The figure 80% needs to be nuanced a bit. The reason for such a drastic decrease is that there is a lot of forest land in Sweden. In 1990, the emissions were 71,6 Mt CO2eq, while the absorption was 51,39 Mt CO2eq. In 2023, the emissions were 44,22 Mt CO2eq and the absorption 41,22 Mt CO2eq. The net emissions did indeed decrease >80%, but that was because forests made them low in the first place. If we look the emissions only, they only decreased 40%, which is still a good achievement, especially since the population has grown, but far from 80%. Source, Swedish Environmental Protection Agency

So to a large extent the amazing figure is due to geographic luck. It’s not very easy for other countries to copy this solution unless they also are lucky enough to have lots of forests.

It might also be worth noting that if you look at Sweden’s consumption based-emissions instead, they are about twice as high as the emissions withing Swedish borders. Ourworldindata publishes consumption-based emissions for all countries, and by that measure Swedish emissions are low by European standards, but many countries have lower emissions and Sweden is by no means an outlier. (Note, numbers don’t agree with those from Swedish Environmental Protection Agency, probably due to different methodology.)

TL;DR Far-right on the rise more or less everywhere based on the estimates, green parties on the decline. Let’s just hope it will not get too dire consequences in the five years to come.

I found this map of dominant tree species in Germany while investigating it:

https://atlas.thuenen.de/layers/geonode:Dominant_Species_Class

Indeed, there is are significant difference between the maps. Perhaps most notably in Baden-Würtemberg where there seems to be a lot of fir. But I also think there is a a clear correlation between the maps. I also find it interesting to see the correlation between the suitable habitat for oakwood and the absence of forests.

The graphical abstract is even better than the title:

Cervantes did it first:

Who the fuck made this inforgraphic?

It’s from Wikipedia. Admittedly, I didn’t do much fact-checking and just trusted it. But of course you can always contribute by improving the map.

Cool map! I spent quite some time looking at the many details. Also interesting to see that the Chinese were so aware of world geography at the time, even if it was thanks to exchanges with Europeans.

Cool! I had never heard about this theory for explaining color blindness.

You think so? My impression of the Netherlands is that the staple food is fries with mayonnaise, maybe with some broodje kroket in between. In general the diet consists of a lot of butter, white bread and sugar. To me it does not seemt surprising at all that they eat least vegetables in Europe.

It has often been noticed that differences along the historical borders exist in Poland. See for example this article.

Here’s another article discussing the differences, and interestingly claims that the difference between the election result in former Prussian and Russian parts of Poland is likely due to other factors.

It’s a subspecies of brown bear.

Thanks for pointing that out. You’re right. I messed up with the title. What i intended to say was that the scale was relative. But the title is corrected now.