On 1 June, the Economic Council chaired by Prime Minister Sanna Marin will organise a conference on the theme of ecologically sustainable economic policy in the 2020s. The keynote speaker at the event will be Professor Sir Partha Dasgupta, whose report emphasising the economic importance of biodiversity has attracted wide international attention.

At its session today, the Government approved the proposal for the new Nature Conservation Act, which will now be submitted to Parliament. The new legislative proposal is based on the present Nature Conservation Act, which has been updated and new provisions and entirely new chapters are also proposed to be included in the Act. These include provisions on voluntary ecological compensation, threatened habitats, management of data on the natural environment, and national biodiversity strategy and action programme. Climate change adaptation is also included in the objectives of the Act.

On 11 May 2022, the Ministerial Working Group on Climate and Energy Policy discussed biodiversity. A process is under way in Finland to prepare a new Biodiversity Strategy and the commitments for implementing the EU Biodiversity Strategy.

The Ministry of the Environment has granted slightly over EUR 744,000 in funding for 12 projects accelerating climate action related to the built environment. The next application round under the Low-carbon Built Environment Programme is already under way and will close on 10 June.

Finland, Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Denmark and the Faroe Islands will together launch a Nordic Carbon Neutral Bauhaus project to promote low-carbon construction and the circular economy. The European Commission has selected the joint Nordic project to be part of the extensive New European Bauhaus initiative. The project will strengthen the status of architecture, design and art in the transition towards sustainable and carbon-neutral construction.

In its report published on 4 April, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) points out that emission reduction measures must already be accelerated during the next decade to achieve international targets for limiting climate warming. Greenhouse gas emissions are growing in all sectors, and in the past decade the average GHG emissions were higher than ever before. The pace of growth in emissions has, however, slowed. The technological solutions needed to halve emissions from the 2019 level by 2030 already exist.

Finland’s new Bioeconomy Strategy has been completed. The strategy aims to double the value added of bioeconomy in an ecologically, socially and economically sustainable manner and to make Finland climate neutral by 2035.

On Tuesday 22 March, the Climate Policy Roundtable discussed the climate plan for the land use sector. The discussions focused on the impacts of climate measures in the land use sector on biodiversity and the need to take into account just transition in a comprehensive way. The Roundtable also highlighted the global impact chains of wood production, security of supply in food production and the transition to sustainability through more plant-based production and consumption.

The Climate Policy Roundtable will hold its 14th meeting on Tuesday 22 March 2022. It will discuss the climate plan for the land use sector, which is due to be circulated for comments in the next few weeks. The Roundtable will consider whether the proposed set of measures is balanced and effective and how fairness should be taken into account in the plan. The Roundtable is chaired by Prime Minister Sanna Marin.

The Government has agreed on measures by which Finland will halve its emissions in the effort sharing sector by 2030 and set the course towards carbon neutrality by 2035. The measures decided in the autumn will be strengthened to ensure that the necessary emission reductions of 5.7 Mt in total will be reached. This is how Finland can achieve the emissions reduction target proposed by the European Commission for 2030 in the effort sharing sector, i.e. in agriculture, transport, building-specific heating and waste management.