The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) newly published report is a cold shower for the forest policy of Finland, views the Finnish Association for Nature Conservation (SLL).
The IPCC emphasises in its widely discussed report that emissions cuts alone will not suffice to keep global warming below the crucial threshold of 1.5ºC, but that governments must also step up their efforts to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by investing in natural and artificial carbon sinks.
SLL on Monday pointed out that the report identifies forests as the best carbon sinks and storages.
Finland, it added, has contrastively raised its logging targets substantially in recent years and is intent on continuing the trend in the years to come, thereby reducing the ability of forests to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The country’s net emissions are consequently set to increase, rather than decrease, by 2030, according to its report under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.
The Finnish government has similarly conceded that its objective of harvesting an additional 15 million cubic metres of wood will prevent net emissions from decreasing, reports YLE.
“The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) report is a cold shower for Finnish forest policy. The logging targets can luckily be scaled down and carbon absorption supported,” tells Otto Bruun, a conservation expert at SLL.
“Ecosystems can luckily mitigate warming and absorb emissions. Finland is especially well-equipped to accomplish this and could set a sustainable example for the rest of the world,” he adds.
The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) has estimated that the national logging targets will reduce the amount of carbon dioxide absorbed by forests by an amount equivalent to the annual emissions of the entire transport sector in Finland.
Aleksi Teivainen – HT
Source: Uusi Suomi