Declaration on Nordic Carbon Neutrality

04.11.20 | Declaration
The Helsingfors Declaration, a declaration from the meeting between the Nordic Prime Ministers and the Ministers of Environment, 25 January 2019.

Information

Adopted
25.01.2019
Location
Helsingfors

Declaration on Nordic Carbon Neutrality

The Nordic countries have a long tradition of working together. We have successfully combined economic growth and welfare with ambitious environmental policies and progress in sustainable development. Today, the Nordic countries have high environmental standards combined with extensive public and private research and investment programmes in cleantech, the bioeconomy and the circular economy. Around the world, Nordic companies provide scalable solutions and technologies for mitigating climate change. By working together, we can develop zero emission technologies with global implications. We must enable Nordic industry and business to take a leading role in the green transformation of the global economy.

 

With our existing technology solutions, policies and financing, as well as the high level of education and gender equality, we stand ready to deepen our cooperation in climate action and demonstrate our strong leadership in tackling climate change at a national, regional and global level.

 

Finland, Iceland, Sweden, Norway and Denmark want to lead by example. With this declaration, we commit ourselves to working towards carbon neutrality in the five Nordic states and to pursuing Nordic climate diplomacy in international forums to deliver solutions with impact on the global emissions. We will catalyse global mitigation efforts to limit the increase in the global average temperature to 1.5°C in response to the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C. We are determined to step up our ambition by 2020, through the EU where applicable, consistent with the long-term temperature goal of the Paris Agreement through measures including

  • enhanced Nationally Determined Contributions under the Paris Agreement as the primary tool for delivering mitigation ambition,
  • increased short-term action, and
  • ambitious long-term low-emission development strategies.

 

We will use our common Nordic voice to urge the international community to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement.

 

We will intensify our cooperation in order to

  • catalyse the scaling up of Nordic sustainable solutions, reduce global greenhouse gas emissions, maintain or enhance carbon sinks and remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by
    • removing obstacles to low-emission development and promoting transformations towards renewable energy
    • promoting carbon pricing and the Fossil Fuel Subsidy Reform (FFSR)
    • incentivizing climate action in the private sector
    • decarbonizing the transport sector, including through an inter-modal shift, efficiency, electrification, and use of sustainable renewable fuels
    • enabling green financing and deploying green procurement, green deals and impact investing
    • continuing to intensify focus on climate change in development cooperation and mobilising climate financing from various sources
    • promoting joint Nordic business and research consortiums and delegations for sustainable solutions to meet global demand
    • promoting the use of sustainably produced wood in our countries, including in construction
    • contributing to further development and deployment of carbon capture and storage (CCS), carbon capture and utilization (CCU), carbon capture and mineralisation (CCM), bioenergy with CCS (BECCS) technologies, conducting research to resolve the remaining technical challenges and developing business models for the implementation of CCS, CCU and CCM.
    • maintaining or enhancing biological carbon sinks
    • measuring carbon sinks with an internationally agreed methodology
    • providing incentives to maintain and increase global carbon sinks
  • encourage climate-conscious consumer choices by
    • developing information on reducing individual climate impacts
    • using existing consumer information schemes and initiatives on carbon and other environmental impacts on products and services, such as the Swan ecolabel and environmental footprints
    • giving youth organisations a clear role in awareness-raising on climate-friendly consumer behaviour
  • encourage Nordic companies, investors, local governments, cities, organizations and consumers to step up their efforts towards carbon neutrality.

We commit ourselves to assessing in 2020 the scenarios for how the Nordic countries can achieve carbon neutrality, including implications for various sectors.

 

The Nordic governments will cooperate on the follow-up of this declaration, and invite the Nordic Council of Ministers to prepare a proposal on how to follow-up by 31 of August 2019, to be considered by the climate ministers at their meeting in October 2019.

 

We mandate the Nordic ministers responsible for climate policy, in close coordination with relevant ministers, to take the lead in following up on this declaration.

 

Helsinki, 25 January 2019

Juha Sipilä, Prime Minister, Finland

Katrín Jakobsdóttir, Prime Minister, Iceland

Erna Solberg, Prime Minister, Norway

Isabella Lövin, Minister for Environment and Climate, Deputy Prime Minister, Sweden

Lars Christian Lilleholt, Minister for Energy, Utilities and Climate, Denmark