Coherence between National and International Environmental Policies – the case of Sweden

Abstract: Policy coherence is receiving increasing attention due to the interconnectedness, urgency and global character of the challenges that humanity faces today. Policy coherence provides an effective approach to tackle the complex macrochallenges of today since it entails achieving policies from different levels and sectors striving towards the same objectives in a supportive and reinforcing manner, producing an effective and long-lasting response to the challenges. Considering the broad, ambitious and universal Agenda 2030, policy coherence is of greater importance than ever before. This study investigates the policy coherence between Agenda 2030 and the national level looking into the case of Sweden with focus on the environmental dimension of sustainable development by evaluating the coherence between the environmental SDGs and Sweden’s national environmental quality objectives. Coherence between the two policy levels is evaluated using a qualitative data analysis by comparing official policy documents from respective policy agenda and applying the OECD’s (2016) Policy Coherence for Sustainable Development framework to Sweden. The conclusion indicates that the policy agendas fit together in a reasonable way but has the potential to be more coherent. Urgency is seldom addressed, but rather challenges are pointed out as critical and taking action is noted as significant. Both of the policy agendas address the interconnectedness of the challenges, the SDGs in a vague manner pointing out ‘links’ and the national environmental quality objectives in a more detailed manner pointing out more specific examples. The global character of the challenges is addressed in both of the policy agendas, more so in the SDGs than the national environmental quality targets. Incoherence is at times difficult to point out due to the vague terms used in Agenda 2030 compared to Sweden’s national policy. However, the vagueness of Agenda 2030 seems to serve a function whereas the country specific goals go into further detail according to the context. Despite the difficulty, results show that a broader perspective would benefit both policy agendas in addressing the global challenges coherently, since it consequently implies that the concept of policy coherence is applied at a larger scale.