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Climate change mitigation requires countries to report their annual greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and sinks, including those from land use, land use change, and forestry (LULUCF). In Finland, the LULUCF sector plays a crucial role in achieving net-zero GHG emissions, as the sector is expected to be a net sink. However, accurate estimates of LULUCF-related GHG emissions, such as methane (CH 4 ), remain challenging. We estimated LULUCF-related CH 4 emissions in Finland in 2013–2020 by combining national land cover and remote-sensed surface wetness data with CH 4 emissions estimated by an inversion model. According to our inversion model, most of Finland's CH 4 emissions were attributed to natural sources such as open pristine peatlands. However, our research indicated that forests with thin tree cover surrounding open peatlands may also be a significant source of CH 4 . Unlike open pristine peatlands and pristine peatlands with thin tree cover, surrounding transient forests are included in the Finnish GHG inventory if they meet the criteria used for forest land. The current Finnish national GHG inventory may therefore underestimate CH 4 emissions from forested organic soils surrounding open peatlands, although more precise methods and data are needed to verify this. Given the potential impact on net GHG emissions, CH 4 emissions from transitional forests on organic soils should be further investigated. Furthermore, the results demonstrate the potential of combining atmospheric inversion modelling of GHGs with diverse data sources and highlight the need for methods to more easily combine atmospheric inversions with national GHG inventories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A harmful impact of climate change and global warming has concerned various sectors of the international community. Numerous energy policies aiming at climate change mitigation have been implemented on a national and global scale. Renewable energy technologies (RETs) play a critical role in enhancing sustainable solutions that significantly limit greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Such innovative technologies can facilitate energy transition through providing, e.g., energy security, sustainable development, and effective usage of indigenous resources. However, the commercialization of RETs is extremely challenging. The barriers can be of a different nature, although this study focused on socioeconomic and regulatory issues. There is ample evidence that energy policies play a central role in supporting adoption of renewables. It is also claimed that RETs require the whole ecosystem to support their successful diffusion. In this study, we explored multifarious barriers for widespread RET diffusion in two European Union countries, Finland and Poland, indicating the most common barriers existing in the literature as well as analyzing major bottlenecks from the viewpoint of renewable energy companies' executives. We also present statistics of the most commonly used RETs in these countries in order to express the diffusion issues more appropriately. The research shows that inflexible, ineffective, and excessive regulatory frameworks; limited financing options; as well as an insufficient level of societal awareness have been seen as the main bottlenecks for RET diffusion in both countries. The outcomes of this study provide useful insights for the researchers in the energy transition field as well as practical managerial and regulatory implications aimed at overcoming these challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Finland has adopted a high profile in climate change mitigation. A national target of achieving carbon neutrality by 2035 has been declared. As a part of this, the use of coal for energy purposes has been banned from May 2029 onwards. The Nordic electricity market was a world fore-runner in creating a liberalized, multi-national electricity market in the 1990s. At present, the electricity systems of Finland, Sweden, and Norway are already very low-carbon. The Baltic countries Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania joined the Nordic market about a decade ago. Estonian electricity production is the most carbon-intensive of all the EU countries due to the extensive use of domestic oil shale. Especially Lithuania still suffers from capacity deficit created by the closure of the Soviet time nuclear reactor Ignalina in Lithuania. This paper presents the ambitions of the EU and national level energy and climate policies and models the multi-national impacts of Finland's forthcoming closure of coal-fired generation. We also take into account Sweden's planned decrease in nuclear generation. We find that these national-level policies have an impact on the Baltic countries as reduced import possibilities and increasing electricity prices, and the expected rise of the EU CO2 allowance prices amplifies these. We further find that the abandonment of coal and nuclear power plants increases the net import and increases CO2 emissions in neighboring regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]