Data submitted by Sweden to the United Nations shows that Swedish forests sequester three times more carbon than the forests of neighbouring Finland.

People in Finland are concerned that the country may have to pay billions of euros because carbon sequestration figures for its forests "are poor". The Swedish daily newspaper "Aftonbladet" expresses surprise at the submitted reports, which indicate that carbon sequestration in Sweden's forests is proceeding "more successfully" than in Finland.

"Aftonbladet" analyses why Sweden's forests are three times more effective at sequestering carbon than Finland's, despite the similarity of the two countries' forests. "The large differences between the two countries seem somewhat odd, given that the forests are similar in many respects," Mid Sweden University professor Bengts-Gunnars Jonsons told the newspaper. Other researchers interviewed by "Aftonbladet" were likewise unable to give a clear and well-founded answer as to why Swedish soil accumulates considerably more carbon than Finnish soil. By international comparison, it must be concluded that the forests and soils that stand out for their ability to accumulate far more carbon are to be found in Sweden and France.

According to "Aftonbladet" data, in 2023 the volume of logging per hectare of productive forest land in Sweden exceeded Finland's figures, yet it was only in Finland that this (the volume of logging) caused a decrease in carbon sequestration. Finns are worried about the possibility that taxpayers may have to foot a bill of several billion euros if carbon quotas have to be purchased from other European countries.

As "Aftonbladet" reports, the differences in carbon sequestration may be explained by differing measurement methods. "In Sweden there are many more measurements, and our time scale reaches much further back into the past. Both methods have, however, been approved by the IPCC," stresses Ēriks Karlsons of the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. "Aftonbladet" reports that both artificial intelligence technologies and machine learning methods are used in the calculations in Sweden.

Carbon sequestration in forests has become a hot topic of debate in Finland because, as the magazine "Metsälehti" reported, it emerged that Swedish forests sequestered tens of millions of tonnes of carbon last year. The calculations in Finland were carried out by the Natural Resources Institute Finland Luke, and according to these, at the time when the data were being assessed in Sweden, Finland's forests had by contrast become a source of 1.12 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions.

It is noted that these figures have reduced Finland's chances of meeting its carbon neutrality targets. As a result, both the climate expert group and Finnish environmental activist organisations have called for logging to be reduced considerably. (The calculation methodology is a problem not only in Finland, but also in Latvia. If everything is in order for the Swedes, why are the calculations here and in Finland so different, with a negative result? note by zemeunvalsts.lv)

The researchers interviewed by the newspaper "Aftonbladet" expressed the hope that in future the reasons why the neighbouring countries' results differ so considerably will be studied in more detail.