 Good morning and welcome to the press launch for the Finland's energy policy review from the IEA here in Paris. My name is Jad Mawad, I'm the head of communications here. We're delighted this morning to be joined by our executive director, Dr. Fatih Birol, and Finland's Minister for Economic Affairs, Mr. Mika Lindtila. We will start our presentation with some opening remarks from our executive director followed by a presentation from our energy policy analyst, Peter Journey-Keylor, who will present the main findings of the report. And then we will hear from Minister Lindtila. After that, we'll have a brief pause and an opportunity for questions from journalists. If you're a journalist on our Zoom right now, I encourage you to put your questions in the Q&A box. With that, I would like to turn the floor to Dr. Fatih Birol. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mawad. Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Minister, it's a pleasure to be here with you today to launch IEA's energy policies of Finland. I am, when I look at the study and the findings of my colleagues, I am encouraged by the leadership and the ambition Finland has demonstrated on clean energy and energy security since our last in-depth review took place in the year 2018. Dear colleagues, just to give you an idea, we make this in-depth review of our member countries on a regular basis every four or five years, look at the entire energy sector, as some people call it, to take the x-ray of the energy sector of the countries and come up with some suggestions and recommendations for the governments to consider. We bring together several independent experts for each country in the case of Finland. The team that worked on Finland in the preview consisted of nationalities, experts from Australia, Canada, Denmark, Ireland, Netherlands, Turkey, and the IEA Secretariat. We have Mr. Minister here with us, Mr. Minister. Thank you very much to your government for facilitating this survey, this work. My colleagues met different parts of your ministry, as well as they met other energy stakeholders, other ministries, regulators, energy companies, system operators, consumer groups, academia, and NGOs. So we are going to give you, based on this, our findings and our recommendations in a moment, but before that, I would like to say a word, a general word, about the global energy situation. Now, after the 24th of February, Russia's invasion of Ukraine, there was a question in the minds of people, will this crisis going to slow down or accelerate the clean energy transitions? We said, as IEA, we believe if the governments make the right move, it can be a reason to accelerate the clean energy transition. And today, when we look at the numbers, as we do at the IEA, we see that the clean energy transitions turbocharged across the world and across the energy sector. I want to give you a few numbers. Renewable power, in the last year, global renewable power capacity increased about in one year 25 percent, a record growth, wind, solar, and others, a major growth. Another clean electricity technology, nuclear power. Two years ago, IEA said we may see a comeback of nuclear power, and yes, last year we have seen global nuclear power capacity increase by 40 percent. Heat pumps. In many countries in Europe, but also United States, in China, heat pumps are going very strong, and in the United States, for example, the heat pump says overtook those of gas heaters, gas boilers, but also in Europe we see a big increase. And electric cars, 55 percent increase in one year of electric cars says around the world. Big increase. You finally, I should mention that one of the key topics when we look at the energy and sustainability, energy efficiency. Last year, global energy efficiency improvement pace was two times faster than historical averages. So what is the reason of this unprecedented growth in the clean energy? In my view, in addition to the established reason, namely climate concerns, there is another driver now, there is another reason now, namely many countries consider clean energy as a lasting solution to the energy security challenges. So clean energy, renewables, nuclear power, electric cars, they're not only seen as the drivers of the fight against climate change, but also improving energy security in the countries. So to sum up, when we look at globally, last year was a year where we have seen clean energy growth was much faster than many of the people thought before. Now going from the global picture coming to Finland, the topic of our press conference today, when we look at the last few years, we can easily say that Finland made significant progress in recent years when it comes to acceleration of clean energy and strengthening the energy security in the country. Finland is a leader in decarbonization in Europe and also in the world, and our numbers show that Finland is one of the top countries when it comes to the carbon intensity of the country's energy system. And when we look at the future, we know and I had the pleasure to tell this to Mr. Minister but also Madam Prime Minister when I was in Helsinki a few months ago, Finland is one of the most ambitious climate targets which aims to net zero by 2035. And my sincere congratulations also for deploying the Europe's largest nuclear reactor. It was a bit later than it was thought but it happened and this is a major, major success, good for climate, good for electricity security. In terms of heat pump deployment, again, Mr. Minister, big congratulations. Heat pump numbers are one of the highest in Europe on a per capita basis. Congratulations for that. And overall, big congratulations for taking a strong, firm position with the V-Russia and yet keeping the energy secure in your country. So these are all good and commendable results for what you have achieved, Mr. Minister, in your country. Having said that, I would like to leave the floor to my colleague by mentioning four recommendations from the International Energy Agency for Mr. Minister and the government and other authorities to consider. The first one is Finland has, as I mentioned, an ambitious target for 2035. We hope and we very much believe that the country can reach this target. But in case it doesn't happen, I think Finland has to have a