Copenhagen – the First CO2 Neutral Capital

Friday, 30 October 2009 14:02

By the year 2025, Copenhagen will be the world’s first CO2 neutral capital. This is the ambition of local politicians in Copenhagen, Danish daily Berlingske Tidende reports.

The plans are huge and involve massive investments in a number of areas that will give the business world a push forward.

The ambitious plan will gradually lead towards the goal of Copenhagen being CO2 neutral in 2025, but already in 2015 the emissions have to be lowered by 20 per cent. The large savings are to be found in many different areas, spanning from more bicycle tracks and wind turbines to renovation of public buildings and expanded infrastructure of electric cars.

The municipality has two roles to play in this. The first role is to operate a lot of companies, where the municipality is directly responsible for coming up with the needed initiatives. The second role of the municipality is to get citizens and companies to take on more responsibility, says Claus Hvashøj Jørgensen, marketing director for the consultancy firm COWI. He is one of the people behind the ambitious plan.

Bicycle tracks and electric cars

“We have 45,000 employees and if they each make a difference in their energy consumption, it can have a very big impact. Partly because we want to start the ball rolling, but also because we believe that you bring the habits home from work,” says Jane Drejer, project manager for the Copenhagen climate plan to Berlingske.

In order to reduce CO2 emissions the plan is to improve the conditions of the Copenhagen bicycle tracks. Furthermore, the municipality will spend a lot of money lowering the CO2 emission coming from the bus traffic in the capital.

Because climate is in focus all over the world, Copenhagen can be the city to test the many new possibilities within climate friendly solutions. This is the assessment coming from both the municipality and the business world. “We cannot realize our goals alone, we need both the citizens and the business world,” says Jane Drejer. Luckily, there seems to be a big interest from companies in all industries.

Long term savings

According to the calculations made by the municipality, a 75 per cent saving of energy can be found by renovating the municipality’s buildings. As long as the municipality makes sure to switch to energy saving solutions when renovating buildings that were to be renovated anyway, the additional costs are not big, says John Sommer from the engineering firm MT Højgaard.

When looking at the long term goals for 2050, 30 per cent of the buildings will be new construction. Therefore, it is expected that there will be ongoing constructions the next 20-30 years where energy saving solutions will be in focus and will be chosen. The cost is between five to seven per cent extra, but in the long run this will quickly be turned into profit, he says.

According to the daily, besides reducing the Copenhagen level of CO2 emission, the investments will help push the development of energy sufficient solutions in the right direction. Furthermore, the municipality expects that the many new climate initiatives will create a lot of new workplaces, not least within the construction sector.

Driver of development

There is a lot of money involved in the project, and therefore, the public sector will have a positive influence on the rest of society. The investments will help drive up demand, and thereby the different new concepts and solutions will definitely hit the market, John Sommer says. Many of the energy saving initiatives today are outside the reach of the private economy, but John Sommer expects that the public investments will help develop the product in a more price friendly direction.

The more that need to be done, the more will be developed, which will help make the products cheaper and more effective. Then it becomes interesting for everybody because there is a huge private market, he says.

Source: Berlingske Tidende, Denmark