The Finnish Meteorological Institute has issued a report helping UPM to predict the future physical impacts of climate change on its business. While acknowledging the risks, the report confirms that there are also opportunities as the world shifts to a low-carbon economy.
From the nature point of view, the impacts, such as heavy rainfall, storms and drought will be the biggest extremes all across the world. We need science to help us prepare for this.
This was the motivation behind the Finnish Meteorological Institute’s new report summarizing the long-term effects of climate change on UPM’s business in Finland, Uruguay, Southern Germany and Eastern China. The report is published as a part of the Finnish Meteorological Institute’s scientific publication series.
It is impossible to accurately estimate the future speed of climate change because this primarily depends on global levels of carbon dioxide emissions in coming decades, explains Ari Venäläinen, Senior Research Scientist at the Finnish Meteorological Institute.
This is why three alternative emission scenarios have been incorporated in the report.
In the worst-case scenario, greenhouse gas emissions will continue to increase rapidly in the future. Meanwhile, the best-case scenario sees emissions rapidly declining after 2020.
You can read the full press release here.