Sweden has set itself aspirational climate goals to reduce its fossil fuel dependence, and has the ambition of being a global climate transition leader. These goals have proven difficult to achieve in the transport system. In this paper we describe the development since 2016 of a broad and heterogeneous discourse coalition in favour of more strategic governance in Swedish transport planning, encompassing business, trade unions, environmental experts and green-left politicians. We first analyse their claims for a radical reorientation of Swedish transport planning, which are shown to focus on fiscal rules, a lack of political courage, and slow-moving environmental legislation processes, as three main reasons why the transport system is slow to transition. We then discuss whether these claims constitute a politicisation of the climate policy discourse, or rather a new iteration of the previously depoliticised discourse.

The paper traces a discursive shift in Swedish transport decarbonisation discourse, by which neoliberal hegemony has been increasingly challenged through the emergence of an eco-Keynesian discourse coalition encompassing trade unions, business and industry, and green and left-wing members of parliament. The investigation testifies to the importance of political ideas in effecting discursive change, and in restricting subject positions within discourses. The Swedish case is informative for transport decarbonisation in general for the tensions it harbours between classic Social Democratic industrial policy and neoliberalism, and between historical continuity and radical discontinuity. In particular, it reveals how the return to a specific historical idea of the state determines the subject positions of actors within the new discourse coalition. 

Trots upprepade politiska utfästelser om att transportsystemet ska bli fossilfritt har dess omställning gått trögt. Det har länge funnits en påtaglig kontrast mellan visionerna för transportsystemets omställning och de faktiskt vidtagna åtgärderna. De dominerande förklaringarna till denna kontrast, liksom föreställningarna om vad som kan göras, har skiftat över tid och beroende på vilken regering som suttit vid makten. I grunden kretsar de emellertid alltid kring samma frågor: Hur väl rustat är det svenska planeringssystemet för att genomföra en fundamental omställning av transporterna? I vilken omfattning kräver transportsystemets omställning en mer djupgående förändring av samhället? Vilken roll bör stat och marknad ha i transportsystemets omställning? I denna bok skildrar vi hur den offentliga diskussionen om transportsystemet förändrats under de fyra olika regeringar som suttit vid makten mellan 2006-2022. Genom att följa formuleringen av politiska visioner i statliga utredningar och hur dessa visioner diskuterats i den offentliga debatten visar vi hur en period av utpräglat marknadsliberal politik utmanas av klimatkeynesianistiska idéer. Samtidigt har hela undersökningsperioden karakteriserats av betydande institutionella låsningar.

This chapter analyses the history of opposition to large-scale hydropower in Sweden and reasons it succeed in using ethical arguments to stop further expansion of hydropower in the 1970s. It finds that framing of oppositional arguments, elite participation, the existence of nuclear power as a plausible energy alternative and a political opportunity in the form of parliamentary dynamics were prerequisites for its success.

In contrast to its successful decarbonisation of the electricity system, Sweden has failed to achieve momentum in its attempts to decarbonise transport. This paper examines the reasons for this failure by investigating the discourse around investment in Swedish transport infrastructure. Our analysis focusses specifically on discussions about establishing high-speed rail (HSR) spanning 25 years. We identify three central discursive themes: the issue of financing, the role of the state in socio-technical change, and fatalism. We then trace these themes to storylines within the HSR discourse that each tell a story about good transport governance, informed by a specific interpretation of Swedish modernisation. Four storylines converge in a ‘‘deflationary’’ discourse coalition, characterised by ideas of sound finance and depoliticised governance, that reinforces material dependencies on existing transport infrastructure. A competing, ‘‘Weberian’’ discourse coalition is united through a contrasting storyline that instead highlights state capacity as evidenced by Swedish modernisation.

This perspective paper illustrates that the critical debate regarding geological storage of carbon dioxide has been discursively marginalised in recent years. However, two crucial factors make it reasonable to assume that significant storage-related uncertainties and challenges still exist.

Firstly, experiences of geological storage are primarily related to enhanced oil recovery. Secondly, recent assessments indicate a doubling of the required quantity compared to what was envisioned back in 2005. Therefore, there seems to be a contradiction: as the visions of geological carbon dioxide storage have grown increasingly ambitious, the risks and challenges associated with storage have been marginalised.

The paper suggests geological storage should become a topic of concern for critical social science and concludes with a reflection on five tentative explanations to the discursive marginalisation: 1) Increasing experience and knowledge have resulted in reduced risks; 2) The climate crisis and urgency have supported a broader acceptance of controversial mitigation options; 3) A shifting focus from fossil fuels with CCS to bioenergy with CCS has introduced new and salient problems that make storage-related challenges seem relatively less significant; 4) Coupling CCS to bioenergy has disarmed critics that primarily argue against prolongation of the fossil fuel era, and finally 5) Familiarisation and normalisation processes.