contingency plan. What a country can do if we are not able to reach 2035 target, especially in the case of land use, if we have some challenges there, what can we do in order to reach our target in 2035? The second one recommendation is under renewable energy. Lots of good move, including the wind energy, but there may be a reason to look at the permitting practices, how we can accept the permitting processes, and how we can increase further the flexibility in the power system by looking more closely to the energy storage projects in the country. The third one is the issue of electrification. I think there is a very strong target to further electrify the transportation system and the heavy industry, and to make sure that electrification in transportation, heavy industry goes in line with the targets needs close security by the government. Fourth and the last one, again an issue I had the pleasure to discuss with Mr. Minister when I was in Helsinki recently, to make sure to make the most of the full potential of the country's critical minerals and move in the battery manufacturing further, because we believe the next chapter of energy security may well be in the context of the critical minerals availability and the concentration of clean energy technology manufacturing in very few countries in the world. In such a country like Finland, with a triple A democracy, with a free market, being an important player in the clean energy technology manufacturing, especially in the battery manufacturing, would be a good news for the global energy security and clean energy. With this, I hope that Mr. Minister and his team will consider our recommendations, and I will now leave the floor to my colleague to go through some of the findings in more detail. Thank you, Dr. Birrell. The report we're launching today provides detailed insights on Finland's energy sector and over 50 specific recommendations to help improve its energy policy. Today I'll just highlight some of the findings, but I encourage all energy sector stakeholders in Finland to review the report in detail. The report commends Finland for adopting one of the world's most ambitious climate targets, a legal obligation of 2035. The target is supported by a robust set of measures that aim to reduce greenhouse gas emissions across all sectors and boost carbon removals from land use. The report however notes that strong efforts will be needed to achieve this ambitious target and points to concerns over the land use sector, which was a net source of emissions for the first time in 2021. The report commends again Finland on its leadership in nuclear energy and waste management. Finland is now home to one of the largest nuclear reactors in the world, which started commercial operations just last month, and is the first new nuclear reactor deployed in Europe in over 15 years. Thanks to its fleet of nuclear reactors and a strong deployment of renewables, Finland has one of the cleanest electricity supplies in the world. Another area of Finland's global leadership is in nuclear waste storage, where it is aiming to commission the world's first long-term nuclear storage site in 2025. In addition, Finland is working to build the only uranium mining and processing facility in the European Union, which would bring much-needed diversification to the world's nuclear fuel supply. Finland has reached high shares of renewable energy across all sectors and is a leader in forest bioenergy for electricity and heat and biofuels for transportation. However, Finland will have to substantially increase the deployment of renewables in all sectors to meet its ambitious climate targets. Extra efforts are needed in particular to boost the currently limited deployment of solar PV and quick start its large-scale deployment of offshore wind, as with many countries, Finland needs to address issues around permitting. Some resources have been dedicated to this recently, but additional efforts are probably needed given the scale of deployment Finland is seeking. Also work is needed on boosting deployment of battery storage and demand-side response. The report calls attention to Finland's leadership on thermal energy storage, which serves as an example to other countries looking to decarbonize their heating systems and boost renewable generation. Several large-scale thermal storage projects connected to district heating systems are in operation and Finland has several additional projects under development. Thermal storage is a relatively low-cost and simple technology that provides flexibility and cost savings to district heating systems and also clear pathways to boosting renewables and heating and supporting integration of high shares of variable generation from wind and solar. Instead of curtailing excess generation, it can be stored as thermal energy to meet heating demand at a later time. Finland is a global leader on transportation biofuels, however the transport sector remains highly reliant on diesel and gasoline. The report commends Finland for targets to increase the share of biofuels in transport to 30% by 2030, with 10% coming from advanced biofuels. However, additional work is needed to increase adoption of electric vehicles. Finland is aiming to have almost 900,000 EVs on the road by 2030 compared to just around 140,000 at the end of 2022. But given Finland's clean electricity mix, EVs provide an excellent pathway for decarbonizing road transport and the report encourages Finland to increase its ambition and support for EV adoption. Finland has large deposits of cobalt, nickel, lithium, graphite and other critical minerals, is already a major producer of these and is looking to expand critical mineral mining and production. In 2021, the country refined around 10% of global cobalt output and was the second-largest supplier after China. Finland is also active across the battery supply chain from mining and processing of the raw materials to manufacturing of batteries, components, charging technologies and battery recycling. The IEA commends Finland's efforts on critical minerals and batteries and notes that a secure supply of these materials and increased battery manufacturing are essential for accelerating clean energy transitions. The report commends Finland's quick response to Russia unilaterally stopping