Sweden's fifth National Communication on Climate Change Ds 2009:63

Sweden's fifth national communication is formulated in accordance with the guidelines adopted by the parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. It presents basic facts on Swedish society and reviews the various sectors of society in accordance with the classification agreed upon within UNFCCC. Emissions and removals of different greenhouse gases are reported for each sector and as an aggregate for each year since 1990, together with the impact of various policy instruments on emissions.

The assessments presented in the report show that Sweden has succeeded in breaking the link between economic growth and greenhouse gas emissions. The policy instruments introduced have had a significant effect, and emissions have fallen by around 9 per cent since 1990. At the same time, Sweden can point to relatively high economic growth. The report also contains projections for emissions up to 2020. According to these projections, emissions will continue to decrease, but additional measures are needed to meet Sweden's national targets for 2020. The Government has announced measures tonnes for tonnes in order to achieve the national target of 40 per cent reduction by the year 2020.

The national communication describes Sweden's vulnerability and what the country is doing to adapt to climate change. Sweden's international efforts in relation to development assistance with relevance to climate change are presented, as are research and development. Finally, an account is given of Sweden's work on education, training and public awareness with regard to the problem of climate change.

The material on which the national communication has been based has been obtained through extensive activity on the part of government agencies, led by the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency and the Swedish Energy Agency and with input from around ten different agencies. Most of the work on the fifth national communication was done over the period from the end of 2008 to the summer of 2009.