15 votes

The country with Europe's most radical climate plan – an interview with Petteri Orpo, prime minister of Finland

Posted by mycketforvirrad
Tags: climate change, energy.renewable, finland, politics, policy.climate, environmental goals, decade ahead.2030s, emissions.carbon, economy, society, carbon neutral, ecosystems, arctic, transport, maritime, shipping, fuels.fossil, oil, prime ministers, petteri orpo, interviews, europe, author.david gelles, source.the new york times, paywall
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/09/19/magazine/petteri-orpo-finland-climate-interview.html

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Title
Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo on Winning the Debate on Climate Change
Published
Sep 19 2025
Word count
894 words

5 comments

  1. [4]
    Muffin
    (edited )
    Link
    Oh we’ve grown our economy? News to me. From what I can tell his coalition has only managed to work towards selling our natural resources to foreign private entities, cut funding for education,...

    Oh we’ve grown our economy? News to me. From what I can tell his coalition has only managed to work towards selling our natural resources to foreign private entities, cut funding for education, welfare and public healthcare while making our economy worse and worse each passing quarter. He campaigned on bringing Finns 100k new jobs and I’m pretty sure our unemployment numbers are worse than in multiple decades. The Kokoomus/Persu coalition is the most unpopular one we’ve had in ages.

    This article is not based on reality except maybe in the loosest, most dishonest number spinning ”technically correct” kind of sense. Pardon my finnish but mitähän vittua täällä houritaan? Go see a finnish subreddit and see what the consensus is on where we are at and who is working overtime to serve the rich and punish the poor and less able.

    13 votes
    1. [3]
      crulife
      (edited )
      Link Parent
      This is a highly partisan response. Finland has been suffering from a combination of difficult things not only during this administration, but ever since Nokia crashed and burned: Demographics is...

      This is a highly partisan response.

      Finland has been suffering from a combination of difficult things not only during this administration, but ever since Nokia crashed and burned:

      1. Demographics is slowly getting worse (growing number of people on social security and/or retired)

      2. Economy not significantly growing for 20 years

      3. Russia is right there huffing and puffing, and we joined NATO to protect against that -- so military spending is rising steeply

      4. We handled Covid-19 ok but spent a lot of money on it

      5. Previous coalition -- that was about as left-wing as this one is right-wing -- increased spending (partly due to previous two items but also in other ways) which did not cause economy growth

      6. Current coalition is doing austerity. Whether they have to or are doing it malevolently is a matter of political opinion

      7. Credit rating is slowly going down (still pretty good though compared to countries like France) while government loans are going up => interests costs are rising

      There's some promise of growth in the horizon now, but remains to be seen if it gets realized. If Russia stopped being Russia, that would be a great thing for us.

      9 votes
      1. [2]
        Muffin
        (edited )
        Link Parent
        Are you describing your message or mine? Jokes aside I don't think by saying that it would mean yours is somehow more objective. Especially when you sidestep all the claims about our "bright...

        This is a highly partisan response.

        Are you describing your message or mine? Jokes aside I don't think by saying that it would mean yours is somehow more objective. Especially when you sidestep all the claims about our "bright future" in our climate plan. But yes the truth never is black and white.

        1. Agreed.
        2. Since 1987 Kokoomus (currently lead by our PM Orpo) has been in the opposition for a grand total of two times. I am going to put a good bit of the blame on their party especially since they campaign with and brand themselves as the "finance politics party"
        3. Absolutely.
        4. In my eyes we handled covid surprisingly well, but yes, much like every country we spent a lot of money on it.
        5. See point #2. I've yet to see a single expert state that the heavy cuts brought on by our current government would generate growth. In my partisan view, we are taking short term gains at the cost of future growth. Somewhat of a specialty of Kokoomus (the Coalition).
        6. Again, nobody knows the future or can read minds, but in the now the consensus is overwhelmingly negative for our long term prospects brought on by the cuts and changes brought on by the parties currently in charge. In May of this year, 2/3 of people polled by Uutissuomalainen viewed Orpo's government's performance as poor or very poor.
        7. The forecast by Finlands Bank downgraded their expectation for growth for the rest of 2025 from 0,5% to 0,3%. Nothing to get too excited about while we are also doing our best to cripple our public healthcare, education and selling our forests and essential services to multinational venture capitalists. As a recent example, the potential sale of Posti, as floated by Orpo & co.

        If Russia stopped being Russia, that would be a great thing for us.

        Hard agree there.

        10 votes
        1. Aerrol
          Link Parent
          Love this chain because I opened this topic thinking "Gee, left wing English media LOVES Finland (see many articles lauding Finnish education and homeless policies), I wonder what their population...

          Love this chain because I opened this topic thinking "Gee, left wing English media LOVES Finland (see many articles lauding Finnish education and homeless policies), I wonder what their population thinks about their government"

          5 votes