supplies of electricity and gas in early 2022. Thanks to strong and smart efforts, Finland was able to ensure secure energy supplies. This included a well-designed down-to-degree program that empowered the public and led to significant reductions in electricity demand. The report notes that public efforts to reduce energy demand are in line with the recommendations of the IEA 10-point plan to reduce Europe's reliance on Russian energy and it encourages other countries to follow Finland's example. Thanks to the cooperation between the government, the private sector and the public, Finland has essentially ended its imports of Russian energy. I hope the recommendations in this report will help Finland achieve its carbon neutrality and strengthen energy security and I would like to close by sincerely thanking the minister, the government of Finland and all the stakeholders who supported the review process. Thank you very much, Peter. And now it's my pleasure to turn the floor over to Finland's Minister of Economic Affairs, Mr. Mika Lindtila. Mr. Flores, yours. Thank you. Thank you very much. And the Executive Director Bureau, let me first thank you and the IEA team for your excellent work in reviving Finland's energy policy and of course we are very happy to reach such a positive report on our energy sector. Thank you. The recommendations, the most vital issues we have at hand and the recommendations are timely and very relevant, of course. Now I would like to highlight a few key points regarding our energy system and policies and of course as everybody knows the last 14 months have changed a lot. So, February last year, one-third of our energy supply came from Russia and today the share is close to zero. Today we are focusing on the future of energy in Finland. We have excellent opportunities to make Finland a leading, clear, clean energy country and it's a big possibility to Finland. Finland values highly nuclear energy. Nuclear energy ensures the availability of a clean electricity when it's cold, calm or dark as in winter in Finland. And just last month the commercial usage of the 1.6 gigawatt olkilotto, three nuclear power units, which is the Europe's largest study. And we are also developing right policy framework to enable SMER deployment. We are currently analyzing to write measures how to develop our nuclear energy act. And several companies are researching opportunities in this field, which is very, very interesting. Finland is constructing globally first, final, disposal facility of spending nuclear fuel. Finland has been successful in nuclear, nuclear energy policy because a high level of nuclear safety, safety and active stakeholders engagement along to energy policy, energy policy on nuclear will also continue in the future, I'm 100 percent sure. And currently significant majoring of the people and all political, all political parties in the parliament support nuclear energy, even green party. In addition to nuclear energy, renewable energy capacity, especially onshore wind is growing very, very rapidly. We are working on to make the offshore wind the next ring. There are estimates that clean electricity production in Finland could be semaphore to what is what is now. And this shows our potential. Dr. Piran, the increase in clean electricity supply will support the further electrification of our economy and help us reach carbon neutrality by 2035, which is very, very ambitious target. And it will also open highly attractive opportunities for hydrogen production and it's using in many sectors. Last year, we have a national hydrogen strategy as part of our energy and climate strategy. The strategy lays out a plan for building a hydrogen value chain, including the production of e-fuels. In the beginning of that, in 2023, we complemented our hydrogen strategy with the government resolution setting the production target for green hydrogen in Finland up to 10 percent of European production by the end of the decade. And lastly, I want to raise the issue of critical energy sector minerals, making the energy transition possible. I'm glad to recognize the IAEA strategy leading the leadership in the area of critical minerals and as Dr. Piran mentioned, Finland is a strong player in this field. We produce and refine many critical minerals and we continue to develop sustainable value chain of critical minerals and factories and provide a stable and predictable environment for investors. To conclude, we need to continue on the path to a bright energy future and let me once again thank you to the director, Birol, for the review of Finland and IAEA highly provisional guidance on global energy policies in January. Thank you very much. Minister Lindtila, thank you very much. With that, we're going to take a very short break so we can compile some questions. Again, if you're a journalist on Zoom, please send the question through the Q&A box. We'll be back in two short minutes to take the Q&A part of this presentation. Thank you. So thank you and welcome back. So we're getting many questions through the Zoom application. We'll try to get as many as possible and otherwise please direct the questions to press at IAEA.org. We're going to start with the basically questions in threes and three. First question I will address perhaps to my colleague Peter here, a question being about permitting, being a major challenge to renewable deployment in Finland. How can are the measures that we recommend accelerate renewables permitting? I will mention the other questions. One for Mr. Minister from Mina Vyanssenen at the Finnish Broadcasting Company, Ile, are you concerned with the new energy targets and policies, with the government's energy targets and policies, and is Finland going to regress in its carbon neutrality targets and development? And the final question we'll have time for today and there are several questions about nuclear, which I will turn over to our executive director. Can you please give us your sense of the role of nuclear place in Finland and more generally perhaps in Europe and beyond? So first question, please over to Peter. Many thanks for the timely and important question on permitting of renewables. In this respect, I'd wish to refer to a recent IAEA workshop on permitting renewables held in March, which identified