Amending Copenhagen's Climate Plan

On September 18th of this year, Copenhagen City Council passed its Climate Plan 2035 tomorrow. Since its early drafts, I followed the process closely, working with my colleagues in Alternativet (Denmark's Green Party) to make the plan as ambitious and effective as possible.

In some ways the plan is great. It sets a target of net zero emissions within the municipality's borders by the year 2035, and, more uniquely and audaciously, aims to bring down the consumption-based CO2 footprint of the city by 50%. There are two main problems.

• Emissions from the main fuel that Copenhagen runs on today - wood - are swept under the rug in a carbon accounting trick. Copenhagen's "green energy transition" so far has been made up in small part by getting more wind electricity into our grid and in large part by switching out coal for wood in our power plants, which also supply the city's heating system. Wood releases slightly more CO2 per energy produced than coal, but there is an international agreement not to count this "biogenic CO2"... which Copenhagen follows, despite the scientific consensus that wood for energy is terrible for the climate.
• The plan lacks teeth. There are little to no enforcement mechanisms or contingency plans. Worse yet, many of the concrete budget measures originally included to accomplish the targets - Road Pricing, to name our favorite - were taken out when other parties got cold feet.

Copenhageners deserve better. Copenhagen should live up to its reputation of being a climate leader.

Before its final passage, we brought forth the following five proposed amendments.

• Stop burning wood! We propose to commit to a complete phase-out of wood-based biomass in the energy system by no later than 2050.
• Transparent carbon accounting: Every time we see the city's CO2 emissions, we need to see the number with the biogenic CO2 as well.
• Green energy future: We want the municipality and its utility companies to develop a clear plan of how an emissions-free energy system will work. How many heat pumps, batteries and thermal storage tanks will we need to get through a wind-still winter night, where should they go and how much will they cost?
• No infrastructure projects without considering their CO2 price tag! Specifically, we are thinking of Lynetteholm, a proposed artificial island, together with the highway and metro proposed to serve it - by our estimates this construction alone would raise the city's footprint by around 5%, a cost not considered today.
• Full action plan: Put back in the removed measures aimed at helping Copenhageners reduce their climate footprint!

These five amendments were voted down, but at the same time parties representing a majority expressed a strong willingness to work on implementing them after the election – see here under “Beslutning”. I have no reason to doubt the intention, but at the same time red-green and blue-green parties tend to forget that they are green as soon as it becomes a little bit hard. For a good chance of improving, Denmark’s only green-green party, Alternativet, needs a good election.