In his opening remarks, HIKET project director, academician Markku Kulmala emphasized the importance of increasing land based carbon sinks simultaneously with rapid emission cuts. Moreover, a broader “Carbon+” perspective which considers the full climate impact of ecosystems, taking into account not only greenhouse gases but also VOCs, aerosols, cloud formation, precipitation, and albedo is necessary in the carbon sink discussion.
Finland’s Minister of climate and the environment, Sari Multala, highlighted that government funded HIKET project is a strategically important initiative for developing improved tools for Finland and potentially for the EU to support more effective climate policy.
Head of Unit for land economy and carbon removals (EU Commission) Christian Holzleitner emphasized that key elements for the 2040 climate targets include more flexible targets for Member States, the development of voluntary carbon markets for carbon farming and removals, and improved, more accessible monitoring systems.
HIKET Research director Tuomo Kalliokoski highlighted that HIKET addresses LULUCF uncertainties in a comprehensive and policy-relevant way, with the aim of transforming scientific analysis into an operational digital infrastructure that supports decision-making, strategic risk management, and new business opportunities.
Professor Jaana Bäck (UH), in her presentation on the state of the science of forest-related greenhouse gas balances, underlined that it is not only the carbon sink that matters: when harvests or disturbances exceed the annual growth of forests, carbon stocks decline and the system turns from a sink into a source.
Head of greenhouse gases and satellite methods group Hannakaisa Lindqvist (FMI), Head of carbon cycle research group Tuula Aalto (FMI) and Research professor Aleksi Lehtonen (LUKE) provided deeper insights into the methods used in the HIKET project.
The session concluded with a panel discussion led by Professor of Practice (Green transition) Matti Vainio (UH), focusing on the main obstacles to stop the decline of carbon sinks and the implications this may have for the development of LULUCF regulation. A key question is how the value of CO₂ can be better integrated into forestry, and which policy instruments could support this, including pricing mechanisms, rewarding forest carbon sequestration, voluntary credit-based approaches, and the taxation of wood burning.
Both Sampo Pihlainen (Finnish Environmental Institute) & Matti Laukkanen (UH) noted that HIKET can play an important role in enabling future forest carbon pricing policies, by e.g. strengthening monitoring, reporting, and verification foundations, reducing uncertainties in carbon sink estimates, and supporting EU-level interoperability.
Thank you all for the insightful and inspiring discussions!