three main priority areas for policy intervention and relevant country examples for best practices. This includes streamlined permitting processes where Denmark has showed the central role of a one-stop shop for facilitating permitting procedures for offshore wind. Italy explained how digitalization helped streamline permitting procedures across different levels of the public administration. The second point, the social acceptance challenge, where Ireland presented a very good example of community engagement initiatives led by the government, including a mandated community benefit fund, which gathers a small fee per megawatt hour of energy generated and redistributes it evenly to relevant communities. Spatial planning is another key concern. In this area, Portugal showed an impressive approach to identify so-called renewable go-to areas, taking environmental and heritage-sensitive assets into account, while the United States introduced renewable energy potential model, which helps facilitate spatial planning, taking various conditions such as land-use restrictions and regulations into account. This and other IAEA events are helping to show how to address this particular challenge, and we will continue to provide more information to help countries accelerate the permitting of renewable projects. Thank you. Thanks, Peter. So the second question was addressed to Minister Antilla about the government policies and the carbon neutrality targets that you had set out. Thank you. Thank you for the question. Actually, in Finland, we have very long history in our energy strategy. And I'm 100% sure that the next government continue that strategy. And it's very important if we think, for example, investors, investors, they're waiting that we keep that our very ambitious target to be carbon-free, carbon-neutral 2035. And I am 100% sure that we continue in that strategy. And our energy sector is one of the most interesting sectors in Europe. We are one of the most full-run in the energy sector in Europe and actually globally. And I can't see any reason why the next government changed our strategy and our long history. And for example, in the sector of nuclear power, it's very important. And everybody knows that citizens support very strongly our strategy in nuclear power, for example, and so on. And I'm very positive that it's continue, it's continue and the investors can trust that we have the same big line in our energy strategy. Very much. And good segue here for the final question to Dr. Birol. Maybe also a similar point about the role that you think nuclear should and plays in Finland and perhaps more broadly in Europe. Thank you. Perhaps before, Nikola, I just add a word on the permitting issue. I have shown or I mentioned in the beginning that the renewables increased substantially in the last one year. But in Europe, we have seen very strong growth. One of the drivers of this growth was the some countries have cut the red tape and many renewable projects saw the light of the day, if I may say so, as a result of that. My colleague Peter gave some examples from different countries how we can address this permitting issue. But of course, these are just examples. Every country will make their own policies, own agenda, own model. But we just gave those examples to show that it can be done. It can happen. Now coming back to the nuclear power. Two years ago, we said, looking at the data and the policies of countries around the world, nuclear may make a comeback. May make a comeback two years ago. And today, I can confirm that nuclear is making a comeback around the world, driven by climate concerns, energy security concerns, and competitiveness concerns of the countries. It is happening everywhere. And I believe the recent success story we got from Finland, the largest nuclear reactor in Europe after so, so many years gives a source of inspiration, I hope, to many countries in Europe. But I see the mood in Europe is changing. I will say even in Europe, because what I see that the many countries understand that the nuclear is a very important part of the clean electricity generation globally. And the countries who said no to nuclear power are giving a second thought. You may remember that the intention of the agency set after the 24th of February, even to the countries who wanted to phase out nuclear power plant, please, please just postpone the phase out of nuclear power plants in these difficult years. And I am very thankful to the German and Belgium governments for considering our request and going in that direction. I believe we are going to see three different dimensions of the new nuclear power push in Europe and beyond. One, the lifetime extension of several nuclear power plants in the US and in Europe and in Japan. Second, new nuclear builds of the traditional models. And third, as Mr. Minister also mentioned, small model reactors around 2030 are so becoming a part of our electricity mix. And I hope that Finland will be part of those countries. So all in all, while I expect that the renewables will be very, very strong in the next years to come, solar, wind, hydropower, and others, nuclear will still keep a significant share in Finland and hopefully in Europe, but surely in the world. When we fight against climate change, when we want to have a clean electricity and secure electricity and keep the price of electricity at a certain level. So thank you very much for this. And I understand, Mr. Muwadis, end of our meeting. May I take this opportunity to thank Mr. Minister for his leadership in Finland when it comes to energy, especially clean energy, secure energy, taking a firm position when it comes to the Russian energy and stopping and reducing it. For also being a good partner to intention energy agency. Thank you very much, Mr. Minister. And thank you very much for considering our recommendations. Thank you very much, sir. Thank you very much, Dr. Birrell. Indeed, it's all the time we have for today. So thanks for your attendance. If we didn't get to your questions, please reach out to press at ia.org. Of course, our report is available on our website at ia.org, like everything we produce. The report is available for free. And this is all the time we have. Thank you very much for your attendance and see you next time.