UPM-Biofore-Magazine-2-2019

TEXT Matti Remes   PHOTOGRAPHY UPM; Courtesy of the interviewee

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 to be tapped as the world shifts to a low-carbon economy. IMPACTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE

F rom 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 summarising 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 FinnishMeteorological 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 FinnishMeteorological Institute. “This is why we have incorporated three alternative emission scenarios in the report,” he adds. 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. “If we significantly reduce global emissions, the physical impacts of climate change in the countries where UPM operates would remain relatively insignificant.” UNDER CLOSE MONITORING

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