Finland’s new law sets long term climate goals and promotes transparency and results monitoring. In March, the Finnish Parliament approved the Climate Act, a new climate policy that was tabled in June 2014. The law sets a target to cut emissions by 80% from 1990 levels by 2050, consolidating Finland’s contribution to the EU emissions goal of an 80-95% reduction by 2050. The Climate Act requires every future government to specify climate policies towards the long-term goal and monitor the results, which, according to director general of the Environmental Protection Department Tuula Varis,“ makes climate policy planning in the future more systematic”, as well as making it easier to predict the direction the country is aiming at. Finland joins the UK, France, Denmark, Ireland, Mexico, Vietnam and South Korea in setting climate goals in law, and takes an important step towards the UN’s Paris climate summit that will take place in December. However, the advocates of the new law did not get everything they wanted, as they had to settle for an 80% emissions target, which represents the least ambitious end of the EU range; also, the Climate Act does not set any “carbon budget” for the medium term, making it less easy to follow whether the government is keeping its promises. At the moment, a quarter of Finland’s electricity is sourced from hydropower, with a third from nuclear. The gLAWcal Team EPSEI project Thursday, 12 March 2015 (Source: RTCC)

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