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23 Swedish companies are participating in the big climate meeting in Dubai. They are not allowed to sit at the negotiating table, but still hope to influence.
– They have higher ambitions than the global political community as a whole, says Jan Larsson, CEO of Business Sweden.
The UN’s international climate summit is going on for two weeks in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. There are usually large events with politicians, organizations, researchers and companies from almost every country in the world.
This year’s edition is bigger than ever before. Around 80,000 participants will walk around the large exhibition area in the desert city. Including representatives from 23 Swedish companies.
– Everyone really wants to be involved and influence the development going forward, says Jan Larsson, CEO of Business Sweden, which is behind the Swedish pavilion.
– Just being here and nagging, nagging, nagging that the solutions exist, and that clear political global leadership is now required, that’s probably the most important thing for the companies here.
Positive for AB Sweden
Among the companies are heavyweights such as Scania, Volvo and Ikea, but also smaller companies specializing in energy and environmental technology.
What they have in common is that they want to have the opportunity to sit down and talk to decision-makers, to simply show what they can do. For example, point out that they have technology to greatly reduce energy consumption in an industrial process, so that energy is thereby freed up for the electrification of transport.
– The more such clear, concrete technical solutions that the politicians get and really understand, the more offensive we think they can be in the negotiations, among the states that want to move forward and are in a hurry, says Larsson.
Basically, of course, the companies are there because they see that there are business opportunities in the climate transition. At the large exhibition area, you not only come across politicians and negotiators, but also other companies, investors and potential customers.
Jan Larsson highlights that many Swedish companies are at the forefront of climate change, so any steps taken in that direction are generally positive for Swedish business.
– Anything that creates incentives for climate-smart solutions is positive for AB Sweden, he says.
The world in a nutshell
The climate meeting is held in an oil country and is chaired by the CEO of the country’s major national oil company. Both things are controversial and have attracted a lot of criticism.
Jan Larsson thinks it gives the picture in a nutshell of what the world looks like right now.
– We are in the middle of the turning point of this enormous restructuring of the entire world’s economic system, he says.
To think that the oil countries would just change on their own, when such great economic interests are at stake, is just naive, he thinks.
– They have short-term interests in protecting their own economy and the prosperity of their own citizens. In the short term, they will fight to keep the oil and the fossil energy sources.
– But in the long term, we see that the same nations have also started to make huge investments in renewables, says Larsson.