From hugging Åkesson to borrowing his climate excuse
First Simona Mohamsson embraced Jimmie Åkesson for the cameras. Now she is embracing one of his most useful climate excuses: what Sweden does matters little. A Liberal leader did not merely stand beside the nationalist right on Thursday night. She stepped inside its frame.
In TV4's party leaders' debate, Mohamsson said Europe could become the world's best climate organisation. Then came the sentence that mattered: "Det vi gör här i Sverige spelar liten roll," meaning "what we do here in Sweden plays little role." She argued that an unreliable Donald Trump and nearby Russia make stronger EU tools on emissions trading, trade and security essential. Europe does matter. So does the rhetorical choice she used to reach it.
For years, Åkesson's climate politics has rested on the same manoeuvre. Sweden's share is tiny, the real problem is elsewhere, and domestic measures burden Swedes without changing the planet. The Sweden Democrats' 2022 platform says Sweden accounts for roughly one per mille of global emissions and cannot directly affect the climate. In a recent interview, Åkesson said the problem is not in Sweden but in other countries.
Mohamsson attached a different prescription: stronger EU action. The premise remained the same. Begin by shrinking Sweden's responsibility, then present the larger arena as the only serious one. It is the small-country alibi dressed in Liberal blue, and it quietly demotes national climate policy from leadership to symbolism.
Her journey toward this frame has already been visible. The March hug at a joint press conference was, SVT reported, planned. Liberals said the aim was to control the image and signal dominance. But a party does not control a political relationship by adopting the other side's language. The photograph may have been staged. The convergence is becoming real.
The contradiction is especially stark because the Liberals still advertise the opposite idea. On 5 September, the party said Sweden has "unique opportunities to lead the climate transition". Its election pitch promises fossil-free growth and rejects what it calls right-wing populist passivity. A party cannot sell Swedish leadership on Saturday and Swedish insignificance on Thursday.
The strongest defence of Mohamsson is straightforward. Climate change is global. Sweden cannot stabilise it alone. Badly designed measures can punish households, export emissions and achieve little, while EU rules can move a continental market. All true. But "we cannot do it alone" is not the same claim as "what we do plays little role." The first invites cooperation. The second teaches helplessness.
The Paris Agreement's machinery is built on the opposite premise. Each country submits and strengthens a national plan, then acts at home. Global progress is the sum of those supposedly small national contributions. If every country with a modest share waits for the giants, the agreement becomes a queue in which nobody moves.
Swedish policy also changes Swedish emissions in measurable ways. Environmental Protection Agency data show emissions jumped by more than seven percent in 2024, chiefly after the blending mandate was cut. Preliminary figures put 2025 territorial emissions at 46.7 million tonnes, down about three percent; transport alone fell by 0.7 million tonnes, mainly after the mandate was raised and electric vehicles increased. Choices made here alter tonnes emitted here.
Nor does the tiny-share slogan capture Sweden's real footprint. Consumption-based emissions were about 80 million tonnes in 2023, with 64 percent released abroad. Sweden has outsourced much of the smoke, not the responsibility. The atmosphere does not care which national ledger records it.
Mohamsson can make the case for muscular European climate policy without declaring Swedish action marginal. That should be an easy Liberal sentence: lead at home, bargain hard in Europe, demand more from the largest emitters. Instead she borrowed Åkesson's starting point. The most consequential embrace is no longer physical. It is rhetorical, and it gives retreat the vocabulary of realism.
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