The Finnish Parliament approved on May 25 a new Decree of the Climate Change that legally binds the country to be carbon neutral by 2035, and more ambitiously, to be carbon negative by 2040. The new law also updates the emission reduction targets: 60% reduction by 2030, and 80% by 2040, with respect to the levels registered in 1990.
The commitment with carbon negativity will force Finland to combine these reductions with measures to absorb CO2, aiming at particular to the management of the important forest mass of the territory. Nevertheless, A recent report worryingly pointed out that in the last year the sector of land use had for the first time been an emitter, instead of a store of CO2. Besides, the country still depends on fossil fuels for its energy supply.
The new framework Legal puts the Nordic country in the world in terms of climate ambition with legal binding, far ahead of the community objectivess in the EU for 2050.
The objectives of the decree were based on a analysis scientist carried out by the Finnish Panel for Climate Change which has taken into consideration the country’s fair contribution to the planet’s carbon budget to Limit the rise in temperatures below 1.5ºC.