The coalition government’s Finns Party does not support an EU Commission proposal that calls on member states to reduce its carbon emissions by 90 percent by the year 2040.
That’s according to the party’s first deputy chair, Teemu Keskisarja, who made the comments on an Yle Radio 1 morning programme on Thursday.
“The Finns Party does not support the proposal, but rather calls for down-to-earth protection of nature and fairer treatment of Finland’s rural residents,” he said.
The previous day the Minister of Climate and the Environment, Sari Multala of the National Coalition Party, announced that Finland supports the EU proposal.
However, the Finns Party’s Keskisarja said his party would not greenlight such a proposal.
Keskisarja’s party colleague, Minister of Transport and Communications Lulu Ranne, criticised Multala’s declaration of Finland’s support of the proposal, because the government hadn’t yet discussed it, according to STT.
She told the news service that the Finns Party does not plan to accept proposals that would result in additional costs for the country.
Aims and targets
The Commission’s proposal aims to cut net greenhouse gas emissions by 90 percent from 1990 levels by the year 2040, in order to keep the EU on target to reach zero emissions a decade later, according to Reuters.
Minister Multala presented part of the government’s energy and climate strategy on Wednesday.
The climate and environment ministry has requested comments about its draft medium-term climate plan .
“The plan includes an assessment of the development of emissions, measures to improve the effectiveness of the existing emission reduction measures and additional measures that promote the achievement of the climate targets,” a ministry release read.
“The obligation under the EU Regulation is to reduce emissions in Finland’s effort sharing sector by at least 50 percent from the 2005 level by 2030. At the moment, emissions have decreased by around 26 percent,” it continued.
Multala noted that the plan’s measures would help “fulfil Finland’s EU obligation to reduce emissions during the period 2021–2030.
“Unnecessary paper”
The plan calls for new measures within the transport sector, including “various support mechanisms aimed to accelerate the renewal of the vehicle fleet and to further improve energy efficiency in the transport system”, the ministry release said.
Regarding agriculture, the plan aims to reduce emissions from peatlands, the sequestering of carbon in mineral soils as well as cutting emissions from manure treatment, among other mesures.
Minister Multala told Finnish news outlet MTV on Wednesday the climate and energy strategy had been delayed due to the Finns Party not supporting it.
On Thursday, the Finns Party’s Keskisarja described the strategy as “completely unnecessary paper”.
“Protecting nature is a sacred issue for the Finns Party, but the climate hysteria is the devil’s invention,” Keskisarja told Yle.
The Finns Party’s chair, Riikka Purra, has previously said that Finland would not reach the climate neutrality goal before 2035 and that her party would not agree to reduce logging in the country.
The Commission’s target proposal will need member state support at the European Council and to be passed by MEPs in the European Parliament before being submitted to the United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP30 in Brazil, in November.
According to Minister Multala, the government would formulate its views about the proposal and then submit a report to Parliament by the beginning of September.