Birgitta Hambraeus (C) och Birgitta Dahl (S) var centrala aktörer under två avgörande decennier för svensk miljö- och energipolitik. Under perioden 1971-1991 sökte de, från olika politiska utgångspunkt, skapa en framsynt politik baserad på hänsyn till miljö och klimat. De var ibland motståndare, ibland allierade i denna kamp.

Birgitta Hambraeus (C) och Birgitta Dahl (S) var centrala aktörer under två avgörande decennier för svensk miljö- och energipolitik. Under perioden 1971-1991 sökte de, från olika politiska utgångspunkt, skapa en framsynt politik baserad på hänsyn till miljö och klimat. De var ibland motståndare, ibland allierade i denna kamp.

Paris Agreement-compatible emissions pathways produced by integrated assessment models (IAMs) often rely on large amounts of carbon dioxide removals, especially afforestation and bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS). These pathways feature prominently in the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), to the extent that the IAMs have been granted an interpretative privilege at the interface between climate science, economics, and policymaking. The privilege extends to and influences climate governance, including governance of BECCS. This paper contributes to recent debates about the role of the IPCC, and its framing of BECCS, at the science-policy interface. By analyzing all BECCS-related expert review comments and author responses on the IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C, the paper shows that boundary work influences the representation of BECCS by authors referring to: (1) a limited scope or capacity; (2) a restrictive mandate; (3) what constitutes legitimate science, and; (4) relativizing uncertainties. The responses to the review comments indicate a significant degree of compliance on behalf of the authors. Yet, the revisions do not seem to go to the heart of the unease that runs through many of the reviewer comments, i.e., that BECCS seems to be presented as a viable CDR technology at grand scale. While several revisions serve to clarify uncertainties surrounding BECCS, some fundamental aspects of the critique are deflected, through the boundary work identified. What the analysis reveals, beyond a dissatisfaction among many reviewers with the focus on integrated assessment modeling, the associated pathway literature, and analysis of BECCS, is a disagreement about how model results should be interpreted and communicated. While acknowledging the herculean task of the IPCC and the efforts to improve the pathway literature that the SR1.5 triggered within the IAM communities, we argue that the identified boundary work also risks entrenching rather than problematize dominant framings of the feasibility of BECCS. Such entrenchment can counteract the ambition of opening up the scientific work of the IPCC to include more diversity in the process of drafting reports, and arguably also influence the governance of CDR.

In recent years, bio-energy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) has been awarded a key role in climate mitigation scenarios explored by integrated assessment models and referenced in reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Because a majority of scenarios limiting global warming to 2 °C or 1,5 °C include vast deployment of BECCS, a critical discussion has emerged among experts about the moral implications of thus introducing an unproven technology into the policy realm.

In this paper, we analyse this discussion as it has played out between 2013 and 2019, with a focus on how expert narratives are constructed in the mass media about the possibilities for decarbonisation within the current political-economic order. We find there are almost no narratives that support massive deployment of BECCS, and that all narratives presuppose limits to decarbonisation imposed by the current political-economic system. The perception of such limits lead some to argue, through deterministic and apolitical narratives, for the necessity of negative emissions technologies, while others argue instead that “degrowth” is the only solution. Thus, there is a distinct lack of positive narratives about how capitalism can bring about decarbonisation.

The idea of replacing the broken linear economy with circular forms to help address the current sustainability crisis is gaining world-wide traction in policy, industry, and academia. This article presents results from an international interview study with 34 repair practitioners and experts in different fields. The article aims to improve understandings of the potential of repair so as to contribute to a more just, sustainable, and circular economy. Through a five-step qualitative method the results reveal and explore three tensions inherent in repair: first, repair activities constitute different forms of subjectivity; second, repair entails different and sometimes contested temporalities; and finally, even though repair is deeply political in practice, the politics of repair are not always explicit, and some repair activities are actively depoliticized. The opportunities and obstacles embodied in these tensions are generative in repair practices and debates, but poorly reflected in contemporary circular economy discourse. We conclude that a richer, more inclusive, and politicized understanding of repair can support environmental justice in the implementation of circular economy (CE) and provide greater opportunities for just and transformational sustainability strategies and policies.

