Lappeenranta is competing alongside 44 other finalist cities to become the people’s favourite in WWF’s Earth Hour City Challenge that is designed to spur cities to take action to prevent climate change. Lappeenranta is the only Finnish city participating this year. The voting period starts on 26 April and lasts until 19 June.
The pumping station in Kivisalmi has been in operation for slightly over a year now. The pump has worked flawlessly and water quality has improved significantly. The flow affects the ice conditions, extensively weakening the ice in the mid-lake area of Piiluvanselkä.
Founded in 1996, this IT software and project company has been developing its ERP system for electricity trading since 2008. According to the Managing Director of Tietokoura Ltd, Jorma Laukkanen, large-scale development began around five years ago, which can be seen in the company’s net sales.
– Our annual sales have increased on average by 25% for the last five years, and currently the electricity trading solutions account for more than half of our net sales.
Fuels made from carbon dioxide captured from atmospheric air can become energy storages for wind and solar power. They can also be used to replace fuels derived from fossil sources.
Capturing carbon dioxide from atmospheric air and turning it into existing types of fuel, such as synthetic natural gas or transport fuel, is under research in Finland.
As in previous years, the city of Lappeenranta is taking part in the Earth Hour event organised by WWF. Earth Hour is a worldwide annual campaign in which people from all around the world turn off their lights for an hour on the same day. This year, the lights will be turned off on Saturday, the 19th of March from 20.30 to 21.30.
Lappeenranta has made it to the finals in the international Earth Hour City Challenge organised by the World Wildlife Fund, which is designed to encourage cities in their work in preventing climate change. Organised for the sixth time, the challenge measures the cities' preparedness to reduce greenhouse emissions produced in energy production and traffic and through food choices. The last time Lappeenranta made it to the finals was in 2014.
The theme of WWF’s Earth Hour City Challenge in week 23 is buildings.
Lappeenranta has already reduced its greenhouse gas emissions by 38% from the 1990 level. This means that the emissions reduction target has been achieved ahead of schedule. The target set in the climate programme for Lappeenranta, approved by the City Council on 28 September 2009, was for Lappeenranta to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions in its urban region by 30% by 2020.
In August 2015, the nutrient concentrations had decreased somewhat from the previous year’s end-of-summer levels and the oxygen concentration level was also good. The results are preliminary, but promising.
As part of their official duties, the Director of Educational Services Tuija Willberg and City Secretary Juha Willberg have been involved in the preparation of the climate programme for the municipalities of South Karelia. Moreover, they both participated in the preparations before Lappeenranta joined the HINKU network of Finnish carbon neutral municipalities and the FISU network for resource-wise cities.