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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/oct/15/finland-emissions-target-forests-peatlands-sinks-absorbing-carbon-aoe>
"Tiina Sanila-Aikio cannot remember a summer this warm. The months of midnight
sun around Inari, in Finnish Lapland, have been hot and dry. Conifer needles on
the branch-tips are orange when they should be a deep green. The moss on the
forest floor, usually swollen with water, has withered.
“I have spoken with many old reindeer herders who have never experienced the
heat that we’ve had this summer. The sun keeps shining and it never rains,”
says Sanila-Aikio, former president of the Finnish Sami parliament.
The boreal forests here in the Sami homeland take so long to grow that even
small, stunted trees are often hundreds of years old. It is part of the Taiga –
meaning “land of the little sticks” in Russian – that stretches around the far
northern hemisphere through Siberia, Scandinavia, Alaska and Canada.
It is these forests that helped underpin the credibility of the most ambitious
carbon-neutrality target in the developed world: Finland’s commitment to be
carbon neutral by 2035.
The law, which came into force two years ago, means the country is aiming to
reach the target 15 years earlier than many of its EU counterparts.
In a country of 5.6 million people with nearly 70% covered by forests and
peatlands, many assumed the plan would not be a problem.
For decades, the country’s forests and peatlands had reliably removed more
carbon from the atmosphere than they released. But from about 2010, the amount
the land absorbed started to decline, slowly at first, then rapidly. By 2018,
Finland’s land sink – the phrase scientists use to describe something that
absorbs more carbon than it releases – had vanished.
Its forest sink has declined about 90% from 2009 to 2022, with the rest of the
decline fuelled by increased emissions from soil and peat. In 2021-22,
Finland’s land sector was a net contributor to global heating.
The impact on Finland’s overall climate progress is dramatic: despite cutting
emissions by 43% across all other sectors, its net emissions are at about the
same level as the early 1990s. It is as if nothing has happened for 30 years.
The collapse has enormous implications, not only for Finland but
internationally. At least 118 countries are relying on natural carbon sinks to
meet climate targets. Now, through a combination of human destruction and the
climate crisis itself, some are teetering and beginning to see declines in the
amount of carbon that they take in."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