This study investigates the consequences of dramatic price fluctuations on the global iron ore market between boom and bust for the Swedish communities Kiruna and Pajala, located above the polar circle, in the years 2006-2018. It focuses on the impact of the Swedish state’s reorientation towards neoliberal policies that have entailed reduced state involvement in peripheral communities still dependant on heavy industry. This reorientation was manifested in the Mineral Strategy presented by the liberal-conservative government in 2013, in which the state was prescribed a role as facilitator of investment of foreign and private capital in the Swedish mining sector, but not as an active owner or developer of mining enterprises. The neoliberalisation of Swedish mining has established a fundamental conflict of interests between communities whose economic, social and cultural wellbeing depends on long-term state commitment, and the state whose main interests are aimed at global capital flows rather than the maintenance of industrial production in peripheral regions. This conflict remained latent as long as global mineral prices were high, but as boom turned to bust around 2012, it was activated in a way that highlighted asymmetric relations of power and economic development between the sparsely populated and resource-rich northern parts of the country and the densely populated south.

Swedish press debate regarding the idea of a ‘circular economy’ is analysed to enable critical reflection on the development and use of the concept. We examine how actor positions formed around ideas of increased circularity. Using press material from 2012 to 2019 we identify positions on circular economy taken by Swedish companies, public authorities, political parties, and opinion makers. Our analysis reveals convergence amongst these actors at the national level despite ongoing situated local environmental conflicts. We show that this convergence is enabled by the convening power of ambiguity, which characterizes the use of circular economy ideas as a ‘floating signifier’ in the debate. In Sweden ideas of a circular economy may have been deployed by resilient capital to harness an otherwise economically disruptive process, as a new expression of ecological modernization. Further research into the political economy of circular economy ideas is encouraged.

The aim of this article is to investigate how Swedish teachers manage the uncertainty and complexity associated with sustainable development (SD) as a field of knowledge, in relation to the requirements in the school curriculum. Underlying the whole concept of sustainable development is the vision that there is a possible solution to the ecological, economic and social problems created by humans. However, it is not so clear what this solution actually means in practice. The article builds on an analysis of transcribed individual and group interviews with 40 teachers at Swedish lower and upper secondary schools, related to the topic of sustainable development as a field of knowledge. A thematic analysis was carried out by identifying four broad themes, including dominating discourses. The results indicate that there is a lack of vision among the teachers for a future sustainable society, while at the same time, it seems to be taboo to talk about what an unsustainable society might mean in the long run. Presentations of the problems and knowledge of what causes them must always be combined with instructions on how problems can be solved and how pupils can influence their own future and help create sustainable development. The starting point for such a solution-oriented approach to SD is based on an assumption that individual behaviour is essential to achieving sustainable development and thus that individual responsibility is crucial. This focus leads to individual consumer choices, behaviours and lifestyles at the heart of teaching, while progressive, alternative visions and critical perspectives are downplayed.

The treatment of ideas of repair in circular economy literature is critically reviewed, revealing instrumental understandings of repair as a tool to extend product life-spans and reduce waste. These framings are interpreted as an expression of the dominant technocratic and post-political discourses of circular economy as an intervention to sustain industrial capitalism in the face of sustainability constraints. The review contrasts these understandings of repair derived from a review of circular economy literature with richer and contested interpretations found in sociological, ethnographic and political literatures examining material repair in practice. Drawing on the emerging sociology of repair and applying more distinct concepts of restoration, remediation, reconfiguration and reconciliation derived from these literatures, the paper argues that the understandings of repair in circular economy literature are limited and restrictive, generally supporting a view of repair as sustaining, consumerist and nostalgic; and thereby overlooking potentially transformative, political and future-oriented roles for repair in a circular economy. In the restorative and remedial modes most commonly understood in the circular economy, repair is seen to enable new forms of capitalist commodification, notably of waste and domestic labour. Learning from contestation in other arenas of repair by contrast, understanding repair as encompassing ideas for reconciliation and reconfiguration, and adopting values of integrity, care and legibility, opens up repair in the circular economy to constructive critical discussion and reflection and offers new insights for policy makers.

The paper covers the public debate on BECCS (bioenergy with carbon capture and storage) between 2008 and 2018. Through a qualitative analysis of around 800 feature articles, editorials, and opinion pieces published in English, German, Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian in news media and debates sections of scientific media, we highlight conspicuous aspects of the debate and relate them to the theoretical concept of post-normal science. We find that the debate is characterized by an emphasis on values, scientific uncertainty and the integrity of science, premised on a pervading sense of urgency. To a significant extent, the debate can be understood as a “normal” view of science questioning what it perceives to be unscientific model-based climate scenarios, and the scenarios, in turn, can be seen as a response to post-normal circumstances. The urgency permeating the debate provides conditions for open debate about ethical and epistemological uncertainty. The debate goes through a period of polarization – corroborating findings from previous studies on the climate science debate after COP21 – between an intense critique of BECCS inclusion in climate scenarios and reluctant acceptance thereof. Towards the end of the studied period, emphasis shifts towards reluctant acceptance, indicating that post-normal debate may only occur as a temporary state always tending towards new consensus.

