Finland’s net emissions drops but still away from carbon neutrality

Finland’s net greenhouse gas emissions fell by six per cent from the previous year but still remains away from achieving the target for carbon neutrality, according to the Annual Climate Report 2026 submitted by the government to Parliament on Thursday.

The report said that emissions must be reduced in all sectors and carbon sinks must be strengthened in the land use sector to reach carbon neutrality and the EU level, said the Ministry of the Environment in a press release.

The clean energy transition continues to make good progress. The use of fossil energy sources keeps decreasing in industry, electricity production and heating.

The main reason for the decrease in net emissions in 2025 is the change in the energy system. The use of coal ended in the spring and the consumption of peat, oil and natural gas decreased as well. In electricity production wind and nuclear power have almost completely substituted for fossil production. Emissions from heat production follow this trend as the use of electric boilers, waste heat and bioenergy is growing.

In the effort sharing sector, the trend in emissions was mainly due to emissions from transport that started to fall again following distribution obligation concerning renewable fuels and decrease in the consumption of fossil fuels. The electrification of transport is making progress and the number of plug-in vehicles is growing.

The land use sector is still a major source of emissions as the forest carbon sink has decreased in recent years. However, there was some decrease in emissions from farmlands and the sink of wood products grew, which reduced net emissions from the sector compared to the previous year.

Finland has less than ten years left to reach the carbon neutrality target by 2035 set in the Climate Act. The Climate Act also specifies emission reduction targets for 2030 and 2040. Emission reduction targets can be reached if the measures of the Energy and Climate Strategy are implemented in full and new solutions such as carbon dioxide capture will be introduced.

The current estimate is that Finland will be able to meet its EU obligation for the effort sharing sector concerning the period 2021–2030 through the flexibilities, even if the emissions will exceed the quota in 2030.