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Det pågår en intensiv debatt om samhällets användning av bioenergi. Att bryta beroendet av ändliga, fossila resurser emot ett flöde av av förnybar energi har varit en drivande vision. Osäkerheten om vägen framåt ökar nu till följd av ökad internationell polaridering och konflikt. Därmed har energisäkerhet blivit ett viktigt argument för bioenergi.

Förnybara energikällor - där bioenergi är en - erbjuder möjlighet att komma ut ur fossilberoendet som driver klimatförändring och som fortfarande helt dominerar energiförsörjningen både inom EU och globalt. Men det finns också viktiga begränsningar vad gäller den roll bioenergin kan spela. Debatten om bioenergin bidrag till att minska klimatpåverkan och fossilberoende försvåras av att forskningen inte ger något entydigt svar och att man ofta har olika utgångspunkter och fokus både bland forskare och intressenter. Vi har sammanfattat olika perspektiv och avvägningar mellan de aspekter som är viktiga att bekta i belsut på både kort och lång sikt i en svensk kontext.

Den absoluta huvuddelen av svensk bioenergi kommer från skogen. Därför ligger vårt fokus på de skogliga bränslesortimenten, även om det finns en betydande potential också inom jordbruket. Vi har koncentrerat oss på de spaketer där gruppens medlemmar har god expertis. Frågor kring energiinfrastruktur, teknikutveckling och samhällsekonomiska överväganden behandlas mer översiktligt. Vi avsluta med en spaning in i framtiden om möjligheter för bioenergin i framtidens energisystem. Vår förhoppning är att KSLA med denna rappirt ska öka kunskapen - och kanske också avliva några myter - om bioenergins framtida roll.

This is an external evaluation of the Skogforsk framework programme 2021-2024 as part of an agreement between The Research Council Formas and the Research Institute Skogforsk. The appoiinted expert panel were asked to evaluate goal completion of the four-year programme as well as the quality and relevance of Skogsforsk's acivities. Recommendations for the future programme period are also provided.

Evaluative summary according to our mandate:

1. Academic quality: We find that the PhD education for both study programmes demonstrate high acadmeic quality with clear learning outcomes, structure, education process, content and academic/supervisory support.

2. Formal requirements: We find that all the formal requirements are being met, but that there are some remianing challenges esepciella in relation to completion in time. We have concerns about the effects from that NMBU no longer applies a 4th year of study with duty work, and that alternative financing models for a 4th year is not pursued.

3. Study program and content: Both programmes are important with distinct profiles, attracting enough well-qualified PhD candidates and both have societal relevance. However, shrinking internal resources for funding of PhD positions constitutes a threat that needs to be addressed.

4. Strategy and syneriges: Tha Faculty's PhD education, including its national/international relevance and networking is good, but could be further strengthened. Synpergies between PhD programmes at LANDSAM and NMBU could be obtained by increased course collaboartion. LANDSAM should simplify the administrative oversight between the two PhD programmes.

5. Administration/organisation: We see opportunities for more efficient organisational leadreship and administrative support which would clarify roles and responsibilities across those involved in the two PhD programmes. 

This article critically examines the state's steering capacity of ‘green innovation’ programs using Sweden's implementation of the agricultural European Innovation Partnership (EIP-AGRI) as a case representing part of the EU's Green Deal. The innovations should promote the competitiveness of rural areas and contribute to national environmental protection and climate goals.

We found that despite expectations, implementation rests on compartmentalized networking within the agricultural sector, prioritizing increased ‘competitiveness’ before ‘green’ development, and interpreting ‘innovation’ mainly in the technical sense. The results indicate that the state´s steering capacity of ‘green innovation’ programs meets several obstacles: the overall goals from the top tend to be both too many and too vague, leaving it to the administration to interpret what kinds of features should be prioritized from below. The state's steering in the case of EIP-AGRI relies mostly on internal agricultural expertise contrary to previous research that suggests a recent ‘de-compartmentalisation’ of European agricultural policymaking.

The challenges of environmental and sustainability governance such as dealing with competing goals, multiple interest perspectives and inherent wicked problems increasingly call for collaborative approaches in planning, policy-making, and public management. The collaboration of a diverse mix of public and private organizations is expected to bring resources, knowledge, and perspectives that may reconcile conflicts and improve policy effectiveness. As such, collaborative environmental governance contains considerable promises, seeking to restore trust in government. In this chapter, we will depict how collaborative environmental governance has emerged in current environmental and natural resource policy practice, and discuss the underlying premises for fruitful collaboration. The concept brings in ideas from a range of literatures on planning and policy studies, and overlaps considerably with the concept of network governance. We portray some of the most prominent analytical approaches to collaboration in environmental governance, and end with a section on practical implications and future research challenges.

This is a book review with no abstract

There is a demand for scientific knowledge to make informed decisions in environmental policy. This study examines expectations of knowledge use, and how knowledge stemming from systematic reviews (SR) is being used through an analytical framework that distinguishes between instrumental, conceptual and legitimising evaluation use, as well as between process and product use. Empirically, we investigate knowledge generated from six SRs conducted through the Mistra Council for Evidence-based Environmental Management from the perspectives of those carrying out the SR and their targeted stakeholders. Our study reveals ways in which SRs are used and some characteristics that improve and some that hamper their usefulness. While the systematic method and the comprehensiveness of the SRs contribute positively to the usefulness, we found that the SRs produced were simultaneously too focused (lacking multiple perspectives), and too general (providing evidence on the effects of an intervention only at the general level) thereby restricting their usefulness. The time and resources it takes to produce an SR can also affect its usefulness compared to a traditional review.

This report constitutes the Swedish Climate Policy Council’s evaluation of the Government’soverall policy in relation to the climate targets established by Parliament and the Government. Inaddition, it contains an overall picture of emission trends and a follow-up on the Government’sclimate policy action plan as well as its climate report to Parliament.

Over the past year, implementation of the policy has been heavily influenced by the ongoing pandemic. Society’s ability to address the coronavirus crisis and its long-term economic and socialeffects influences conditions for managing the climate transition in several ways. In this year’s report, the Climate Policy Council has therefore chosen to place a special focus on the Government’s policy response to the pandemic and on how crisis and recovery policies affect ourchances of achieving climate policy goals.At the time of writing this report, the pandemic is still ongoing. As yet, there is no definitive picture of the many events, connections and consequences that are relevant in this context. Yet many major political decisions linked to the coronavirus crisis and its consequences need to betaken now and in the near future. The fact that the Climate Policy Council is already presenting thisreport about the crisis is in line with the Council’s ambition to provide relevant and useful policy input for the Government and Parliament.

The Climate Policy Council would like to express its sincere thanks to the more than 100 organisations, researchers, experts and practitioners who contributed to this report. The conclusions and recommendations presented here are the Climate Policy Council’s own.