To find the world’s most aggressive clean energy targets, look no further than Denmark.
The city of Copenhagen is working hard toward meeting a pledge to become carbon-neutral by 2025. A much smaller municipality near the German border, Sønderborg, wants to do the same by 2029.
The targets are not onerous national mandates imposed on unwilling local governments. Instead, in a mutually reinforcing cycle, robust action by municipalities to cut carbon and add clean energy to the grid begets ever-more ambitious policy at the national level. By 2020, at least half of Denmark’s electricity will be supplied by wind turbines. By 2050, the country intends to be free of fossil fuels.
As a journalist, I’ve been reporting for several years on how Denmark’s policymakers, entrepreneurs, business leaders and citizens are implementing these goals. Their stories are included in my new e-book, “Quitting Carbon: How Denmark Is Leading the Clean Energy Transition and Winning the Race to the Low-Carbon Future.” There is much city leaders across the globe can learn from Denmark, both in terms of novel clean-energy solutions as well as the creative thinking behind them.
Here, distilled from the book, are three lessons Denmark has for cities around the world.
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