Finland's climate minister is ready to raise the EU's climate goals

The European Commission is currently preparing its proposal for climate targets for the next decade, and is expected to call for accelerating emissions reductions. The European Scientific Advisory Board on Climate Change has recommended a goal of 90-95 percent, after receiving support from the member of the European Commission responsible for climate action, Wopke Hoekstra.

The current goal is to reduce emissions from the 1990 level by 55 percent by 2030.

Mykkänen said on Monday that he emphasized to his colleagues that setting the goal to 90 percent requires the union to reform its climate policy in a way that promotes the introduction of more cost-effective reduction measures throughout Europe.

"It cannot be the case that the burden-sharing sector is divided in such a way that some member states have a 10 percent target for reducing emissions and others a 50 percent target, as in Finland and Sweden at the moment," he said. to the newspaper.

As the 27-nation bloc considers new climate action, many of its members are struggling to meet the current 55 percent target.

On Monday, the European Commission published its assessment of the climate and energy plans of 21 member states and stated that additional measures are needed. Finland's plan was also considered insufficient: for example, it does not show how the country intends to halve emissions in the burden-sharing sector, which includes emissions from agriculture, heat and transport.

However, the country's most important challenge is the continuous shrinking of carbon sinks in forests, which leaves it further and further behind the EU-wide goal of increasing carbon sinks.

"Net emissions have notably decreased since 2015, and they will peak in net emissions in 2021, which highlights the need for climate action." reads Finland's assessment.

The European Commission has asked Finland to submit a concrete plan by next summer, both new measures and estimates of their effects, to strengthen carbon sinks in the land use sector. Mykkänen said that the government will make a decision on strengthening carbon sinks in its energy and climate strategy to be drawn up next fall.

"This government needs to introduce new measures to strengthen the sinkholes," he admitted.

Statistics Finland published preliminary data last week, according to which emissions from the land use sector have continued to grow and emissions exceed removals by 4.5 million carbon dioxide equivalent tons. Previously, the industry was estimated to have returned to net sink with a narrow margin of one million tons.

I'll shut up on Sunday stated Helsingin Sanomat that the news will change the government's calculations dramatically.

"This does not change the scale significantly," he said, reminding us that a million-ton sink would not have been nearly enough. "The basic problem is that the carbon sink cannot be close to zero."

According to Mykkänen, the news also does not jeopardize the national goal of carbon neutrality for 2035.

The country's total emissions decreased by three percent last year. Mykkänen considered it positive that traffic emissions decreased despite the government's decision to temporarily reduce the obligation to distribute renewable fuels.

Aleksi Teivainen – HT

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