2018-10-12 The New Danish Climate Plan — Together For A Greener Future

Together for a greener future

Jesper Berggreen

As I noted in earlier posts about the Danish government’s plan to phase out diesel and gas cars by 2030, a full plan for emission reductions over the next 12 years would be revealed this week. And indeed it was. The plan is called “Together for a greener future.” This plan is the second of two parts. The first part was the “Energy — for a green Denmark” which was boosted considerably in the rare consensus by all parties in parliament in July where for instance the plans for adding 8 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind power was tripled to 24 GW.

While Denmark is a pretty insignificant country in the scale of things, it was actually quite an achievement to reach bipartisan agreements on upping the game as opposed to the more common dismantling. I remember that Thomas L. Friedman played with an idea in his 2008 book “Hot, Flat and Crowded” where he imagined the US being China for just one day and how that could make so many rules come into effect, fast. Well, the current president is trying to do just that, but unfortunately he has yet to push rules on avoiding catastrophic climate change. My point is that it was very refreshing to witness this consensus in July, and it should serve as an example to countries with much bigger impact.

Original article: 2018-10-12 The New Danish Climate Plan — Together For A Greener Future

Source document: Together for a greener future

This includes:

'Key initiatives in the climate and air proposal include:

    Phase out the sale of new petrol and diesel cars in 2030.
    Zero carbon emissions and zero air pollution from busses in Denmark’s cities by 2030.
    A climate- and environmentally-efficient agricultural sector, with a strong focus on research.
    Clean air in big cities through stricter environmental zones.
    Lower emissions from industry and housing.
    Behavioural campaign with climate labelling.
    Research efforts to develop carbon capture and storage technologies for use in Denmark’s fields and forests.

This last is to reduce net carbon emissions from farming and forestry.

I have studied several of the measures adopted in Denmark to achieve these objectives:
2013-10-09 Electricity from Wind and Storage

2018-10-10 Decarbonising the Heat Sector

2018-10-12 The New Danish Climate Plan — Together For A Greener Future

Jesper Berggreen

As I noted in earlier posts about the Danish government’s plan to phase out diesel and gas cars by 2030, a full plan for emission reductions over the next 12 years would be revealed this week. And indeed it was. The plan is called “Together for a greener future.” This plan is the second of two parts. The first part was the “Energy — for a green Denmark” which was boosted considerably in the rare consensus by all parties in parliament in July where for instance the plans for adding 8 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind power was tripled to 24 GW.

While Denmark is a pretty insignificant country in the scale of things, it was actually quite an achievement to reach bipartisan agreements on upping the game as opposed to the more common dismantling. I remember that Thomas L. Friedman played with an idea in his 2008 book “Hot, Flat and Crowded” where he imagined the US being China for just one day and how that could make so many rules come into effect, fast. Well, the current president is trying to do just that, but unfortunately he has yet to push rules on avoiding catastrophic climate change. My point is that it was very refreshing to witness this consensus in July, and it should serve as an example to countries with much bigger impact.

Together for a greener future

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