Letter: Media Must Talk More About the Climate Crisis

The climate crisis should be one of the main issues in Sweden’s election campaign, but Swedish media have been strangely quiet about a recent United Nations Environment Programme report, writes Kerstin Jon-And, an activist with the climate network Greta’s Elders.

The report warned that the world is on course to pass 1.5 degrees of global warming, the level the Paris Agreement says countries should strive to limit warming to. Jon-And says the consequences are already visible in heatwaves, wildfires, torrential rain and floods. Continued warming, she writes, will make the damage worse and drive up costs.

UNEP says the climate impact and the risk of serious, irreversible changes increase with every tenth of a degree. Jon-And therefore calls for a sharp reduction in greenhouse-gas emissions, alongside adaptation to changes that can no longer be avoided.

She points to public support for stronger action. An international study of about 130,000 people in 125 countries found that 89% wanted their governments to do more against climate change. In Sweden, WWF’s 2026 Climate Barometer found that two out of three respondents believed politicians should do much more. About 50,000 people also gathered in Stockholm on August 23 for what Jon-And calls the largest climate demonstration in many years.

With just over a week before the parliamentary election, she urges media outlets to ask parties how quickly emissions would fall, how Sweden would prepare for heat, heavy rain and flooding, and how transport, energy, agriculture and industry would change. She also calls for climate scientists and other independent experts to assess whether the parties’ proposals match the science and distribute the costs fairly.

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Voters have the right to serious information about how the parties intend to address the climate crisis.