EK joins Climate Leadership Coalition

The Confederation of Finnish Industries (EK) has joined the Climate Leadership Coalition (CLC) and its Nordic partners and its climate initiative, said an EK press release.

The initiative calls for the European Union to update its current targets in line with the Paris Agreement.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), an international think tank assigned to assessment the climate change status and interventions by the parties to the Paris Agreement released on October 8 its study report with its key focus on the importance of achieving the tighter one of the two targets adopted by the Paris Agreement of 2015, i.e., to arrest the warming at 1.5°C instead of 2°C or below by 2050.

EK release said it is strongly committed to the Paris Agreement’s targets and the measures to achieve them.

EK Director General Jyri Häkämies said, “Today we have joined a group that wants to be in the vanguard in solving the climate challenge. We must create sustainable growth and prosperity for future generations as well.”

To solve the climate change challenge, extensive investments into both existing technology and into devising new low-carbon solutions are needed. In addition to emission reductions, we need to invest in carbon dioxide removal with carbon sinks and using carbon dioxide capture, use, and storage, read the press release.

“Company investments require a controlled structural change and outlook for the coming decades. For business it is important that cost-efficient and market-based solutions are found for emission reductions. A good example is the EU’s emissions trading system, which reduces the emissions of manufacturing and energy production under its decreasing cap,” said Häkämies.

Finland is currently one of the world’s most innovative cleantech countries and so Finnish companies can be strongly involved in finding solutions for the climate challenge, pointed out Häkämies, adding, “The more we can get Finnish expertise out into the international market the more broadly Finland can be involved in achieving the emission targets on a global scale.”