News-bite: What Denmark isn’t telling you…

by Chris Fellingham on 5th April 2009 at 11:32

You’re a model of social democracy, fairness, an economic miracle that proves free markets and globalisation don’t have to be another excuse for unbridled growth of economic inequality.  Thirty per cent of your energy is from windpower and you’re due to host COP-15,  possibly the most critical Climate Change summit, (after all Bush is out now, so anything post-Bush would be pivotal) but you have an embarrassing problem.

That’s right, Danes emit 5 tonnes of CO2 per person.  That’s not that terrible, but for a model country in the fight against Climate Change, it’s at least tantamount to having smelly armpits.  So what are the Danes doing?

Well that they are doing something is a start, but Denmark always seems to be able to do the right thing with ease, so they’ve decided to reform their transport structure to more Climate friendly cars, but I don’t mean a weak transition that will take 10 years to show any impact:

Currently there are only about 200 climate-friendly autos on the nation’s streets, but that should grow to 100,000 within two years.

That is incredible and not an insignificant number in a country the size of Denmark.