14. Security

In the Swedish National Security Strategy [1], ‘Mitigation of climate change and adaptation to its consequences’ is described as the first prerequisite under ‘A resilient and competitive Sweden’ in the chapter ‘Our national security interests’.

The word climate is mentioned in 25 places in the 30 pages of the strategy, and it is stated, among other things, that ‘The most serious […] is the existential threat to humanity posed by climate change.

The existential threat to humanity is not particularly difficult to understand for those who understand that global warming is accelerating. [2] It is going faster and faster.

I think everyone who has read will see how I point to biogas as part of the solution to the climate issue, which of course connects to the importance of knowledge about circularity and understanding of nature’s conditions. But also insight into what energy access in a crisis means. It is also important to note that fossil natural gas has long been considered ‘better’ than coal and oil, which has only delayed the climate transition.

The large emissions resulting from fossil natural gas, due to the leakages in production, have not been given enough attention. [3]. In fact, emissions from natural gas use vary widely and can sometimes even be worse than those from coal use.

I want to show the seriousness but choose to only send a few articles. Full understanding that some background knowledge is needed to understand what this news means.

Of course, it can feel hopeless. But I am one of those who think we must try. We owe it to our children, and to all life on earth. And when hope fails, it still makes sense to try. Because one thing is certain, putting our security in fossil fuels, it leads to an even faster destruction of our ecological systems.

For those who need further explanation of what the above has to do with the gas sector, I also add below graph that shows different fuels’ emissions per unit of energy. As you can see, biogas produces negative emissions (explanation can be found in footnote 12, in chapter 12).

 [4] RNG – Renewable Natural Gas = Biogas, SSO – Sorted by source, WWTP – Waste Water Treatment Plant, CNG – Compact Natural Gas (fossil).

This is just supposed to be seen as an example, these kinds of values might vary depenending of different conditionalities.

Real security threats, such as Sweden’s gas preparedness[5], or that climate-related instruments and policies are not advancing, disappear from the radar when you politicize security assessments and focus on political opinions and not facts.

Climate change and secure access to gas for our essential activities are security threats – not peaceful climate activists fighting for a functioning climate policy!