It’s a bold goal but if any city can do it, it’s got to be Copenhagen. Denmark’s capital is aiming to be the first carbon neutral city in the world by 2025… but then, as the country also aims to generate all its electricity from renewable sources – solar, wind and hydro – by 2050, it is clearly not a fanciful target.
Copenhagen’s ambitious plans are the brainchild of its Lord Mayor, Frank Jensen. In an interview for Cities Today, he said: “We have launched a plan that will realise the ambition of becoming the world’s first CO2 neutral capital by 2025.
“It is a realistic and economically viable plan, but if we are to reach our goal we also need support and investments from our citizens and the private sector.”
Among the proposals are the retrofitting of buildings with better insulation, a reorganisation of the energy supply featuring more wind turbines and a change in transport habits with a big push towards bicycles.
The city plans to promote cycling with an additional 70kms of cycle paths and will be augmenting ‘green wave’ traffic signals set to the speed of oncoming bikes. By that 2025 target, the city wants three in every four trips to be made by foot, bike or public transport.
Other journeys will see a move away from conventional petrol and diesel powered transport to vehicles powered, like the all-electric Nissan LEAF, by alternative means.
By 2015, it is estimated that 85 per cent of the city’s fleet of 1,000 small vehicles will run on electricity, hydrogen or biofuels with up to 30 per cent of all cars and small trucks and 40 per cent of heavy trucks similarly fuelled by 2050.
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