Sweden Ditches “Flight Shaming” Policy Inspired by Greta Thunberg
The extra tax on air travel hindered Sweden’s post-covid aviation recovery.
Back in 2018, inspired by Big Sister Greta Thunberg, Sweden gave in to the climate cultists and began the “flight shaming” movement.
As part of “flygscam” (and I will note the term “scam” in an inherent part of the Swedish word), the nation created a special tax for those who opted to use airlines to meet their transportation needs. Not surprisingly (at least to people knowledgeable about how free markets operate), the policy led to … unintended consequences.
The “flight shaming” movement, which originated in Sweden, was closely tied to the country’s push for sustainability and climate awareness. The movement gained traction in 2018 when 15-year-old Greta Thunberg started her now-famous solo protest outside the Swedish Parliament. Over the following years, flight shaming became a widespread social phenomenon, influencing the travel habits of not just Swedes, but people across the globe.
In the years following the introduction of the air tax, surveys indicated a growing number of Swedes abstaining from air travel, with nearly a quarter of the population opting for more eco-friendly modes of transportation, like trains, buses, and cars. This dramatic shift, however, led to unintended consequences for the aviation sector, particularly smaller airports in Sweden’s more remote areas. Airports like Bromma near Stockholm saw flight operations scale back, and Ryanair ceased all domestic flights in the country.
Flygscam:The "Flying Shame" Movement That's Taking Over Sweden https://t.co/JR23UMAkve pic.twitter.com/KPfotMzoiZ
— KerrSmith (@kerrsmithdesign) July 16, 2019
Now, Greta is a little older, and the Swedes are a little wiser. The nation is now ditching the “flight shaming” tax.
The country that invented “flight shaming”, a concept championed by climate activist Greta Thunberg, has scrapped its air tax in a bid to boost its ailing economy.
As of July 1, Sweden has dropped the levy of 76–517 krona (£5.50–£37.40) per passenger per flight, an eco measure introduced by the centre-left government in 2018.
The U-turn will be seen as a disaster by environmentalists, and it exposes a tension at the core of the aviation versus climate debate. When jumbo jets disappear emissions drop, but other things begin to dwindle too: regional growth, connectivity and – it appears in Sweden – public support for eco concerns.
Sweden shoots down 'flight shaming.' CO2 tax on air travel to end next year.https://t.co/3gbjE08iHp pic.twitter.com/ZpnIJahsB3
— Steve Milloy (@JunkScience) September 4, 2024
Sweden’s airlines and the aviation industry are grateful for the reversal.
Jonas Abrahamsson, president and CEO of Swedavia, which runs 10 of the country’s busiest airports, including Stockholm Arlanda, welcomed the government’s decision.
“The aviation tax has hampered Swedish flight accessibility, competitiveness and growth,” added Abrahamsson. “In addition, it has not supported the necessary climate transition as it treats all fuels, including bio-based jet fuel, equally.”
Airlines’ association IATA also praised the Swedish government’s decision as “excellent news”.
“Better air connectivity boosts the productive capacity of the economy, leading to stronger tax revenues in the long term,” said Rafael Schvartzman, IATA’s regional vice president for Europe.
“Sweden’s post-pandemic aviation recovery has notably lagged its neighbours, a problem made worse with the tax – and the number of routes had still not rebounded to 2019 levels by the end of 2023.”
The move may have also been inspired by budget airlines opting to reroute themselves out of Sweden.
Since the policy came into effect in 2018, flights landing in Swedish airports dropped by more than 35%, according to aviation data firm Cirium, reported by Bloomberg. Irish airline Ryanair, which advertises cheap ticket fares, withdrew entirely from Sweden’s domestic market last year.
Of course, the climate cultists are exceedingly unhappy.
“The removal of the aviation tax is another example of the government’s stupid and counterproductive policies,” Sweden’s Green Party spokesperson told Bloomberg.
This is one small step for Sweden, and one big step to the restoration of energy sanity for the rest of the world.
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Comments
Sweden would do well to wise up and deport the climate gremlin and all her little gremlins. It would certainly cut down on all the screeching and the highway blocking and be a step towards making Sweden great again.
