Finland Environmental organizations sue Finnish government

Six environmental and human rights organizations are suing the Finnish government for what they see as a lack of action against the climate crisis. The centre-right government of Prime Minister Petteri Orpo is in breach of the Finnish Climate Act by not doing enough to achieve the national climate targets, the organizations said.

In 2022, Finland committed to becoming climate neutral by 2035 at the latest in an ambitious climate law. However, the Orpo government is not doing enough to achieve this, explained the organizations, which include the Finnish Nature Conservation Association (Suomen luonnonsuojeluliitto), the Nordic branch of Greenpeace and the Finnish branch of Amnesty International. Among other things, they criticized excessive forestry and inadequate measures to reduce emissions in agriculture and transport. Experts in the country have long assumed that Finland will not achieve its climate targets with the current measures.

Environmentalists have also filed climate lawsuits of this kind in other European countries in recent years. In Finland, a similar lawsuit had already been filed in 2022 against the then government of Social Democrat Sanna Marin, but was not accepted for review by the Supreme Administrative Court in Helsinki. The federal government has also already been sued. Following complaints by Deutsche Umwelthilfe, a court ruled that the traffic light coalition must tighten up its climate protection program.

SDA