An argument within the wider theory of postpolitics that has gained traction over the last decade is that environmental concerns in general, and climate policy in particular, are especially conducive to depoliticization. In this paper, we take issue with this notion by presenting an empirical case study of the repoliticization of Swedish mining and then, on the basis of this analysis, offer theoretical reflections on how to better understand depoliticization and repoliticization of the environment. We argue for the use of a narrow definition of 'depoliticization', and that sufficient attention must be paid to temporal and scalar differentiation of continuous processes of de- and repoliticization, and that normative assumptions of what constitutes the genuinely political should be abandoned. We argue that environmental concerns harbour large potential for effective politicization, and that this politicization occurs as a response to depoliticization, through concurrent, cross-fertilizing and intertwined processes of repoliticization across scales both inside and outside of formal channels of government, whereby previously depoliticized state agencies may become crucial.

Den svenska gruvpolitiken under 2000-talet kan i stora drag sammanfattas som präglad av ett pånyttfött intresse från statligt håll för framförallt de exploateringsmässiga förutsättningarna för gruvindustrin, och en social mobilisering på lokal såväl som nationell nivå mot den förda politiken. Denna utveckling har ägt rum i kontexten av en internationell så kallad »boom and bust« – konjunkturuppgång-följt av nedgång – vilken på avgörande vis har bestämt förutsättningarna för det statliga intresset för gruvindustrin liksom för lokala intressegruppers förhoppningar och farhågor gällande gruvindustriell expansion. Sådana konjunkturcykler är en naturlig del av all form av gruvverksamhet. Det kan därför finnas anledning att från dagens utsiktspunkt, med ett visst retrospektivt avstånd till den turbulenta tiden kring Northland Resources konkurs och vid en tid då världsmarknadspriser såväl som produktionssiffror verkar ha börjat klättra uppåt igen, ställa oss frågan vilka lärdomar vi har möjlighet att dra av just denna boom och bust.

I detta kapitel försöker vi förklara hur förhoppningar, idéer och löften tillsammans skapade stora förväntningar på ett gruvprojekt i Pajala, ett demografiskt och ekonomiskt stagnerande samhälle ovanför polcirkeln, något som ledde till etableringen av en gruva som lades ned efter bara två års produktion. Syftet är att skapa en förståelse av hur de centrala aktörernas förväntningshorisonter formades av specifika intressen i förening med historiska föreställningar knutna till platsen. Särskilt intresse ägnas åt att analysera hur dessa förväntningar under en period förenades i en för de berörda aktörerna gemensam förväntningshorisont som drev projektet framåt. Vi visar också hur den gemensamma förväntningshorisonten upplöstes efter en likviditetskris i bolaget, vilket blottlade de avsevärda skillnaderna mellan de berörda aktörernas ståndpunkter, i samband med att de olika aktörerna återvände till sina utgångspositioner. Med andra ord undersöker kapitlet hur förväntningshorisonter formas kring storskalig, långsiktig och råvarubaserad industriproduktion i avfolkningsbygder, inom ramen för en ekonomi som i övrigt är inriktad på kortsiktig ekonomisk tillväxt, globala kapitalflöden och konsumtion.

Historiskt sett så kan relationen mellan det liberalt kapitalistiska systemet och miljön beskrivas som en dubbel rörelse mellan ett kontinuerligt ökande resursuttag och statens ökade befogenheter att administrera miljöförstörande verksamheter.148 En viktig faktor för ett förbättrat skydd av miljön har parallellt med den liberala kapitalismens framväxt varit allmänhetens miljömedvetenhet, som har satt press på staten att införa miljömässigt motiverade regleringar. Givet hur ett nyliberalt beslutsfattande ofta verkar avpolitiserande, dvs. det strävar efter samstämmighet mellan grupper och en ökad grad av formalisering av sakfrågorna, har det blivit allt svårare för civilsamhället att påverka politiken. Detta beror också på att miljölagstiftningen anpassas för att gynna det privata kapitalets intressen, samtidigt som besluten ofta förläggs till teknokratiska processer i vilka ansvaret för miljön blir diffust.149 Trots detta utmanas avpolitiseringen av kontinuerliga försök till återpolitisering. Kraven höjs på att ansvar utkrävs av de politiker vars beslut påverkar livsbetingelserna för lokalsamhällen och deras omgivningar, och på att andra intressen än dem som gynnas och skyddas av ett avpolitiserat beslutsfattande också beaktas och tillåts påverka den politiska dagordningen....

