The following comments were submitted to the Finnish Parliament's Economic Affairs Committee on the 5th of February regarding the goverment's report on the National Energy and Climate Strategy. The Strategy contains guidelines and policy measures for various areas of energy policy, including measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from society and strengthen removals by sinks.

Climate Leadership Coalition (CLC) welcomes the opportunity to comment on Finland’s national energy and climate strategy. CLC praises the strategy’s ambitious goals, which support the clean transition, reduce emissions, strengthen carbon sinks, and align with broader industrial‑policy objectives toward a carbon‑neutral and eventually carbon‑negative society. However, while the targets are strong, implementation needs to be significantly strengthened.

Finland’s competitive advantage, its low-cost clean electricity, is important but not guaranteed to last. CLC notes that industrial investments relying on affordable clean power have not yet scaled up, and that infrastructure bottlenecks such as grid connection delays pose risks to industrial growth. The main barrier to higher‑value green investments is uncertain demand for low‑carbon end products, and urges Finland to actively support the development of such markets both nationally and at the EU level.

CLC stresses that declining carbon sinks represent Finland’s most critical climate-policy challenge. With substantial deficits expected in the LULUCF sector, it calls for rapid actions to strengthen carbon sequestration to avoid unsustainable shifts of this burden to other sectors. It also argues for broader use of carbon capture and utilization (CCS/CCU) beyond current limited support measures.

Overall, CLC's statement emphasizes that Finland has strong potential to lead the clean transition, but success requires consistent long‑term policies, a supportive investment environment, and decisive actions to scale markets, strengthen infrastructure, and restore carbon sinks.

Read and download the full statement below (in Finnish).