![\"Sweden](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/avatar1758084083224-1758084083517566730762.jpg\" "\\"Sweden"){kind=avatar}
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A man is seen fishing on a frozen lake at the Pajulahti sports center near Lahti, Finland, February 24, 2017. Photo: Reuters<\/p>\n
As part of the European Union’s plans to reach net zero emissions by 2050, Sweden and Finland have been tasked with increasing the amount of CO2 bound up by forests.<\/p>\n
But both countries say they are on track to miss the EU’s Land Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF) targets for the period 2021-25 and 2026-30, blaming climate change for slower tree growth and the military conflict in Ukraine for increased demand.<\/p>\n
“The EU’s current framework for forest use … is a major problem and, if not revised, would lead to unreasonable and unjustified restrictions on Swedish forestry,” Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said on X late on Monday.<\/p>\n
“To, in practice, severely restrict large parts of Nordic forestry is the wrong path to take.”<\/p>\n
Industry and environmental groups both see forests as a key part in fighting climate change.<\/p>\n
Forestry firms stress the economic benefits, sustainable management and the role of biofuels and wood in replacing fossil fuels, plastic and concrete.<\/p>\n
But scientists have warned that over-logging, monoculture and other industry practices are reducing the ability of forests to absorb carbon dioxide, and put Europe’s climate goals at risk.<\/p>\n
In a joint letter to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Sweden and Finland said their targets – an increase in CO2 uptake of around four million tonnes annually by 2030 for Sweden and three million tonnes for Finland – were unrealistic.<\/p>\n
Reduced logging would “entail dire consequences for our economies as well as labor markets”, the two countries said in the letter.<\/p>\n
Forests cover around 70 percent of Finland and Sweden.<\/p>\n
Wood products make up more than 10 percent of Sweden’s exports and almost a fifth for Finland. More than 200,000 people work in the sector.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A man is seen fishing on a frozen lake at the Pajulahti sports center near Lahti, Finland, February…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":430452,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[2311,5035,2000,299,5187,1699,769,22787,812],"class_list":{"0":"post-430451","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-climate-change","9":"tag-emission","10":"tag-eu","11":"tag-europe","12":"tag-european","13":"tag-european-union","14":"tag-finland","15":"tag-forest","16":"tag-sweden"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115217993914786637","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=430451"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430451\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/430452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=430451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=430451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=430451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}