FINLAND REMAINS OFF TRACK TO MEET ITS CLIMATE TARGETS AND OBLIGATIONS DESPITE A ROUGHLY FOUR-PER-CENT DROP IN EMISSIONS IN 2022, REVEALS THE GOVERNMENT’S ANNUAL CLIMATE REPORT PUBLISHED ON FRIDAY.
“EMISSIONS HAVE DECREASED IN BOTH THE EMISSION-TRADING SECTOR AND THE BURDEN-SHARING SECTOR, WHICH COVERS ROAD TRANSPORT, AGRICULTURE, BUILDING HEATING AND ALSO WASTE,” OUTI HONKATUKIA, THE DIRECTOR OF THE CLIMATE DEPARTMENT AT THE MINISTRY OF THE ENVIRONMENT, STATED TO YLE ON FRIDAY.
Challenges, though, remain in the land-use sector because the ability of forests to sequester carbon dioxide from the atmosphere has weakened due to the slowing growth of forests and increase in logging volumes.
“We’re so used to our forests, our land-use sector being a permanent carbon sink. And now it’s looking like that isn’t the case,” said Honkatukia.
The sector turned from a carbon sink to a source of emissions for the first time ever in 2021 and returned only narrowly to a sink in 2022. Finland is on track to fall tens of millions of tonnes short of the obligations imposed by the EU for 2021–2025, an outcome that would likely force it to acquire carbon credits from other EU countries.
The price of the credits remains unknown as it depends on how well other countries succeed in their climate efforts.
“We have a clear goal for carbon sinks in the land-use sector for the period between 2021 and 2025, and we’re now in 2023. We’re really running out of time to take the kind of measures that’d have a big impact on this sector,” she warned.
Honkatukia told Helsingin Sanomat that uncertainties also surround the obligations in the burden-sharing sector. The largest source of emissions in the sector is transport and the second largest agriculture.
“There’s a big risk that the responsibility trickles from the land-use sector to the burden-sharing sector, whose obligations would increase,” she stated to the newspaper.
Slightly less than half of the country’s total emissions are generated in the emission-trading sector, chiefly in energy production and major industrial activities. “The emission-trading sector will take care of itself,” viewed Honkatukia.
The Finnish government, the report concludes, is on track to meet the goal of slashing carbon dioxide emissions by 60 per cent from the level of 1990 by 2030. Additional measures, though, will be required to become carbon neutral by 2035.
The report describes the extent of implementation of climate policy measures in the spring of 2023, thereby serving as a report card of sorts for the government led by Prime Minister Sanna Marin (SDP).
Honkatukia told Helsingin Sanomat that Marin’s government pursued a climate policy that was characterised by ambitious targets on one hand and insufficient implementation on the other.
Prime Minister Petteri Orpo’s (NCP) government has pledged not to compromise on the climate targets but also outlined that climate measures must neither create additional costs for citizens nor undermine industrial competitiveness.
The government is obliged to issue the report annually under the climate act to inform the parliament of the development of carbon sinks and emissions, assess the sufficiency of climate measures in light of the objectives set for the next 15 years and provide an update on progress toward the medium-term climate plan and the climate plan for the land-use sector.
Source: Helsinski Times
