Greenhouse gas emissions in 2021 became revised – the land use sector was confirmed a source of emissions

Emissions show slight growth

According to preliminary data, total emissions in 2021 without the land use sector grew by 0.3 per cent from the previous year and were 33 per cent lower than in 1990.

The energy sector has a significant impact on the annual variation of total emissions. According to the preliminary calculation, emissions in the energy sector in 2021 were on level with the previous year, being 34.4 million tonnes of CO₂ equivalent, which was 72 per cent of total emissions without the land use sector.

In the energy sector, emissions from road transport decreased by 0.5 million tonnes of CO₂ equivalent from the previous year as the biofuel share of transport fuels grew. Emissions from the combustion of peat also fell by 0.5 million tonnes of CO₂ equivalent. Emissions from the use of coal grew by 1.0 million tonnes of CO₂ equivalent from the year before, which was particularly visible in the emissions of the energy industry. Further information on the development of energy consumption can be found in the release of the energy statistics on 14 December 2022.

Emissions from the industrial processes and product use sector (incl. F-gases) amounted to 5.4 million tonnes of CO₂ equivalent in 2021, and they grew by six per cent from the year before mainly because of growth in steel production.

Emissions in the agricultural sector amounted to 6.3 million tonnes of CO₂ equivalent. Emissions went down by nearly one per cent from the previous year. Emissions in the waste sector fell by four per cent from 2020 to 2021, being 1.8 million tonnes of CO₂ equivalent.

Land use sector was a net emission source

The LULUCF sector, that is, the land use, land-use change and forestry sector, was a net emission source for the first time in 2021. The sector's emissions exceeded the amount of carbon sequestration in different stocks during the year, that is, they exceeded the sum of net removals in the forest land use category, -8.4 million tonnes of CO₂ equivalent, and in the stock of wood products, -3.1 million tonnes of CO₂ equivalent. The sum of emissions and removals in 2021 in the sector, 0.9 million tonnes of CO₂ equivalent, was 10.1 million tonnes more than the sum of emissions and removals in the year before, -9.2 million tonnes of CO₂ equivalent.

The change of the land use sector from a net sink into a net source of emissions was due to fellings implemented at a high level and taking account of the fall in the increase of the growing stock observed in the ongoing 13th National Forest Inventory (NFI13) in the calculation. The effect of this newest growth estimate is visible in the carbon stock of the growing stock in the forest land category starting from 2014, because the growth for 2014 to 2016 was obtained by interpolating between the growth for the middle year 2013 in the previous inventory, NFI12 and the growth for 2017 from NFI13. In addition, the rising trend of emissions from soil organic matter and litter in drained peat-based forest soils has a decreasing effect on the net removals or carbon sink of forests.

The difference in the sum of emissions and removals in the land use sector in 2020 and 2021 is especially caused by the lower increase in the carbon stock of tree biomass in 2021, which was reduced by the 11 per cent larger fellings than in the previous year. The same annual increment of the growing stock , i.e. tree growth, based on the NFI13 measurement data has been used for 2018 to 2021. More information on the calculation of the annual increment and methodological changes can be found in the review in of the release (in Finnish) and in the press release of the Natural Resources Institute Finland (in Finnish).

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Sector-specific emission data and Finland's emission reduction commitments are described in more detail in the review of the statistics (in Finnish) on 14 December 2022.

Revisions of data

The data in this release are based on more detailed and exhaustive source data and methods than the instant preliminary data released in May. Revisions of data are also described in the review of the statistics on 14 December 2022.