2015:21. ZVT. Yvonne Ruwaida, State Secretary at the Swedish Department of Energy and Environment. GotMoS.

Listen to the interview with Yvonne Ruwaida, State Secretary at the Swedish Department of Energy and Environment or read the transcript below. . – Yvonne Ruwaida, thank you for participating at this Motorways of the Sea conference. Can you please introduce yourself? . – My name is Yvonne Ruwaida, I’m State Secretary at the Department of Energy and Environment in Sweden and my issues are nuclear safety and climate. . – Thank you. Please give a short resume from your held presentation. . – The Swedish government has the ambition that Sweden should be one of the first fossil free welfare states. We have very high ambitions in going towards a fossil free transport sector. And looking at the transport sector, I do see the potential that the maritime sector has, both because it’s today working more and more in reducing emissions, but also in working with new fuels that will be a part of the fossil free society. So, there is potential within the maritime sector, there is need for more policy from politics on all levels, but there is also a need that the maritime sector itself participates in reducing emissions and becoming fossil free. . – Thank you. What do you think is the most vital component to be able to make a full transition into a more safe, environmentally and energy efficient, still profitable, transport at sea? . – I do think that there are many vital components. If you want to work more with the climate issue for example, we need to find ways in making the fossil free alternatives the ones that most financially good, and that’s only possible if you have politics and if you have “pay to pollute” principle. So I do think going towards policies that makes pollution pay will be the foundation of sectors being able to become fossil free and also emission free. So there lies a big responsibility on the policy level but you should never forget the power of the ones who go ahead and show that this is possible, and these initiatives that you show that you can have for example shipping on methanol or other new means will be very important to show others this is the possible future. . – Is there something you would like to add? . – I would also like to tell about the maritime national strategy that Sweden has taken now in August. I’m very glad that the maritime sector itself has the Zero Vision Tool and I’m also very glad that the Swedish shipping sector has taken “Klimatfärdplanen”, a strategy for climate issues, because these together shows that the sector itself wants to take responsibility, is participating, is taking initiative. So I’m very happy about that and I want to congratulate the sector for doing this, but also that it goes hand in hand with what the government is doing, adapting, since August is here, the national maritime strategy and I know the government will follow what the sector is doing to be able to interact and co-operate in a good way with the sector. . – Thank you very much!