This means that the climate was the big loser in this election as the current governments climate policy have been called a failure by heavy environmental organisations and even won greenwash awards.

But nonetheless the Greens in Sweden managed to get 7,2% of the votes, or 25 of the 349 seats in the parliament. The best election result ever for the Greens in Sweden. This is an 2% increase since the last election and it results in the Greens becoming the third major political force in Sweden.

Monica Frassoni and Philippe Lamberts, Co-Spokespersons for the European Greens, said in a statement that:

"This is an excellent result for the Swedish Greens and we would like to congratulate the Greens’ leaders, Maria Wetterstrand and Peter Eriksson, and all the party’s activists and staff, for waging a strong and positive campaign which appealed to a large part of the Swedish electorate."

"We know that the Swedish Greens will continue to focus on real solutions to the problems currently facing Sweden and will fight hard for environmental sustainability including increased investment in renewables rather than dangerous and inefficient nuclear power, the Green New Deal and an economy that serves citizens’ interests."

If you want you can learn more about the Swedish Greens over at the European Greens website.

But another very tragic and sad effect of the election yesterday night is that Sweden now has joined the many other European countries with far-right extremist parties in their parliaments. The Swedish Democrats, which is a political party based on racist and nazi values, gained a shocking 5.7% of the votes, or 20 of the 349 seats in the Swedish parliament. So it’s a very sad day for democracy in Sweden as well as around Europe that these dark forces gains more and more power.

The election result is still very uncertain as none of the two main political blocks gained majority. So we will have to wait and see until at the end of this week how the new political landscape in Sweden will look like.

Key to Swedish Political Parties:

Government (right/centre-right):
Moderates (M)
Centre Party (C)
Liberal Party (FP)
Christian Democrats (KD)

Opposition (left/centre-left):
Social Democrats (S)
Green Party (MP)
Left Party (V)

Opposition (extreme far-right):
Swedish Democrats (SD)

If you live in northern Europe you might have heard about a new “climate manifesto” from Vattenfall, Europe’s third-largest energy company which is wholly owned by the Swedish government.

With this “climate manifesto” Vattenfall is a trying to influence politicians and governments to put a global price on CO2 emissions, support (read financial support) climate friendly technologies and implement climate requirements for products. It all sounds good but this is just another greenwashing campaign from a dirty energy company.

Vattenfall (Swedish for waterfall) is a company that owns 20 coal powered plants around Europe (none in Sweden), three of them are the dirtiest in Europe.

And even when we face a man-made climate crisis beyond our wildest dreams Vattenfall is still investing more money into fossil fuels such as coal, which is alone responsible for a third of global greenhouse gas emissions. They are currently building a new coal plant outside of Hamburg in Germany that once completed will become the biggest in Europe.

And during the last two years Vattenfall have invested nearly 400% more money in fossil fuels, such as nuclear energy and coal, than in renewable energy sources. As a result Vattenfall last year released more greenhouse gases than all of Sweden combined (85 million tons compared to Swedens 55 million tons).

And now their “climate manifesto” is facing protests from environmental organisations. Greenpeace in Sweden is for example encouraging people to send in a new and more honest version of Vattenfall and its logo.

And the Swedish climate group Klimax (Climax), known in Sweden for their campaigns against private motorism, the aviation and meat industry last week blocked the entrance to Vattenfall’s head office. The protestors demanded that Vattenfall should stop its latest greenwashing campaign and end their investments in dirty coal.

If Vattenfall cares so much about the current climate crisis why don’t they just reduce their investments in dirty fossil fuels, close their coal plants and invest more in clean renewable energy? And why try a cheap greenwashing gimmick to influence politicians? After all, they are already owned by the Swedish government.