Exploring the Political Discursive Lock-Ins on Sustainable Aviation in Sweden

Abstract

This article analyses the political discourse about governing the future of the aviation industry in Sweden and how a polarized and entrenched discursive path dependency around aviation makes it difficult to invest into aviation’s possible futures as a sustainable transport. We find three different politically merged frames in the political discussion about governing the road to sustainable aviation: (1) Neoliberal sustainable aviation, (2) Green Keynesian sustainable aviation and (3) National environmentalists’ aviation. We can see a discrepancy between two merged frames that believe sustainable aviation will be possible with more or less government support and steering (Neoliberal sustainable aviation and Green Keynesian sustainable aviation) whereas the third merged frame (National environmentalists’ aviation) argues that aviation is bound to be environmentally inferior to trains and, therefore, all focus should go to the later. We can see that there is not just a path dependency in the merged frame of National environmentalists’ aviation that discounts the possibility that both the role of aviation or its sustainability can change as the technology changes. There is here a static perceived view of technology as being forever clean or dirty. Another path dependency is the linkage of aviation transport with particular political parties where the green party, for instance, oppose aviation while the conservative party wants to support aviation and innovation in aviation. This polarization is actually the largest and most important aspect of the discursive lock-in as this undermines any compromises or large-scale future investments in sustainable aviation.

Employing a Socio-Technical System Approach in Prospective Life Cycle Assessment: A Case of Large-Scale Swedish Sustainable Aviation Fuels

“…Local SAF production is seen supported by some political parties (Kulanovic and Nordensvärd, 2021) and some actors in the aviation sector (Christley et al, in progress) in Sweden. It has been suggested by researchers that rich resources like forest residue, biogenic CO 2 and renewable electricity could drive the Swedish SAF (lignocellulosic-based advanced biofuel and electrofuel) production (Hansson et al, 2017;Trinh et al, 2021).…”