Driving The Green Transition: Finnish Political Discourse on Batteries

As Finland is currently not on track to meet its 2030 emission reduction target, there is an increased urgency to decarbonize. The energy and transportation sectors together account for 50% of the country’s emissions. Battery technologies can support the reliability of renewables and play a key role in electrifying the transportation sector with electric vehicles (EVs), a low carbon alternative. Although the need for a sustainable energy transition in Finland is acknowledged due to the climate crisis, the political discourse shaping this transition remains underexplored. While the Finnish parliament has committed to certain climate targets, the understanding of battery technologies and their social impacts is lacking. This complicates the perception of whether political decision-making aligns with the principles of energy justice and international sustainability goals. This thesis addresses this gap by analyzing how battery technologies and their distributional impacts are discussed in the Finnish parliament. The study analyzes parliamentary discourses on the development of battery technologies (including batteries in EVs) between September 2024 until March 2025. These debates are analyzed in relation to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 7 - Affordable and Clean Energy, 9 - Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure, 12 - Responsible Consumption and Adoption, and 13 - Climate Action. The research questions are: How are battery technologies and their distributional energy justice implications discussed in the Finnish Parliament? And What aspects of sustainability perspectives are highlighted and prioritized by parliamentarians in relation to battery technologies? Distributive energy justice is used as an analytical framework for this study and to examine how the parliament addresses impacts in their discussions. The research uses a qualitative approach by utilizing the method of thematic discourse analysis to investigate the speeches given by different parliament members to gain a comprehensive understanding of the parliament’s perspective on batteries and electric vehicles. Four main themes emerge from the analysis: accessible energy, environment and resource protection, carbon pricing, and climate advocacy. These themes represent core issues raised by the parliament. The study concludes that the parliament views electrification with batteries as an important aspect of decarbonizing transportation, while also emphasizing the need to ensure this transition is accessible to all citizens and is environmentally sustainable. EVs are frequently mentioned as a way to reduce the country’s emissions and further align themselves with national climate targets.