Greenpeace, the Finnish Association for Nature Conservation, and Amnesty International say that especially greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture and the transport sector need to be reduced. The environmental groups also argue that large-scale logging poses a major threat to carbon sequestration in Finnish forests.
The wood and paper industry, based on the extensive forests, is a key pillar of the Finnish economy, but new EU nature conservation laws impose increasingly strict requirements. This also applies to the timber industry in other forest-rich EU countries such as Sweden, Norway, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Romania.
This is not the first time Finnish organizations have taken legal action. In 2022, a similar complaint was filed but was dismissed because at that time the climate law was too recent to be effectively evaluated. Since then, however, the situation has worsened. In the 2023 annual climate report, the Finnish government itself admitted that the climate targets are unlikely to be met, which forms the basis for the current lawsuit.
The environmental groups base their case partly on a recent ruling by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) against Switzerland, where it was determined that inadequate climate measures constitute a violation of human rights. The Finnish groups hope this ruling will set a precedent for their own case.
The Finnish government defends itself by stating it is already making substantial efforts to meet the climate goals and needs time to implement new measures. Minister of Climate and Environment Kai Mykkänen has acknowledged problems with carbon storage in forests but emphasizes that plans to take further steps are still in place.
This lawsuit in Finland is part of a broader trend in Europe, where environmental organizations are increasingly taking legal action against governments they claim are failing in their climate policies. In Germany, a group of young people won a historic case against the government, resulting in stricter climate laws.
Also in the Netherlands, the government was legally compelled in 2019 to do more to combat climate change following a case brought by the Urgenda Foundation. Such lawsuits highlight mounting pressure on governments to take climate change seriously and fulfill their international obligations.