Welcome to zero. I'm Aukshatrati. This week Romina Greta and the new politics of climate change. Sweden was the first country to set a net zero by twenty forty five target and wants to achieve net negative emissions after that. Sounds great, but there's been political upheaval. The new coalition government formed in October is reliant on support of a far right party that thinks climate change is a myth.
Member Austrainia comer al Quaman Temperata the broad Fish. That's Elsa Widding of the Sweden Democrats, who told Parliament in her maiden speech that she didn't think there was clear evidence of human caused climate change. A different government hasn't just led to different rhetoric. Since the new coalition came to power, the Climate and Environment Ministry has been folded into the Business Ministry. Spending on nature, climate and the environment has been cut for this year and will be
reduced by sixty percent by twenty twenty five. Despite this, the new Prime Minister, Wolf Christersen has said that climate is still one of his government's priorities, and he appointed a new ambitious climate minister, Romina Poor Mactari at twenty six years old, she became the country's youngest ever cabinet minister. Romina is a member of the Liberal Party and the daughter of Iranians who fled the country during the nineteen
seventy nine revolution. She rarely gives interviews in English and so at the World Economic Forum in Davos, I sat down with her to find out how her first hundred days in government have gone, her thoughts on working with the far right party, how Sweden will meet its big climate commitments, and what she hopes to achieve on climate now that Sweden is chairing the European Council. Romina, welcome to the show. Thank you so much. Now. You had
your own podcast before becoming climate minister. Do you miss it? I miss it quite a lot. It's very valuable to have these sit down conversations about politics. So wait to be here. Nice to Nice to have you now. You became Sweden's youngest minister at just twenty six. Were you surprised to be made climate minister? Yes? Absolutely. I thought my party leader was crazy when he asked me, and I told them this is my dream job in ten years, and he said, well, we don't have ten years. And
that's kind of a good point. So it's just to roll up the sleeves and get the work done. So if you had to pick a ministry that you could become minister off, you would pick climate, absolutely I would. Why is that? Well? I run for parliament on climate matters and I believe that there's somewhat of a development where we're trying to create political conflict when it comes to climate, and I'm very against that. It's not a matter of whether you like wind power or nuclear power,
or whether you like deforestation or first use. Is a matter of doing things in a correct, intelligent smart way, making full use of all the science that exists on these areas, and I believe that politicians have some potential of doing those parts better. So that was what I ran for parliament on and got elected on by a lot of youth in Sweden. So yeah, I'm really looking forward to actually making action out of those ideas. Now a lot of our listeners are spread around the globe.
When they think about a young climate leader in Sweden, they probably think about Greta Thinburg. But you are Sweden's climate minister. What do you think about Greta's approach to climate change. You know, I think it's understandable that my generation, parts of my generation have lost confidence in politics as the method of lowering our missions and reaching actual climate action.
And I believe that it's somewhat understandable. But from my point of view, I want to be where the decisions are being made, and I know that even though politics is quite complicated and slow, that's where the change is actually being made. So if you want things to truly happen, of course it's good to have a lot of demonstrations. For example, in Glasgow there was a lot of demonstration and that was a good pressuring point for the meeting. But the actual decisions are being made in the room.
So that's the way that I make the change that I want to see in the society. And as Minister, of course, you've got to be in those rooms. So you were at COP twenty seven in Egypt, you went to COP fifteen in Montreal. Let's just understand what you found to be different when you went to COP twenty seven. At COP twenty six, there were lots of protests had happened in Glasgow, an open democratic country. Cup twenty seven happened in Egypt, oppressive regime where the outcomes were interesting too.
How was the experience for you, Well, I think we all learned some you know, lessons on what became better until next time. And I think that concerns not only us, like Sweden and the EU, but many parts like We did have some progress. It was not a step back, which I was worried about going there. There has been progress, but of course not enough, and the urgency that is dominating the work that needs to be done is not reflected in the results, so obviously it's not good enough.