In this paper we use a case of resistance towards a proposed limestone quarry in Sweden to raise certain theoretical points regarding environmental politicization. Departing from ideas about depoliticization and neoliberal environmental governance, we first analyze the case in terms of scaling-up of the local conflict through actor alliances, discourse coalitions and through the juridical process. We then discuss how this case may indicate effective ways to politicize areas that have been depoliticized through neoliberal environmental governance. Most particularly, the chosen case highlights how depoliticization may be reversed through the politicization of the very channels through which depoliticized forms of environmental governance occur, here the juridical, formalized and nominally neutral processes of environmental planning.

The paper investigates two Swedish cases of state regulation of profound infrastructural change in relation to mining above the polar circle. An analytical framework of neoliberal depoliticisation and state regulation is used to investigate the extent to which neoliberal logics, especially the logic of distancing, determine the state relation to peripheral communities dominated by extractive accumulation regimes. The paper finds that the neoliberal prerogatives of distancing and flexibility are dominating the state relation to peripheral communities, and that this relation is determined by different aspects of distance. The dominance of neoliberal prerogatives also leads to a questioning of the widely held notion that the Swedish state has adopted an industrial policy devoted to mining expansion since the release of the Mineral Strategy in 2013.

Under 1900-talet försåg Norrland den svenska staten med råvaror som lade grunden för Sveriges utveckling till välfärdssamhälle. Den svenska ekonomin har dock efterhand alltmer inriktats på att skapa ekonomiska värden på andra sätt än genom råvaruutvinning och varuproduktion. Sverige har med andra ord omvandlats till det som ofta benämns som en post-fordistisk ekonomi,460 vilket ger upphov till frågor om vilket socialt ansvar staten ska ta på sig för platser som fortfarande är beroende av tung industri och varuproduktion för att upprätthålla sin lokala ekonomi och sysselsättning. Samtidigt har emellertid betydelsen av svensk gruvindustri understrukits i EUs råvaruinitiativ från 2008. Där bedöms självförsörjningen av råvaror inom EU som avgörande för framtiden.461 Sverige står för omkring 91 % av Europas järnmalmsproduktion och är en inom EU ledande producent av en rad andra strategiskt viktiga metaller.462 Den svenska regeringen har också i linje med EUs råvaruinitiativ understrukit sina ambitioner att skapa incitament för en intensifierad gruvverksamhet i landet.463 Som ett svar på såväl EUs initiativ som den parlamentariska oppositionens krav på reformering av gruvpolitiken lanserade alliansregeringen 2013 en Mineralstrategi, som syftade till att stödja och stimulera gruvverksamheten i landet, huvudsakligen genom nyliberalt färgad avreglering och undanröjande av potentiella hinder för gruvetableringar.464 Relationen mellan den svenska staten och lokalsamhällen som är beroende av utvinning och produktion av mineraler präglas således av utvecklingstendenser som kan antas motverka varandra, vilket gör dessa lokalsamhällens roll i statens industripolitik som helhet mycket oviss.

This paper investigates a greenfield mining project in a peripheral region in northern Sweden through the analysis of how different actor groups formed their own ‘horizons of expectations’ that temporally became fused, only to crumble together with the mining company in a short period of time. By focusing on the co-evolvement of expectations, we show how expectations are differentiated along geographical and temporal scales, reflect upon how these differences relate to interests and historical memory, and finally what these differences mean for the development of large-scale, long-term, raw materials-based projects devoted to industrial production in depopulating areas in an economy otherwise orientated towards neoliberal governance and post-industrial development. By doing so, we make a theoretical contribution to the literature on expectations through the introduction of the concept ‘horizon of expectations’, and a contribution to the literature on neoliberalism and its cultural-geographical implications.

This study explores sense-making about climate engineering among lay focus group participants in Japan, New Zealand, the USA and Sweden. In total, 23 qualitative focus group interviews of 136 participants were conducted. The analyses considered sense-making strategies and heuristics among the focus group participants and identified commonalities and variations in the data, exploring participants’ initial and spontaneous reactions to climate engineering and to several recurrent arguments that feature in scientific and public debate (e.g. climate emergency). We found that, despite this study’s wide geographical scope, heterogeneous focus group compositions, and the use of different moderators, common themes emerged. Participants made sense of climate engineering in similar ways, for example, through context-dependent analogies and metaphorical descriptions. With few exceptions, participants largely expressed negative views of large-scale deliberate intervention in climate systems as a means to address anthropogenic global warming.

