Last Friday, the Climate Leadership Node was invited to Södermanlands klimatdag (climate day) 2019. Södermanland is the county immediately to the south-west of Stockholm with a population of roughly 300 000 people. It is also one of the counties for which we calculated a carbon budget in 2018. In this report, the county’s allocated budget was 14Mt C02, roughly 5% of Sweden’s total budget. If emissions continue at 2016 levels, Södermanland will break this budget by mid next decade. Hence, we recommend an emissions reduction curve of 16% p.a. See the full report here.

The conference took place at ReTuna, the world’s first recycling mall, where pre-loved goods are given a second chance through recycling and upcycling (see above picture, source: etunanytt.se). In the morning, Aaron, research assistant at the Climate Change Leadership Node, gave a presentation on Södermanland’s carbon budget and what this means for the county. Throughout the day we heard from different local government authorities, businesses working with sustainability and of course ReTuna, itself a leading example of circular economy.

We also heard from Södermanland’s largest and Sweden’s fourth largest individual source of emissions, the SSAB Oxelösund steel production facility. This corresponds to roughly half of the entire county’s emissions and means that Södermanland has one of the highest per capita CO2 emissions in Sweden. It was exciting to hear how presenters and participants engaged with our carbon budget analysis and continually referred to our recommended targets throughout the day.

In fostering local climate leadership, an ongoing question is how to manage local emissions that add value at the national level, such as SSAB Oxelösund. As our research continues, we will investigate this further and explore different ways of allocating emissions and associated responsibilities amongst different levels of political influence and across different sectors.

Whilst at the conference, Aaron was interviewed by SVT Södermanland about the county’s budget. You can watch it here

https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/sormland/sa-maste-sormlanningarna-koldioxidbanta