And I think, you know, civil society, of course, plays a big role in that. The first thing I did when I got to COP twenty seven was to have a meeting with civil rights defender and activist in Egypt. And I think it's very important for the democratic countries of the world to show that there is an important aspect of how we work politically. But I also believe
it's a matter of you know, understanding each other. After the pandemic and with the situation we have in the world, with Russia's aggressive war against Ukraine and economic situation that is developing, there's a lot of tension in the world, and of course that is also reflected in U negotiations. Now beyond the lack of activism in Egypt, the European Union, Sweden being part of it, wanted language on fossil fuel phase out all fossil fuels, oil, gas and coal, and
that did not come through in the end. We understand countries like Egypt, Saudi Arabia and China were resistant and made sure that it didn't get through. We're going to head into the UA at COP twenty eight, which is another fossil fuel country, and the president of COP twenty eight is the head of the state oil company. How do you think conversations will go there, Will it be an inclusive process and produce a fair outcome for climate
vulnerable countries? Well, I think it's very important to reflect on, especially being here in the BOSS, what future are we headed towards? And when you look at any economic report, of course you can collect the breadcrumbs of the fossil dependent economy, but you're gonna lose on not investing in the future that we headed towards. Leading the copy meetings is truly an opportunity to show how you can be
the honest broker and bring work forward. And if there's a meeting where you can sense that that is not what's being done. I think the UAE are the ones who are going to lose on it internationally, reputation wise, prestige wise. You'd want to have a successful meeting and we will not be impressed by the what do you call it? Would call it like curtain shows in Swedish. I'm not sure of the English word, but you know,
the charade, it's not good enough. It has to be done for real, and I hope that the UAE, as an entrepreneurial country wanting to keep their economy strong, will have that in aspect when they take on the meeting. And you know, some people tend to call me a bit of naive, but I haven't lost hope. When I've met with the ministers of UAE and discussed upcoming cop meetings, I see that they want to have a successful meeting. So let's hope that they succeed and they do everything
we can to contribute. When you were Main Minister, the government abolished the Environment Ministry and created a Climate and Business Ministry instead. Now, climate is an issue that affects lots and lots of parts of the economy, and so it makes sense that you have something that would enable the government to think more holistically, but it's also a specialized issue. And so how is it that having a ministry that is focused on climate and business is better
than having a ministry that is focused on environment and climate. Well, you know, my government wants to gather these issues because it's cross sectoral issues, and we neither have the time nor the money to keep pulling in different directions, which is what we have seen for the last years. We've seen a lot of situations where companies, industries who are actually working towards creating philosophic goods have had a lot
of difficulties with environmental permits and other things. So we've had situations that have been politically tense where we see that we are wasting both time and money by pulling in different directions. So we want to tackle these issues in a different way. And I think that there's a big misconception on what climate transition is and actually also creating a sustainable environment, taking care of our biodiversity laws
and prohibiting that. There's this kind of view on trying to suffocate the economic growth, and you know, having industries that are swarmed with legislation and environmental laws and taxes. It's rather ongoing change to our society. It's rather something like the industrialization or the digitalization. It's an ongoing development happening to our society that we need to do quicker than we're doing, and we need to do it smarter
than we're doing. And Sweden is an extremely export dependent country, quite a small country, and we don't want our economy to get worse. Of course, we want to build on the future that we're headed towards, which is a sustainable economy. So we want to invest in that heavily by promoting in our industries and businesses to actually take climate action for real and create the fossil free goods that the
world is actually demanding as well. So we see the big demand for the climate neutral development in the business sector, and we want to meet that from the political side, from policy side, you gathering these issues. There have been some reports that there will be a reduction in climate and environment funding in Sweden by as much as sixty percent. Is that right, No, it's not. When it comes to funding and aid we actually we've made some priorities when
it comes to international aids. So for example, we're doubling our climate aid, and we're doubling the money that we give to the Global Environmental Fund, and we're trying to initiate a change. But also a big part of the work that swedened us for climate transition is by exporting are not only like fossil free goods that we have,
but also our innovation. And we really think that that is a key in not only lowering our our own consumption and emissions, but lowering our consumption based emissions abroad. So it's not only a matter of Sweden coming out at top and reaching our goal of net zero emissions in twenty forty five, it's also a matter of creating a positive impact in the world. And just in terms of sums, when you say doubling towards the Global Environment Fund and doubling towards the Climate Fund, how much money
