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Energy efficiency and renewable energy strategies have been insufficient in achieving rapid and profound reductions of energy-related greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions. Consequently, energy sufficiency has gained attention as a complementary strategy over the past two decades. Yet, most research on energy sufficiency has been theoretical and its implementation in policy limited. This study draws on the growing sufficiency literature to examine the presence of sufficiency as a strategy for reducing energy-related GHG emissions in Sweden, a country often regarded as a "climate-progressive" country. By conducting a keyword and content analysis of energy policies and parliamentary debates during four governmental terms of office (2006-2022), this research explores the extent to which sufficiency is integrated into Swedish energy policy, as well as potential barriers to its adoption. The analyses revealed a scarcity of sufficiency elements. Although some policies could potentially result in energy savings, they are infrequent and overshadowed by the prevailing emphasis on efficiency and renewable energy. Furthermore, Sweden lacks a target for sufficiency or absolute energy reductions. The main impediments to sufficiency implementation include the disregard of scientific evidence in the policy-making process and the perceived contradiction between sufficiency and industrial competitiveness. This study thus concludes that sufficiency at best remains at the periphery of Swedish energy policy. Given the reinforced ambitions within the European Union, this raises questions regarding the validity of Sweden's reputation as a climate-progressive country.

Recent reports from climate scientists stress the urgency to implement more ambitious and stringent climate policies to stay below the 1.5 °C Paris Agreement target. These policies should simultaneously aim to ensure distributional justice throughout the process. A neglected yet potentially effective policy instrument in this context is rationing. However, the political feasibility of rationing, like any climate policy instrument, hinges to a large extent on the general public being sufficiently motivated to accept it. This study reports the first cross-country analysis of the public acceptability of rationing as a climate policy instrument by surveying 8654 individuals across five countries—Brazil, Germany, India, South Africa, and the US—on five continents. By comparing the public acceptability of rationing fossil fuels and high climate-impact foods with consumption taxes on these goods, the results reveal that the acceptability of fossil fuel rationing is on par with that of taxation, while food taxation is preferred over rationing across the countries. Respondents in low-and middle-income countries and those expressing a greater concern for climate change express the most favourable attitudes to rationing. As political leaders keep struggling to formulate effective and fair climate policies, these findings encourage a serious political and scientific dialogue about rationing as a means to address climate change and other sustainability-related challenges.

With the growing emergency of global warming and biodiversity loss, and difficulties to reduce the impact of consumption, some researchers and government authorities have raised the idea of using rationing to reduce individuals' climate impact. Yet public opinion research on such policies and whether policy design affects public attitudes remain scant. Surveying over 3000 Swedish citizens, we provide the first experimental test of people's attitudes towards the rationing of transportation fuels and red meat in two identical, but separate, conjoint experiments. Our results reveal that the vast majority of our sample have conditional preferences, meaning their support for rationing is contingent on its specific design. In contrast, 23 % of the sample remain strongly opposed to all fuel and meat rationing proposals, irrespective of their design. Opposition to rationing decreases if people are allowed to consume more, if the allocation takes people's needs into account, if people are allowed to consume similar amounts over time and if the price for consumption does not rise unchecked. We uncover clear heterogeneities in design preferences depending on respondent characteristics, particularly for perceived fairness and effectiveness of rationing and current consumption behavior. Our findings add to the growing evidence indicating that the design of climate policies matters for people, but they also uncover the limits of policy design when climate policies have clear material implications.