Challenges
The Nordic Region is comprised of large areas of both land and sea, from the Arctic and sub-Arctic regions in the north to more temperate areas in the south. It is home to forests, mountains, volcanoes, plains, cultivated fields, islands, small communities and big cities. Its maritime areas include the Baltic Sea in the south-east, the North Sea, the Norwegian Sea, the North-East Atlantic and the Greenland Sea in the west and the Arctic Ocean in the north.
Ecosystems on land and at sea are put under strain by human activities which have a negative impact on the environment. Eutrophication, ocean acidification, environmental pollution, waste including plastic, overfishing and invasive foreign species are all serious problems. The effects of climate change contribute further to the total strain on ecosystems. Climate change is happening at a faster rate north of the Arctic circle than in the rest of the world, and the average annual temperature in the Arctic has increased by four times as much as it has at more southerly latitudes in recent decades, resulting in thawing permafrost and shrinking ice caps.
The geopolitical situation has also changed in and around the Nordic Region. The security situation has worsened, the world in general is increasingly polarised and climate change threatens our way of life. It is therefore becoming all the more important for us to seek to co-operate with other countries and to bolster our preparedness from several perspectives. Among other things, the environment and climate sector can contribute towards the protection and development of resilient societies from an environmental and climate perspective.
The Nordic countries are in a relatively good position in relation to Agenda 2030 and the 17 SDGs, but, like many other industrialised nations, they still face challenges relating to the climate, the loss of biodiversity, air pollution and the excessive consumption of resources. The challenges we face include meeting the ambitious goals set for climate neutrality in the period of 2035–2050, implementing the new Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework from the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), as well as the new framework for chemicals, and bringing down our high levels of resource consumption, among others. The ecological footprint of the Nordic countries is amongst the highest in the world and needs to be reduced considerably. This is both in order to reduce strain on the Earth’s resources, but also in order to demonstrate that it is possible to live within the limits of our planet and still maintain a high level of prosperity. The overarching and most important challenges within the environment and climate sector thus have both a Nordic/regional dimension as well as an international dimension in relation to the EU and the international community.
The challenges (and thus also the opportunities) facing the Nordic countries align in large part with what the UN calls the Triple Planetary Crisis – i.e. challenges linked to the climate, biodiversity loss and pollution. In a Nordic context, we associate pollution with our high levels of resource consumption, among other things. For example, it pertains to our consumption of products that contain plastic, critical raw-material metals and hazardous chemicals.