are we talking? Oh gosh, that's a good question. I have it somewhere. We fact check this with the ministry later and found that Sweden is doubling its contribution to the Global Environment Facility. However, the new government's budget presented in October shows that the country's overall spending on environment, climate and nature is due to decline by sixty percent by twenty twenty five. Half of the reduction is due to the scrapping of a low emissions vehicle subsidy, which
will end in twenty twenty four. There have also been cuts made to the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency and conservation spending, among other reductions. Onto politics, the government that is in power takes support from Sweden Democrats because without them there is no majority. How do you justify taking support from a very right wing party whose members, some of them believe that climate change is a myth. Well, we had
a really long discussion in my party. We have a high ceiling when it comes to opinions, and we had a big discussion where I was actually against cooperating with the Sweden Democrats and we have had discussions on whether we should stay in opposition for more years. But we had eight years of red, Green and red government. They lost their power a few times because they didn't have
a majority in the parliament. You know, just a situation in Swedish politics that was not a good development, where we saw segregation growing, criminality growing, gang members and gang violence is a very big issue in Sweden, and we saw this development happening while we saw that we didn't have the numbers government and the possibility that my party decided to grasp onto is agreeing with the Sweden Democrats
on specific issues. So the issues are it's about economy, it's about migration, it's about energy systems and things like these, but not matters that are value oriented. So if we'd see that I'm not able, for example, as the Minister of Climate and Environment to create the change that I want to see, I would leave the government and my party would leave the government. And this is what we ran for parliament with as a concept. You know, vote for us, for the liberal guarantees and the liberalism in
this government. That is government with moderates, Christian Democrats and liberals that takes lean on the Sweden Democrats. And of course this is also the situation for Sweden Democrats because it's not uncontroversial for them to cooperate with having, you know, put a liberal, young female minister as Climate Environment. I'm guessing a few of their voters are not too happy
about that. It's yet to see if we'll succeed, but as of now, I do see that we are all respecting the deal that we made and the matters that we need to take care of. But of course we are different parties and you should not vote for me if you agree with the values that they have. Democracies are messy. Yeah, they are promises, absolutely, and I think Sweden hasn't had that for quite some time. It's a bit of a new development where we have split in
the voting that we haven't seen before. So we're trying to handle it in the best way we can. After the break, I ask Romina about Sweden's plan to build new nuclear power plants and with the resignation of New Zealand Prime Minister Justinda Arden, how she deals with burnout. Now, Sweden is among the few countries in Europe that has a large dependence on nuclear when it comes to clean energy, and you are planning to build more nuclear power plants
or one do at least. Is there political support for nuclear power in Sweden? Yes, there is and it's growing. And the interesting thing is if you look at the reports, the support for nuclear power is the absolutely biggest in the municipalities that have nuclear power plants, so that's where people are most positive towards it. And are you taking the message that nuclear can be a climate solution abroad, because it's still a controversial issue in many, many parts
of the world. Yeah, and it's not weird that it is a controversial issue. I think that there's a lot of worries and misconceptions about how nuclear power works and the development that has been made, not least in Europe, where we've invested so many billions of euros to create scientific development and how we use these techniques to get
the energy. But the development that we're seeing with for example, small modular reactors that can stabilize our energy system and also you know, nuclear power being planable, so you know when you get the power, which is very important for our industries to be able to actually bet and take the risks on electrifying their industries. But you know, it's not a matter of whether I, as a politician prioritize nuclear or wind power, because I'm looking at those things
as well. We have a lot of offshore wind power coming up and we're looking at how we can create the optimized conditions for that. So you know, we're trying to create a robust energy system in Sweden because we have not had that, and the whole of Europe have learned the lesson in the hard way with Russia during the war using their gas as a war mechanism and
pressure in European countries. So we have learned the harsh way that we truly have to switch towards fossil free and I think that nuclear power has a part to play in that. Now beyond nuclear but sticking to security, you've said climate is not just about taxes and regulations, but their climate issues are also a security policy issue. How do you think the Russian invasion of Ukraine has changed energy security conversations in Sweden and what are you
