Rockström: "Freedom from fossil fuels is not only necessary, but also possible — and beneficial for everyone"

The EU’s €90 billion loan to Ukraine has now been approved. This is crucial for maintaining Ukraine’s social resilience and military capacity. It is also our responsibility. Total EU support has now reached approximately €200 billion since the start of the war in 2022. At the same time, the EU has imported oil and gas from Russia worth around €200 billion during the same period. The approved loan should therefore rather be viewed as the EU repaying a debt to Ukraine, since the EU, through its continued dependence on fossil fuels, has allowed itself to fill Putin’s war chest. We are giving Ukraine roughly as much money as we are taking away, which is, of course, an unacceptable situation for a nation fighting for all of our freedom.

And now we are in the midst of the next wave of this global energy crisis, through the US/Israel conflict with Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which serves as an artery for around 20% of the world’s annual oil and gas (LNG) supply. So far, oil prices have risen by more than 40% since the end of February 2026. But the full blow to the global economy is likely still ahead of us.

This global energy crisis, and its consequences for economies and people’s living conditions, is further proof that the path away from coal, oil, and gas is not only a way to avoid unmanageable climate catastrophe and invest in people’s health, safety, and economic competitiveness. It is also a path toward freedom. Freedom from dependence on volatile global prices, the whims of authoritarian regimes, military confrontation, and planetary destruction.

One positive step in this global energy darkness is that 57 countries, representing 30 per cent of global GDP, gathered in Santa Marta, Colombia in late April for the world’s first summit focused on accelerating the transition away from fossil fuels. Colombia and Netherlands hosted this summit, which is the result of Brazil’s efforts during the climate negotiations at COP30 in Belém (November 2025) to get the world to commit to a “Roadmap for the Transition Away from Fossil Fuels.” Brazil failed to get all countries to support this initiative, but insisted on moving the “Roadmap” initiative forward as a Brazilian contribution to the global energy transition. And now we are seeing something that nearly 30 years of climate negotiations have failed to achieve: firmly anchoring the root cause of the global climate crisis on the international negotiating agenda — our dependent relationship with planet-damaging oil, coal, and gas.

In connection with this summit, we have launched a scientific panel (the Science Panel for the Global Energy Transformation, SPGET), which will serve as support for all countries in the transition by mapping the most effective policy tools, scalable technologies, financing mechanisms, and updated emissions pathways from now until 2035.

We are also releasing a report on why freedom from fossil fuels is not only necessary, but also possible — and beneficial for everyone.

Here are some key points from this report.

• Fossil-free energy already generates more than 50% of the world’s electricity, and renewable energy now accounts for two-thirds of global energy investments (up from under 50% just 10 years ago).
• Renewable energy is cheaper, safer, and creates more resilient societies across virtually the entire world. When it comes to electricity, the train has already left the station. Solar, wind, and hydropower are now so much cheaper and more efficient that there is no way to stop the transition.
• Regions of the world are following exponential growth curves, with the Global South approaching 10%, China 15%, and the Global North 20%. Historical experience shows that when better solutions surpass 20%, transitions can become self-reinforcing. And we know that the future global economy will primarily run on electricity.

Seventy-five percent of the world’s citizens live in economies — such as Sweden’s — where we purchase oil and gas. We are in the hands of fossil fuel–producing states, meaning that we channel tax revenues and income into authoritarian, conflict-generating regimes such as Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Russia.

In fact, we pay four times. The first time “at the pump” (where we pay foreign actors, often with questionable agendas), the second time “with our lungs” through the air pollution that kills 1,400 Swedes every year (seven times more than traffic accidents), the third time by destroying our climate, which harms people socially and economically, and finally by contributing to conflict. Hardly a particularly smart arrangement.

Who is affected? Most of all, vulnerable developing countries in the Global South. But also developed countries that have been slow to transition away from oil, gas, and coal. The report shows that countries such as Portugal, Iceland, and Uruguay, which invested early in renewable energy and now operate with nearly 100% fossil-free electricity, were not affected at all by the war in Ukraine, while countries such as Germany and Italy experienced more than a doubling of electricity costs relative to other living expenses.

And despite all these serious security and risk arguments against fossil fuels, we continue to pour $2.6 trillion per year — around 2.5% of global GDP — into harmful subsidies for oil, coal, and gas. This artificially lowers the price of fossil fuels while generating record profits for producing states and companies. Estimates show that simply removing the most explicit subsidies (around $1 trillion per year) would reduce CO₂ emissions by 6% relative to projections for 2035 and prevent 70,000 premature deaths annually due to air pollution.

What does this mean for Sweden? Our challenge mainly lies in the transport sector (which accounts for around 30% of our carbon emissions), heavy industry (such as steel), and agriculture and forestry. For all three, scalable solutions already exist that, with the right policies, can deliver freedom from fossil fuels.

And this is no longer only about taking responsibility for the climate crisis. It is also about Sweden’s future as a modern welfare state. We are a small economy, but major in steel, cars, trucks, and forestry. Sweden’s largest employer, Volvo AB, is also the world’s second-largest producer of trucks. Together with Scania and Volvo Cars, Sweden is a leading nation in the development of future mobility. These companies invested early in the transition away from the combustion engine. We now know that this was strategically correct, and we are currently in the middle of a global — read Chinese — competition over who will survive the electrification race. Our Swedish companies have relied on the assumption that market rules would remain stable and support the transition away from climate-damaging gases. Add the consequences of the war with Iran into the mix, and we see even stronger arguments for accelerating the transition rather than slowing it down.

Across the EU as a whole, demand for electric vehicles increased by 50% in March. Without a doubt, an “Iran effect.” Denmark is rapidly catching up with Norway, having now reached 60% electric vehicle sales compared to Norway’s 90%. In Sweden, however, sales have stalled. The policies pursued here evoke memories of the oil crises of the 1970s — the idea that everything is solved by subsidizing oil even more as prices surge, which is like pouring gasoline on the fire by damaging Swedish industry and financing warring regimes. We risk our climate targets, Swedish industry, the economy, and citizens’ welfare.

The 50% increase in EU electric vehicle sales in March shows that citizens understand what freedom from fossil fuels means. That it is something positive — a modern path forward. The task of politicians is to help citizens along that path. That is what this year’s election must be about.

What kind of Sweden do we want — not next quarter, but in the coming decades? What does a modern, competitive, prosperous Sweden look like? All research points to electrification and freedom from fossil fuels as the cornerstone of that journey.