Finland is on its way to become the world’s first country to pass a carbon removal law with its new Climate Change Act.
The document was approved yesterday, May 25th, in a historic vote in the nation’s Parliament.
Thus, if the Climate Change Act (CCA) is signed by President Sauli Niinistö, Finland will be the first country to make carbon removal legally binding.
According to the CCA, the nation would be committed to becoming carbon neutral by 2035, and by 2040 it should achieve carbon negativity.
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These targets, particularly the carbon negativity target, have already been characterized as ‘remarkable’ by Kati Kulovesi, international law professor at the University of Eastern Finland.
However, also as noted by Kulovesi, they are entirely science-based and take into account Finland’s nationally defined contributions.
On the flipside, Kulovesi critiqued some of the details of the act, stating they ‘could have been stronger’, such as, for instance, the significant gap between the measures currently implemented and those necessary to meet the ambitious, soon-to-be legally binding targets.
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Furthermore, the new law has introduced amendments to previous emissions reduction targets and will now require Finland to cut its emissions by minimum 60% by 2030 and 80% by 2040 from 1990 levels.
Previously, the nation’s commitment was to slash CO2 emissions by 80% by 2050, meaning now it will be on track to doing so a decade early.
This means that Finland will need to heavily rely on removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere (hence, the carbon removal law), as well as cutting down on its overall emissions.