Last I heard was that Scoldilocks got arrested trying to break into Gaza. Maybe they should keep her.
She was deported back to Sweden.
And voluntarily went back by plane, in violation of her deepest held beliefs, rather than virtuously insisting on remaining in Israeli custody like her fellow mariners.
or catching the next Viking cruise ship!
You can tell what BS the so-called ‘climate movement’ is by the fact that basically all of the solutions are just ‘add taxes’. The whole ‘cap and trade’ nonsense gave the game away.
We don’t let companies pay a bit extra to dump toxic waste into rivers. We don’t let companies pay extra to add lead to things. We don’t let companies pay a tax to use asbestos.
But to allegedly have the entire planet at risk, and just charge companies a bit more to dump more into the atmosphere? That would be lunatic insanity.
Particularly when its become very, VERY clear that when they really mean ‘climate’ what they actually mean is, ‘make these things so expensive the dirty peasants can’t use them anymore’, while the elites don’t care. The Important People spending $20,000 on a single first class ticket or having a private plane shuttle them everywhere aren’t going to notice if the price doubles. They’ll do exactly the same amount of travel.
That’s what this is all about. Control and money.
Trump’s election is having all kinds of effects, major and minor, in many and varied ways, worldwide. The general attitude now seems to lean toward, “I’m fed up and I’m not gonna do this any more” regarding the climate scolds as well as others. Good.
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It’s not particularly about flight. Carbon footprint is just three times the weight of the fuel, pretty much for everything, transportation or not. Burn a tree.
Each C attaches to two O’s from the air, each roughly the same weight, to give CO2.
Some slight variation with fuel type but that’s the essence.
But some of us think “carbon footprint” is not something to be concerned about.
To clarify, I am one of those who thinks it’s a distraction from important issues and an invitation to engage in damaging “green” nonsense policies.
True. But the concern is not the amount of fuel burned but how efficiently it’s being used. For any trip from A to B, what does it cost in fuel? The air travel portion of any trip has a specific cost in fuel per passenger, which is factored into the fuel cost of the entire trip (i.e. including the ground transportation associated with the trip). A carbon tax specifically on air travel only makes sense (in an environmental whacko sort of way) if air travel’s contribution to the total amount of fuel burned for any given trip is less efficient than the fuel burn of whatever alternate transportation may have replaced the “flight” portion of the trip. Considering Sweden almost certainly has carbon taxes on fuel burned for other modes of transportation, airlines may not have been treated unfairly (regardless of how stupidly they may have been treated). A government, if it must have a carbon tax on fuel, should apply those taxes in a manner that reflects each use’s (air, train, bus, POV) efficiency, along with practical considerations (e.g. much air travel doesn’t have a viable ground/sea alternative – you can’t set a tax based on the efficiencies of alternate forms of transportation that don’t exist for a particular trip).
But this is academic. Carbon taxes are rank foolishness.
I think that they will find that it is somewhat easier to chase away business and paying customers than it is to attract them.
Subotai Bahadur
As NY City may be about to find out with Mamdani.
She is destined to a life of MC-ing infomercials.
“Remember me? I’m Greta Thunberg” (Quick cut to video of “How dare you!?”)
-chortle-
I’ve seen the “Dy-no-mite” guy doing that, and it’s only two steps over homelessness.
So do you think Sweden learned that maybe it’s a bad idea to let an autistic teenage girl set government policy?
They set policy based on the rantings of a mentally retarded child. And now they’re surprised that didn’t work out?
Surely that was its explicit purpose. If the legislature didn’t want precisely that outcome, why did it legislate it in the first place?
Why does every photo I’ve seen of this Thunberg creature look like she’s about to throw a tantrum…?
For the same reason that every picture you ever saw of Bobcat Goldthwaite was him with his mouth wide open, screaming.
It’s their shtick, their trademark, it’s what people pay money to see them do.
Bobcat Goldthwaite: “Wild Thing”
Greta Thunberg: “Child Thing”
Her photo always brings to mind rodent control products.
I imagined it with mouse whiskers drawn on, and now I agree.