Energy and the climate

Finland must prioritise several low-emission forms of energy that secure the operation of mills 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. For a long time, the forest industry has already reduced its carbon dioxide emissions, and this remains an objective in future.

The use of fossil fuels is the reason behind climate change. We need alternatives for emission intensive raw materials and fossil energy. The sustainable use of renewable biomass as wood is one solution.

The EU’s energy and climate policies should improve industrial operating conditions, especially relative to manufacturing outside the Union. No decision should be permitted to erode competitiveness.

It is important for the forest industry that energy consumption and the growth of the economy are not capped by the energy efficiency directive. There is already an adequate, binding EU-wide greenhouse gas target. Therefore, the overlapping and binding energy efficiency target is not needed.

Efforts to reform the rules of EU emissions trading for 2021-2030 are currently underway. The emissions trading directive will be revised in 2015-2017. However, several rules and factors will be reviewed and updated after the directive is finalised. Emissions trading affects the forest industry’s competitiveness in many ways.

At the end of 2016, the European Commission published the so-called “Winter Package,” which includes a proposal for a renewable energy directive. So that the production of bio-based energy would proceed in a sustainable manner, the Commission proposes the expansion of sustainability criteria to cover not only liquid biofuels but also the production of electricity and heat from solid and gaseous biofuels. The Finnish forest industry considers it important that sustainable forest management be viewed comprehensively and it emphasises that existing, legally-binding and voluntary instruments be fully utilised in demonstrating the sustainability of wood-based biomass.