The Sound Of Doors Closing: Finland's Forests' Capacity To Absorb CO2 Declined +/- 90% Between 2009 And 2022

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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. “We cannot achieve carbon neutrality if the land sector is a source of emissions. They have to be sinks because all emissions can’t be decreased to zero in other sectors,” says Juha Mikola, a researcher for the Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke), which is responsible for producing the official government figures.

“When these targets were set we thought that land removals would be around 20m to 25m tonnes and we could reach the target. But now the situation has changed. The main reason is the forest land sink decreasing by almost 80%,” he adds. Tarja Silfver, a research scientist at Luke, says: “It makes the targets really hard to achieve. Really, really hard.”

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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/oct/15/finland-emissions-target-forests-peatlands-sinks-absorbing-carbon-aoe