Paul Crutzen’s 2006 call for geoengineering research triggered public debate in the mass media of several countries. Since then, a common belief among numerous involved scientists has been that more geoengineering experimentation or research is needed and that geoengineering should be carefully considered in a precautionary way as an emergency option or ‘Plan B’. Despite the controversial potential of geoengineering in terms of mega-risks, ethical dilemmas and governance challenges, public geoengineering debate in the daily press from 2006 to 2013 was heavily dominated by accounts of scientists’ arguments for more geoengineering research or even deployment, only about 8% of mass media articles expressing criticism of geoengineering. However, based on a reading of 700 articles published worldwide in 2014 and 2015, we demonstrate a gradual shift in the coverage, and the daily press now primarily reports critical views of geoengineering technologies. The patterns outlined here point in the same direction: It seems as though the grand idea of geoengineering as Plan B is fading.

Climate engineering (geoengineering) has been widely discussed as a potential instrument for curbing global warming if politics fails to deliver green house gas emission reductions. This debate has lost momentum over the last couple of years, but is now being renewed in the wake of the December 2015 Paris climate change agreement. Resurgent interest primarily stems from two elements of the Paris agreement. First, by defining the long term goal as “achiev[ing] a balance between anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals by sinks of greenhouse gases” instead of decarbonization, the agreement can be interpreted as providing leeway for climate engineering proposals. Second, the agreement formulated a temperature goal of “well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C”. In response, several scientists argued that these goals may require climate engineering.

As these discussions will affect the forthcoming review of pathways toward 1.5°C warming, this policy brief takes stock of climate engineering. It draws on the expertise of Linköping University’s Climate Engineering (LUCE) interdisciplinary research programme. The brief provides an overview of the status of academic debate on climate engineering regarding bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS);  stratospheric aerosol injection; and mass media reporting and public engagement.

Historically, every form of large scale power production in Sweden has given rise to organised, sustained and partly successful resistance motivated by environmental arguments. Since wind power is identified by the Swedish Parliament as an important energy source for the future and the wind power industry is expected to expand on a large scale, there is reason to believe that the already existing environmental opposition to wind power will continue to grow and will attempt to limit or at least partly obstruct the wind power expansion. In order to facilitate an understanding of this opposition and its possibility to significantly influence future wind power expansion in Sweden, this paper draws upon previous research on the opposition towards hydropower, nuclear power and biomass in Sweden, and discusses these findings in relation to previous research on wind power opposition.

In this paper, we analyse the critique that has accompanied sustained efforts made in recent years by the Government of Sweden to facilitate global investment in the country's mining sector. The minerals market in the 21st century has been characterized by increasing global prices. In Sweden, the largest mining nation within the EU, this has led to what has been identified as a mining boom. The governmental mining policy, aimed at attracting an increasing part of the global venture capital seeking to profit from the volatile but lucrative minerals market, has been met with growing domestic resistance, fuelled by what has been perceived as dangers and side effects of a rapidly expanding Swedish mining industry. This resistance has largely focused on the mineral strategy launched by the government in 2013, as it crystallized the neoliberal ideas judged by critics to severely jeopardize social, cultural, economic and environmental values. After a critical analysis of the mineral strategy, we go on to analyse the mining-critical discourse, concluding with a discussion where we highlight the main implications of the analysis and identify a possible path for compromise between proponents and opponents of the mineral strategy.

"This book examines the arguments made by political actors in the creation of antagonistic discourses on climate change. Using in-depth empirical research from Sweden, a country considered by the international political community to be a frontrunner in tackling climate change, it draws out lessons that contribute to the worldwide environmental debate.The book identifies and analyses four globally circulated discourses that call for very different action to be taken to achieve sustainability: Industrial fatalism, Green Keynesianism, Eco-socialism and Climate scepticism. Drawing on risk society and post-political theory, it elaborates concepts such as industrial modern masculinity and ecomodern utopia, exploring how it is possible to reconcile apocalyptic framing to the dominant discourse of political conservatism. This highly original and detailed study focuses on opinion leaders and the way discourses are framed in the climate change debate, making it valuable reading for students and scholars of environmental communication and media, global environmental policy, energy research and sustainability"--Provided by publisher.

"This book demonstrates the media's role in the creation of dominant discourses on climate change and examines the arguments made by political actors in the mass media arena. Using in-depth empirical research of Sweden, a country considered by the international political community to be a frontrunner in tackling climate change, the book analyses the worldwide climate change debate. This highly original and detailed study focuses on opinion leaders and the way discourses are framed in the climate change debate, making it valuable reading for students and scholars of environmental communication and media as well environmental policy and politics"--Provided by publisher.

This paper explores how Swedish laypeople make sense of emerging ideas of the large-scale deliberate technical manipulation of the global climate, known as geoengineering (GE). The paper is based on semi-structured focus group interviews with open-ended questions, allowing participants to express their spontaneous thoughts about GE. Although the focus group participants expressed great concern about climate change, GE was largely met with a sceptical, negative response. Participants perceived GE to: have negative environmental side-effects, address the symptoms rather than causes of climate change, create moral hazard and give rise to various governance challenges. Participants did not just reject the idea of GE outright; rather, social representations started to form in the focus groups through testing and negotiating arguments both pro and contra GE research and deployment.

