Copenhagen: The First CO2 Neutral Capital

Copenhagen is leading the way in the action against climate change by becoming the first carbon neutral capital by 2025. Their goal is to show that it is possible to combine growth, development and an increase in life quality while reducing CO₂ emissions.

On August 23rd 2012 the City Council of Copenhagen adopted the CPH 2025 Climate Plan, a plan to show the route to a CO₂ neutral Copenhagen. Carbon neutrality will be reached when Copenhagen’s carbon net emissions equals zero. This means Copenhagen will have to reduce their carbon emissions to a minimum, and compensate the remaining emissions with external initiatives. The CPH 2025 Climate Plan has been divided into four areas: energy consumption, energy production, mobility and the city administration. In the plan specific goals and initiatives within each area are described for how the goal of carbon neutrality can be reached. Through close cooperation between governments, businesses, knowledge institutions and Copenhageners the holistic plan is working for a better quality of life, innovation, job creation and investment (City of Copenhagen, 2012).

The government has been criticised for failing to introduce a promised congestion charge for Copenhagen, which would potentially have increased the use of public transport for the city’s commuters (Stanners, 2012). 

An article written by Rasmus Skov Olesen for Baggrund (a Danish contemporary online magazine), the method used in calculating the Copenhagen's carbon emission is criticised. Today the city’s emission is calculated only from the direct carbon emissions of the area. This means there is a weighted focus on the emissions associated with traffic congestion and the energy sector. This calculation fails to include the citizen’s environmental liability associated with indirect emissions e.g. the emissions associated with travel and consumption. NIRAS (a large multidisciplinary consultancy company) mean the method for measuring carbon emission is incorrect, giving a distorted perception of reality amongst the citizens, where the world’s environmental and climate problems are being solved from above.  The problem is it is not popular to discuss behavioural changes and reduction in public consumption, as it is often associated with a welfare loss (Olesen, 2012). By including the indirect emissions, Copenhagen will need to give more responsibility to the citizens forcing them to change their comfortable lifestyle in order to meet the 2025 goals.

Regardless, as a capital city and a metropolis, Copenhagen is taking responsibility for climate change. Let us hope the initiatives will inspire other cities to do the same.