The Commission presents the EU with a 90 percent emission reduction target for 2040. According to Climate Minister Kai Mykkänen, the member states must be allowed to choose the measures to achieve this.
Brussels
Commission the ideas about the EU's 2040 climate goals will take the Union's climate policy in the direction the Finnish government wishes, estimates the Minister of Environment and Climate Kai Mykkänen (cook).
“In terms of means, this communication goes in the direction that the Finnish government also represents. Let's go ahead with industrial investments and technological neutrality, use nuclear power and the technical capture of carbon dioxide more evenly than at present on the way to a carbon-neutral Europe,” says Mykkänen.
On Tuesday, the Commission published a communication on the EU's 2040 climate goals and at the same time proposed that the EU set a 2040 goal of reducing emissions by 90 percent from the 1990 level. The current goal for 2030 is to reduce emissions by 55 percent.
According to the commission, the 90 percent target would mean only a slight tightening of the pace of emission reductions. By continuing the current control measures until 2040, the EU's emissions would decrease by 88 percent, the commission estimates.
Mute says that the government will later form its position on the goal. According to him, what is important for Finland is the cost-effectiveness of climate measures and technology neutrality, i.e. the freedom of member countries to choose the means by which emission reductions are achieved.
According to him, the Commission's communication goes in this direction. The Commission gives more importance to nuclear power than before and even sets the goal of building the first small reactors in Europe in the next few years. The situation is new, Mykkänen estimates.
“The development of nuclear power has been discriminated against in the EU for the past 30 years, and now it is being raised as a key solution.”
Mykkänen also praises the fact that the Commission will no longer propose increasing the EU's natural carbon sinks such as forests in the 2030s. Instead, the commission gives technological sinks, i.e. carbon dioxide capture (CCS) and use (CCU), a big role in reducing emissions.
“The sink target remaining for the land use sector is at the 2030 level. Fortunately, there are no unreasonable additions to it, and Finland does not see them as realistic either.”
The commission sees a lot of potential in the recovery and utilization of biogenic, i.e. wood-derived, emissions. This would produce negative emissions, i.e. reduce the carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere. Mykkänen praises the policy and sees opportunities for Finland in it.
“Finland and Sweden are actually superpowers when it comes to capturing natural carbon dioxide,” he says.
“We have more carbon dioxide from wood in the chimneys of factories than in any other EU country. If a significant part of this can be recovered and turned into a business, then we will be able to utilize our forest resources in a more versatile and accurate way and with their help make Finland and Sweden carbon negative without having to make unreasonably strong emission reductions in other sectors.”
Tuesday the published communication was the commission's opening for discussion, and the actual bill for the EU's new emission reduction will remain the task of the new commission elected after the European elections. After that, difficult negotiations begin.
According to Mykkänen, the central goal of the government is that the emission reduction targets are distributed more evenly among the member countries than at present and that the member countries have the freedom to choose which means they use.
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