From the autumn of 2006 and until 2009, climate change was described in Sweden as having apocalyptic dimensions. There was a parliamentary and public consensus that anthropogenic climate change was real and that society needed to take responsibility for lowering greenhouse gas emissions, though a small group of climate sceptics did not agree with the majority of the scientists or the need for drastic changes in the organization of Western societies. This small group, with only one exception, consisted of elderly men with influential positions in academia or large private companies. In this article we discuss how they described themselves as marginalised, banned and oppressed dissidents, forced to speak against a faith-based belief in climate science. They characterised themselves as having strong beliefs in a market society, great mistrust of government regulation and a sturdy belief in engineering and natural science rationality. We contend that climate sceptics in Sweden can be understood as being intertwined with a masculinity of industrial modernity that is on decline. These climate sceptics tried to save an industrial society of which they were a part by defending its values against ecomodern hegemony. This gender analysis of climate scepticism moves beyond the previous research of understanding this discourse as solely an ideologically-based outcry against science and politics, and highlights the recognition of identities, historical structures and emotions.

Geoengineering could counteract climate change by either altering the earth's global energy balance by reflecting sunlight or removing CO₂ from the atmosphere. Geoengineering evokes various ethical and political challenges that are increasingly reflected in public debate and deliberation. Via a qualitative textual analysis of 1500 articles, we investigate discursive claims critical of geoengineering, considering what subjects are the most controversial, and what worldviews, values, and problematizations are shared by the actors subscribing to this discourse. We argue that the controversy about geoengineering differs, discursively, from other techno-political conflicts. Geoengineering proponents are described as reluctantly favouring research and deployment and displaying an unusual self-reflexivity, as they are well aware of and seriously consider all the technology's risks. Our analysis demonstrates that the discourse critical of geoengineering differs from and questions the dominant pro-geoengineering discourse in several profound ways with lasting implications for energy scholarship and analysis.

Geoengineering, i.e., the deliberate manipulation of the global climate using grand-scale technologies, poses new challenges in terms of environmental risks and human–nature relationships. Until recently, these technologies were considered science fiction, but they are now being reconsidered by researchers, leading to an emerging public debate. Our aim is to improve our understanding of the public discourse on geoengineering in mass media. We analyze 1500 articles published from 2005 to 2013, constructing four coherent storylines that represent most of the geoengineering advocacy in the public discourse in mass media. We scrutinize inconsistencies in this discourse and argue that geoengineering may be the first example of a grand-scale technology that in some important respects has clear postmodern tendencies: geoengineering advocacy, for example, is not based on objective truth claims of the natural sciences and does not promise a better world

Alla typer av storskalig elproduktion i Sverige har mött någon sorts miljömotstånd, och kan sägas stå i konflikt med ett eller flera av de nationella miljömålen. Detta innebär att valet av energislag inte endast handlar om teknisk-ekonomiska beräkningar utan också involverar beslut om vilka miljökonsekvenser som är att föredra, och även vilken miljöopinion som ska hörsammas. Argumenten mot användandet av en viss energikälla bestämmer delvis vilka argument som kan aktualiseras i relation till en annan energikälla. Föreliggande rapport analyserar miljöopinionen mot vindkraft i Sverige och skillnader mellan denna opinion och andra energirelaterade miljöopinioner.

The conflicts permeating the environmental debate since the 1960s have mainly involved two actors: multinational companies and international environmental organizations (ENGOs). Today, there are signs that the antagonism is ending with regards to co-operation and strategy. We argue that this convergence is no longer limited to specific joint projects, but is also prevalent at the idea and policy levels. Both actors have begun describing problems in similar terms, articulating the same goals and recommending the same solutions. Such convergence offers advantages in efforts to counteract climate change but also some problems: declining citizen trust in ENGOs, risk of intellectually impoverished environmental and energy debates, and loss of alternate visions and values.

We introduce a theoretical vocabulary highlighting a neglected area in industrial change theory, the outsider role. Industries cannot be fully examined without considering the influence of concerned groups, i.e. actors concerned with the industrial activity. Our empirical focus is a mature, stable, and highly homogeneous industrial sector, namely, the Swedish forest industry. We identify, analyse, and discuss the development and configuration of various truth claims and standpoints regarding the characteristics and potential uses of Sweden’s forest resources, 1989–2009. We follow the translation of the forest industry from producing solely pulp and paper products to producing electricity, heat, and bio-fuels. We argue that, without the pressure of concerned groups and ‘industrialists in the wild’ on the industry, forest industrial activity would never have been reconfigured.       

