The air travel tax is to be abolished to make Sweden attractive to businesses, the government announced at a press conference on Tuesday.
The negative climate consequences are being downplayed. Emissions from air traffic will increasingly be regulated at the EU level, emphasized the Sweden Democrats' group leader Linda Lindberg.
A abolished air travel tax has no direct link to emissions, she says.
But it's not that simple, researchers argue – since only part of the emissions from air travel are regulated by the EU.
It's about half of the emissions from Swedish air traffic that are regulated by the EU. No flights outside the EU, i.e. the really long trips, are included in the EU regulations. The EU's regulatory framework also does not address the increased impact of emissions occurring at high altitude, says Mattias Höjer, professor of environmental strategic analysis and futures studies at KTH.
Must reduce
Research at KTH and Chalmers indicates that high-income countries largely need to halve air travel compared to pre-pandemic levels if the aviation sector's emissions are to decrease at the rate needed to meet climate goals.
But the government's abolished air travel tax has the explicit purpose of increasing travel.
It will likely increase the number of passengers and more air traffic will affect emissions, but we'll have to look at that further ahead, says Linda Lindberg (SD) at the government's press conference.
At the press conference, Minister of Enterprise Ebba Bush (KD) referred to the fact that the requirements for biofuel blending will increase, which will reduce climate impact. However, according to Jonas Åkerman, research leader for strategic sustainability studies at KTH, it will take a long time for this to take effect.
The goal is to reach 6 percent blending by 2030. 94 percent will still be fossil fuels, he says.
Another claim that surprises researchers is that Sweden would be almost alone in having an air travel tax in the EU.
Many countries have some form of air travel tax, even if it's designed differently. For example, Germany, France, Italy, Portugal, and Switzerland have air travel taxes.
Even the UK has an air travel tax that is significantly higher than Sweden's.
No VAT
Jonas Åkerman says that even without the air travel tax, air travel has had significant tax exemptions.
We should remember that we don't pay any VAT on flights abroad. From a societal economic perspective, this means that those who don't fly pay for it through other taxes. Air travel is already heavily subsidized before the air travel tax is removed.
From the transport industry, there are much happier faces:
"The air travel tax completely missed the mark and shouldn't have been introduced in the first place. It was a tax on travel, not on emissions. We should transform air travel, not shut it down", says Transport Companies' CEO Marcus Dahlsten in a written comment.