doing as a result. Well, I think not least, we have learned a lot about how our energy systems work. We have a lot of hydropower in Sweden and that's a possibility to store the electricity as well, so it's been very beneficial and I think in Sweden we've felt quite comfortable with the situation we have regarding energy. We also export a lot of energy, which makes people think that, oh, okay, we're good, but it's a matter of stabilizing our system and having the power when we need it, and there
we have some issues. We don't import a lot of Russian gas. We tend to stick to our hydropower, nuclear power and wind power, and then we complement with solar power and we have thermal heating and you know, different methods. But as we in Europe share our energy system and export an import a lot, we have to consider and take care, so we're also affected. But I think it's
mostly about knowledge and learning. Also, you know, energy efficiency, using our energy in a smarter way, which is very important because in Sweden we see from the government side, we see a prognosis of doubling more than doubling actually our energy use or electricity use actually until twenty forty five, so we have to make a big development in the energy sector and hopefully this situation where the war can
speed up this transition. Now Sweden has taken on the presidency of the European Council for the first six months of this year. How do Sweden's climate goals your policies fit into what the European Union is doing and what do you want to see during this presidency? What will you be able to influence the European Union. You know, me as a liberal pro European, I'm a big fan of the European Union and my party was very engaged
in getting me Sweden into the Union. So I'm very excited about the presidency and I'm truly looking forward to being able to bring the work forward. When it comes to climate action, well, European Union is the biggest and the most successful climate organization or environmental organization that there is. There is no other comparison of a organization or a union where you create so many legislative acts and laws and incentives that are bringing forward this development, and the
speed it is going at is very impressive. You know, we have a lot of work to do. We have the goals, we're trying to work towards them all of our countries and we're not all there yet. But I think the view of it being we are going to reach net zero, that is the exactly correct way of tackling our emissions. And the European Union, of course, we have the Fit for fifty five package, we have the Green Deal and a lot of different parts of that
which is being finalized. But of course I look forward to working on the Industrial Emissions Directive, the Nature Restoration Law, and in Sweden we have a lot of consensus when it comes to EU matters because we want to take care of the view of Sweden in the EU. We have a strong stance. We get a lot of possibilities to affect the EU through our strong stance, so we all take care of it together. Now we've talked a lot about cutting emissions and all the energy changes that
have to be made, but climate impacts are growing. I wanted you to bring up a comparison here, which is that your parents had to leave it run due to, in your words, their freedoms being taken away. It was a political revolution and they had to flee. Climate impacts are growing, and so are the number of climate refugees. Do you think Sweden should do more to welcome climate refugees? Well, I think that Sweden should keep being a big part of an open world and we try to do that
best as we can. From twenty fifteen, we had all of the political leaders in Sweden talking about Sweden's not building any walls and we are the open, welcoming society, and then we had an enormous backlash. And this is foremost regarding the unemployment, segregation, schools not having places for all the kids. Our society was not able to hold the standard that people expect in Sweden, and I think
that that is a failure from the political side. We have to, you know, have a dynamic society, dynamic politics that adapt towards the society we live in, and that is, in my stance as a liberal, a society that can be open and welcome people, which we don't have right now. So there has to be one or another. You either close the borders and you know, you're happy with the systems you have, or you try to create systems that are allowing and you know, giving the circumstances for a
bigger migration. And of course I work towards the latter. But in Sweden we have a big consensus majority where people want to have a migration that is possible for us to handle. When it comes to migration authorities, you know, it takes like three years to get your permit and things like these, so we're trying to catch up. But I'm working towards us catching up as quick as we can to be able to welcome more people into an
open society. Now. In twenty nineteen, you gave an interview where you said your role model is Alexandria Occasio Cortez. Of course, AOC represents the left wing of the Democrats in the US. You are a liberal conservative. You believe in free markets. You know I'm a liberal. I'm not conservative at all. We're believing in free markets and you believe in capitalism as a way to solve climate crisis. Why is she a role model? Well, in this interview, I said she is my role model in not her opinions,
but how she does things. I think that she's a prime example of a political leader that is, you know, in touch with you know, the ground, with her voters. She knows what she's doing where she comes from, and she brings that with her in in what she does, and I think that's quite inspiring. I think that's a type of politician that I haven't seen for quite some time and I've missed, and I aim to be that myself.