Sweden constitutes a leading nation concerning developing technological solutions for final disposal of spent nuclear fuel. The KBS-3 solution that is now to be implemented in Östhammar, northeast of Stockholm, has become a reference concept for the program for sustainable nuclear power within the EU. A common understanding is that the Swedish solution is the outcome of a political culture characterized by consensus making and cooperation. In this paper, we argue that such an understanding is misleading. On the contrary, we show that the Swedish solution is a product of severe conflicts between concerned groups (the antinuclear movement, environmental organizations, local resistance groups, oppositional scientists, journalists, and intellectuals) and the nuclear energy industry. In this paper, we investigate the efforts performed by concerned groups in Sweden and their effects on the KBS-3. The concept of concerned groups describes a dynamic process by which different types of groups transform depending on their negotiability and their participation (or not) in the configuration of technoscientific phenomena. Thus, we also analyze how the critique, actions and research of concerned groups underwent a qualitative transition related to the degree to which they participated in the scientific, technological and political configuration of the final depository for spent nuclear fuel: from radical deconstruction of technoscientific initiatives coming from the nuclear energy industry, to co-construction of the technical solution KBS-3, to a reconstructivist agenda, that is, the production of knowledge and technical solutions potentially usable by nuclear engineers and politicians beyond the research efforts of the nuclear energy industry.

The aim of this study is to analyze the dominating discourse of Swedish climate politics between the autumn of 2006 and the end of 2009, i.e. the tense period between the publication of the Stern-report and COP15. An analytical point of departure is the theory of reflexive modernity advocated by Ulrich Beck. His concept of industrial fatalism is used to explain the frames of climate politics that were constructed during these years of climate alarms. The empirical material that is investigated consists mainly of a large amount of debate articles on climate change and climate mitigation published in Swedish newspapers and journals during the period. Methodologically close reading of every single text is used in order to identify its central meanings and rhetorical figures. The coding process led to the identification of different patterns and meaning relations which together form different discourses. The most dominant of these discourses is called “the discourse of industrial fatalism”.

In 1956, the Swedish Parliament decided to invest in a national nuclear energy program. The decision rested on the conviction that it would be in the interest of the nation to use the assets of natural uranium, the advanced reactor technology, and the expertise on nuclear physics that the country had at its disposal. Since the decision concerned the largest investment ever in Swedish industrial politics, the scientists and engineers had to promise that it would lead to a prosperous future. In this article, the utopian discourse and the rhetoric that were developed to support the Swedish nuclear energy program are analyzed. An important conclusion is that the scientific, technological, political, economic, and moral discourse was not sufficient to create political and civil support. Instead, the scientists and engineers had to turn to the world of myths. Thereby, the conflicts between nuclear physics and magic, scientific objectivity and demons, and rationalistic belief in progress and irrational ideas of faith were dissolved. In Sweden, as in many other Western countries during the 1950s, the world was not disenchanted, but re-enchanted.

The pulp and paper industry is one of the largest energy users in Sweden and in 2007 2.2 TWh of heat was delivered from pulp mills, mainly to district heating systems. In this study, two market kraft pulp mills and two energycompanies (ECOs) have been interviewed about their views on excess heat, energy efficiency and energy strategies.The interviews have been brought together with results from previous optimization studies concerning kraft pulp millexcess heat by the authors and results from other related work in a socio-technical synthesis that aims to provide amore comprehensive view on the factors that influence the utilization of kraft pulp mill excess heat than achieved inprevious studies. The results show that the kraft pulp mills are more positive towards sales of excess heat than theECOs, which can be related to the fact that the ECOs take a greater risk when entering a heat cooperation. Anotherbarrier to co-operations is the already existing utilities in the ECOs that compete with excess heat for the position asbase load in the district heating systems. Both internal and external use of excess heat can benefit from policymeasures. Other important factors are the view on energy-related investments in the mill, the level of communicationbetween the parties, and the goodwill qualities obtained through energy-efficient solutions.

In 2010, the Swedish nuclear energy industry is expected to announce a proposal for the final storage of high-level nuclear waste in bedrock. The underground storage concept is attracting increasing interest from other countries in Europe. Because of the nature of Swedish political culture, the development of the actual method for final disposal is commonly perceived as resting on consensus and democratic cooperation. However, this paper argues that the aforementioned disposal method instead represents the outcome of intense conflict between the nuclear energy industry and the anti-nuclear movement. Accordingly, any investigation of the technical and political solutions to controversial environmental problems should involve the study of lay people and social movements. The present study does so, employing theoretical notions from science and technology studies that allow the analysis to conceptualize actions and strategies (enactments) of the nuclear energy industry (confined research) and the anti-nuclear movement (research in the wild).