[deanc]

This is now how we should be looking at the problem. It doesn't matter if you burn coal yourself or not. What matters is the source of your energy. Every single one of those countries imports energy from other markets which consume fossil fuels for production.

[cjblomqvist]

I know at least Sweden has been a net exporter for a long time. It's a little bit complicated (that's what happens in a market economy). Anyhow, we/EU should continue to strive to end coal as an energy source for all countries, be since we can do much better.

[simonask]

The unique geography of the Scandinavian peninsula combined with very low population density makes Sweden a bit less interesting in terms of achieving zero emissions in other geographies, and I doubt Swedes would be cool with expanding hydro and nuclear to the scale required by Germany.

But yeah, I mean, good job and all. The answer for the rest of the continent is going to be wind and solar in the medium term, and probably more nuclear in the long term.

[cjblomqvist]

Totally. Tech neutral state incentives is the way to go for sure, everybody has different environment and context to consider (same within Sweden). Southern Europe has very different opportunities (much better situation for solar for example).

Anyway, my comment was in response to the extreme comment (parent) about how all rich countries became rich using fossil fuels - implying that that's the more or less only way to transition from poor to rich. I think it's important to note that that's not necessarily the case. You don't need to destroy the environment to go from poor to rich, even though a lot of countries historically have done it that way (also noteworthy that they did it without knowing about the consequences for the environment).