I tried to stay grounded and keep a lot of contact with people who vote for me and what their perspectives are. And you know, in creating that trust, I'm able to get more things done and have more flexibility because I know that my vote is trust me that I make the correct decisions. And you know, the media can write controversial headlines, but my vote is now that I know Romina, I know what she's doing, that's probably not the whole story, and that is a way of
actually being like a good politician. I think also uses social media very well, especially Instagram. She reaches out and she is open about her views and talks to her audience. How about you do you use social media for that kind of outreach. I used social media a lot. I you know, grew a follower base on Twitter and was that was kind of how I made a name for myself in politics. That was probably why I was offer the opportunity to be a columnist and a newspaper and
things like this. But actually I've become somewhat of negative more social media. There's just too much hate and misunderstanding because you want to misunderstand. There's not that much of okay, I'm trying to learn something here and understand where you're coming from and actually trying to meet each other. There's more of the you know, shattering and hopefully I can contribute to a better climate on social media. But right now I'm focused on getting my environmental policies in place.
You know, I've been a minister for Soon it will be one hundred days since the government gone place and that's where my focus is. But hopefully I'll be able to do a comeback on social media quite soon and tell people what I'm doing and try to create a positive environment that is not spreading hate and the situation that I don't want to contribute to. You were at COP fifteen in Montreal. This is a cop that is different from TOP twenty seven because this corp discusses biodiversity
and nature. The crisis around biodiversity is not talked about as much as climate change, but if anything, it's probably going to have bigger impacts if we don't address it. And we've got a deal, and the deal is around protecting thirty percent of land and ocean by twenty thirty, do you think that's enough. I think it's a good start. I see a lot of countries that have very different
possibilities to do that. My country, for example, Sweden, we have a lot of forest and we have a lot of private owners of forest who use it in a traditional way and they want to take care of their forest. They know that they won't be able to make any profits if they don't take care of their forest as
well as the fisheries. You know, if you don't have any fish to fish, You're not going to have any money either, So there's there has to be a way of reaching consensus and having more dialogue when it comes to the use of our nature, whether it's the ocean or the forestry or land use. So we have to make sure to do that in a smarter way than we're doing right now. I think thirty percent is a good start, but you know, I can only look at
my own country. We have quite a lot of work to do to reach thirty percent, especially when it comes to forestry, and so I have a lot of work to do on that front, and I think, you know, we have to make sure that each country actually reach the goals we set up as well. But there's been criticism that thirty by thirty isn't very well defined. Biodiversity is complicated. Species in different places require different ways to
live and thrive. Another aspect which hasn't been reached, which is around what happens to the rest of the seventy percent. Would we start abusing that seventy percent even more than we are abusing now? And so how do you think about these difficult issues as we try and grapple with this crisis. Well, that's a very good question. I agree with the somewhat of the hints you're making in the question. We do have very different way of handling what thirty
percent is in our different countries. I think Sweden as well as a good example of having very strict way of measuring and counting, and I see other countries that don't do it in the same way, which is a problem. And also the very very different natures that we have to deal with. I can only speak for my own country, which is the one I know by heart, and that
we do have a long you know, tradition. It's almost culture for us to take care of our forests and take care of our sea, in our nature, and we have a lot of laws. For example, we have this al mansret then it's called which is it's very lovely. We learn it when we're kids that, for example, you can always walk through nature and forest, but you can't break the sticks and the ruin the nature, but you're allowed to pass through and you're allowed to put up
a tempt for one twenty four hours. You know, we're brought up with this. We have a lot of nature. We live very close to it, even in the city, it's a thing to hike and so on. So we need to create a development where we take care of our biodiversity in a better way than what we're doing now.
