careful with this visionary idea as it compares apples and pears. The real task is to push down fossil emissions as much as possible. Using sinks in forests as compensation for fossil emissions is then not a solution, and may counterproductively lead to erroneous policy. Such as trying to store more carbon in forests instead of using wood to reduce the need for fossils.
More below about the need for a different perspective on the role of forests.
In the meantime, let’s accept that climate accounting à la IPCC 1996 is the way to go, and follow the Paris vision ten years ago that the sum of emissions (from energy, industry, agriculture and waste sectors) and removals (in the land sector and from other carbon removal) should become zero by 2050.
Sweden is then 26 years ahead of the game. We are already net-negative.
What happened?
It started with the oil crisis in the 1970s when Sweden was one of the most fossil-dependent countries in the world. As the price of oil skyrocketed, politics quickly turned to new solutions (not unlike the recent situation when blending requirements led to higher fuel prices). The first solution was nuclear energy which provided reliable, cheap and fossil-free electricity - though the climate impact wasn’t really part of the play at the time.
Later came investments in district heating, fuel switching from fossils to bioenergy, wind power and overall efficiency gains in energy use. Today, fossil-free energy dominates the Swedish economy, with bioenergy as the biggest energy category. Emissions are down 50% since 1970 and 30% since 1990. At the same time both population and economy have grown.
In parallell, the vast forests of Sweden have been restored from an exploited state a hundred years ago. Gradually forest growth, wood harvest and biomass content have all increased. One result of this is a massive net removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Since 1990, about 3 billion cubic meters have been harvested from managed forests. At the same time almost two billion tons (Gt) of carbon dioxide have been added to the forest and another quarter billion tons added to wood-based products that are in use. These are very large numbers. Over the entire 35 years period since 1990, net removals are almost as high as emissions from the Swedish economy. And in the latest years removals actually outpaced emissions.
Current reporting framework hides contributions from forests
Based on the new numbers on emissions and removals, Sweden will prepare its annual National Inventory Document (NID), which is sent to the climate change convention secretariat.
Many countries submit NIDs following IPCC’s Common Reporting Framework which was established in the 1990s, and where reality has been subdivided into sectors (roughly: Energy, Industry and product use, Waste and Land use (including forestry)). The idea is have a standardised reporting format for comparing different countries with each other, and also for following a country’s emissions and removals over time.
These are good ambitions that support the formulation of international and national climate policy. It also serves monitoring of progress towards climate goals, such as the EU net-zero target for 2050.
But the reporting framework has serious flaws.
It does not acknowledge how sectors interact. For example, when more wood is produced from the land sector, it leads to a myriad of renewable products that are used in other sectors, thereby avoiding fossil emissions, but there is no reciprocity for this. The only factor that counts is the carbon stock in forests, which means that harvesting of wood is negative.
Similarly, the framework does not account for the effects of trade, which can be both negative through imported emissions, and positive through exported emission reductions. Imported emissions are sometimes addressed by estimating consumption-based emissions. Effects of exported reductions of emissions are, however, nowhere to be found. As Sweden exports about 85% of its forest industry products, most prevention of fossil emissions occurs in other countries.
These examples show how forests and the wood-based value chain is disadvantaged by the design and structure in conventional climate reporting. It is about time to change this situation. Not least because we need to unhide the very large contribution of forests, if we are to reach the ambitious EU climate targets.
The new ISO 13391 standard provides methodology that includes the effects of wood-based products both on forest carbon stocks and on fossil emissions that are displaced. This means that forest-based corporations can calculate the overall climate impact of their operations. This is important as every cubic meter of harvested wood leads to a variety of products that together have the potential to prevent about one ton of fossil CO2 emissions.
Sweden’s export of wood-based products potentially prevents 40 million tons of fossil CO2 emissions every year. About 60% of this within the European Union. So in addition to Sweden being territorially net-negative (-7 Mt CO2e in 2024 as per above), another -40 Mt CO2e is added by wood-based products preventing fossil emissions in other countries.
Super-net-negative.
What does it mean for EU?
Clearly, the Swedish example is key for achieving EUs very ambitious climate goals. There are two key messages:
Existing book-keeping of emissions and removals does not capture the full picture. Effective policy requires that inter-sectorial and international impacts are included. The forest-based sector is particularly disadvantaged by current constructions. Revision of the LULUCF regulation is urgent to align climate policy with reality.
Sweden and Finland, in particular, have developed highly efficient forestry and forest industry operations. This leads to large positive climate effects as a side product of economically sound industrial operations - a win-win. High climate ambitions in the EU suggest that more countries follow suite. More efficient wood-based value chains and better opportunities for marketing wood from managed forests are key. There is a vast untapped potential for forest contributions to the economy, welfare and climate throughout Europe.
The new EU Bioeconomy strategy could be starting point for a continental acknowledgment of the opportunities with forests, and subsequent investments in solutions.