CARBON SINKS AND CLIMATE BENEFITS WITH CONTROLLED RISKS: Policy measures for forests and wood products

In this project we present policy measures aiming at increasing carbon sequestration by at least 3 tCO2/a compared to current measures. This will be achieved by the year 2035. The project will evaluate and co-create policies giving incentives to adopt efficient, equitable and acceptable means for carbon sequestration and emission cuts. We build our research on existing research and knowledge on the field. The policy recommendations will meet economic, environmental, social and jurisdictional criteria.

Based on international contracts Finland is faced with binding commitments for cutting the LULUCF-sector emissions. In this project we focus on policy measures that would increase Finland’s carbon sinks in the greenhouse gas inventories. We will investigate the possibilities of both the governmental policies and the market-based options and study the question of how to combine these. The aim is to find a policy package supporting Finland’s carbon neutrality target. Also, our project supports the systemic change to mainstreaming carbon sequestration within the forestry practices. We integrate state and grassroots-level actors in the cocreation process to improve the applicability and acceptability of suggested measures. Our evaluation of the measures will be transparent with respect to the criteria to be used. To keep the uncertainties down we include in our evaluation the best known methods to cut emissions and increase carbon sinks in the forest sector.