We do truly have a biodiversity a crisis when it comes to biodiversity loss, and I think if it's supposed to be a long term positive development, we have to do it side by side with society, with owners of forest, with fishers, with everyone who's will be interested in bettering the situation we have. So that's the way we need to work forward, and the legislation and the deals that we make need to have room for that for each country to develop in the most stable way that they can.
But we have to do it quicker and a lot more than we're doing right now now. One thing you said was that when your leader chose you as the climate minister, you were surprised that this would be something you would take, But ten years on that's what you were preparing for. But in a way you've said that you've been preparing for politics for a very long time. You debate it with your father a lot. You studied
political science. You then became the leader of the Liberal Youth Association, so Now that you were thrown into this job and it's been a hundred days, what were you expecting That hasn't turned out to be as you thought it would be. A lot of things have been surprising.
I think the most surprising thing is how it is so difficult to get out the message of what we are doing, what we are changing, what are the positive aspects, And it's so easy to get the message out of oh my gosh, politics is breaking down the environmental work that needs to be done. You know, especially in Sweden, doesn't matter what government, if you have social Democrats or liberals, they're going to take climate action, but they're going to
do it in different ways. We do have very fundamental climate laws, environmental laws in Sweden. We had carbon taxation before I was born in nineteen ninety two, so you know, we're very developed country when it comes to these issues. And we look forward to using the EU presidency to take the work forward in the EU and to contribute during the COP meetings. And this is just a long tradition we have. So I've been quite surprised at having to defend my stance as a climate invested the politician.
It was not what I expected but you know, as long as I know that I'm doing the work that is needed, as long as the ministry of lawyers and the people who are very familiar with the environmental legislation, as long as we are cooperating in a positive way. The media picture is something I will probably be able to handle in the upcoming years and make sure that they understand what we are doing. And you've got your dream job ten years early. If you were to take
on a different ministry, which one would you choose? I don't know. I'm quite versatile. I think a lot of matters are important. No one is as urgent and important as this one's, but I think education policy, cultural policy, all of this matters are very important for a societal development.
Just In the Arden, Prime Minister of New Zealand, who has made the leader at a very young age of thirty seven, has just resigned and her reason for resigning is that she does not have enough energy in the tank to keep going as a young person being put into a job that's going to be demanding. What are lessons that you learn from experiences of other young female leaders that you would like to apply. Well, I really
do take care of that part of it. A lot of people are like, how are you not burned out?
You know, I'm like the typical burnout example, the young woman in politics, writing a book, columnist, you know, doing all the things up once, doing a podcast, and I want to do a lot of things, and I'm very eager, but I'm very strict on my time with my friends, my time with my partner, you know, laying down on the sofa, not looking at my phone, and just you know, crochet knitting, reading and talking to my boyfriend about things that are not political. And these are very important for me.
It's a way of recharging and I don't negotiate on that. It's very strict in my calendar. A lot of you know, the people who work with me know that. And if I say let's not do this meeting, it's not always you know, specifically as a woman, it's also a matter of which meetings I actually should take. Just because I'm a young female politician, it doesn't mean that I'm going to meet you know, the assistant advisor. You know, that's
not how it works. So putting harsh limits and being clear on what you expect and how your days are looking, that's a way for me to handle the big amount of pressure and the extremely long hours and no weekends and things like this. I think Jacinda and a lot of other politicians are good examples of keeping your head high and not compromising with yourself. So she's done a very good job. I think she should be very proud of what she's done. Good inspiration. This was a great conversation.
Thank you for making the time. Of course, thank you. Given the makeup of the new government, I thought the Climate Minister would struggle to justify how Sweden will keep its big promises. I'm still not convinced that it can, but in Romina I found someone who seems determined to ensure that climate remains a priority despite a messy political environment.
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