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…
A survey in 2019 showed that nearly a quarter of Swedes were abstaining from flying in a bid to reduce their climate footprint, up from 17 per cent the year before.
They should be reminded that green jet fuel (SAF) is available for a price. Refiners in Europe are slowing investment in capacity due to low demand. Airlines are not willing to pay the price. Can you believe they would rather stop flying?
Once again we can have green energy any time we are willing to pay for it. It will not be free.
Paying for it is only part; managing the transition and turning around a huge, huge ship are not easy or quick.
But back to the costs; there are limits to how much people are willing to pay and the strains to the economy. Spending lots of money towards A means less available for B.
Looking at the UK, for example, the 2025 report from their Climate Change Committee includes discussions about heat pumps. The 2028 goal is 600K installations per year. Currently the number is only 100K and that is with a £7,500 subsidy. Reaching the 600K goal would cost the taxpayers £4.5 billion per year (in addition to the costs borne by the homeowner or builder). Since only about 1% of homes in the UK have a heat pump, the mind boggles at the cost to achieve a heat pump in every house.
It shouldn’t boggle too much. Cars and HVAC systems are among the easiest to switch over. Why? Not because they are cheap, but because they all get switched over ANYWAY periodically. Cars get switched every 10 years or so, HVAC gets switched over every 20 years or so. So instead of everyone switching over at once, you continue the normal switch over schedule. Or at least some percentage switches over on their normal schedule. If you can approach 50 percent eventually, then “all” (not literally all, but a very large majority) cars will be switched over in 20-25 years, and all standard HVAC will be switched over in 40-45 years. Now if you add incentives up front, you can speed along the switchover somewhat. But you can’t induce a step function because it is literally impossible - there isn’t enough production capacity, and there isn’t enough installation capacity for any meaningful step function.
And over the long-term, there are very large advantages. The primary one being that the new tech costs less to operate. The heat pump is substantially more efficient (and so it the EV). Of course, the up front is a big problem, people generally don’t save enough, so they don’t have enough for the up front investment. Even if it will save them money over the long term. I swapped my electric resistive hot water heater for a heat pump hot water heater about 10 years ago, and there was an immediate $20-30 decline in my electric bill each month. Now a heat pump hot water heater costs two to three times as much as a resistive one, so you have to pay $2100 instead of $700 up front. But that $25 drop in electric bill continues month after month after month. That’s $300+ a year, every year, so far for 10 years. That heat pump hot water heater has been a great investment for me! And over the 10 years, I have never once engaged it’s backup resistive element. And I received zero subsidy but it was still well worth it.
Now there are other things, like rooftop solar, and that so far is clearly not worth it. I run the numbers every half year or so, and they never come out positive. That’s despite my desperate hope that they will someday. I’m an engineer and I like optimizing things, so I think I’d love to have my own solar power generation system. But I also practice prudent money management, so it’s not happening right now.
With some 25 million homes in the UK and only 1% with heat pumps, at the current rate of 100K/year
(and that’s with a large government subsidy which taxpayers are funding) it would take 250 years to switch over. Now, the rate is increasing, but clearly there is a motivational problem and/or the economics are wrong. As stated upthread, most people don’t really want to spend much money on “climate stuff”. As an aside, the heat pump program is only funded through 2028.
As an aside, I think that most UK systems are boiler-based rather than heated air. I don’t know what difference that makes.
Another example of what people are willing to pay (which of course has policy implications for funding programs) a couple of years ago a New York poll done by Siena College found that a majority(54%) would only be willing to pay $20 or less per month (per household) to “adhere to the many components of New York’s climate plan”.
The Energy Secretary has promised to investigate how regulations are enforced and to relax the rules if needed, saying noise issues “remains a big barrier” to heat pump installations…
Labour has already scrapped a rule requiring homeowners in England to gain planning consent to install heat pumps at least one metre away from a neighbouring property…
In an awkward situation for the Energy Secretary, his own neighbours are protesting against a five-story residential development over concerns that its six proposed heat pumps will cause noise pollution.