In a drive to increase energy security and combat global warming, ministers said they would present a bill next month that would allow the building of nuclear reactors on existing sites and introduce a new carbon tax as part of a program to cut carbon emissions by 40 per cent from 1990 levels by 2020.

The decision is significant because Sweden was at the forefront of anti-nuclear sentiment after the accident at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania in 1979. It voted in a referendum a year later to phase out its plants.

The Swedish Prime Minister, Fredrik Reinfeldt, said he did not feel bound by the referendum because it did not specify how nuclear power should be replaced. But the Government must still convince Parliament before it becomes law.

Opinion polls have indicated a change in sentiment as the country becomes dependent on energy from Norway and climate change becomes of concern.

Guardian News & Media