You can see Denmark's ubiquitous wind turbine
windmills however you arrive there...
by air, land or sea.
Today, we have thirty percent of all our electricity stemming
from renewable, primarily wind and biomass.
On the streets of Copenhagen, the Dane's commitment
to living and working more sustainably...
has become part of their national culture.
As most other Copenhageners, I use my
bicycle
every day to go back and forth to the town hall.
To accelerate the transition to more sustainable
EV electric cars, the government has suspended
it's painful new car tax on EV electric cars,
which can be as high as a hundred eighty
percent for some carbon burning cars.
We had a very tough wake-up call back in nineteen
seventy-three
when actually we had a crisis, an oil crisis.
At that time, we were ninety-nine percent dependent
on imported fossil fuels.
So it turned so bad that people were prohibited
to drive their private cars on Sundays.
Now, as Denmark's Minister of Climate and Energy,
Connie Hedegaard will be chairing
the Cop fifteen climate change debates.
She's hoping Denmark's success in reducing
it's carbon emissions would translate to the
rest of the world.
We have had a growth rate of almost eighty percent
in our economy since nineteen eighty in Denmark.
At the same time, we have managed keep our
energy consumption almost stable.
While the rest of the world comes to Cop fifteen to learn
how to reduce its carbon footprint,
the people of a small Danish island called Samso already have.
In the past ten years, they've gone to a hundred percent
renewable energy and have reduced their carbon footprint
by a hundred and forty-seven percent.
We want people to continue to consume energy but
they should be aware of where the energy comes from.
For the past ten years, Soren Hermansen has
turned his agricultural community on Samso
island into an energy experiment for the rest of the country.
It is now the talk of the sustainability world.
Well, the really convincing aspect was that you could actually
save money. The climate or the environmental impact
was just kind of a positive side effect of it.
Land based wind turbine windmills take care
of all of Samso's local energy needs.
Their community investment in offshore wind turbine windmills
allows them to sell energy back to the mainland...
to offset the island's transport costs which still depend on oil.
It's not just pure theory.
It is doable and practical life. It's not that difficult.
Most of the solutions that we need,
they are there already... and if you use them, you can save money.
Copenhagen's mayor, Klaus Bondam, is building more
bike lanes and bridges and planning to convert
the city's fleet of cars to all EV electric vehicles
as part of Copenhagen's master plan to
become the world's eco-metropolis by twenty fifteen.
It's in our nerves or in our genes that we have to have
an understanding that you can actually
harm your surroundings if you don't
think about what you are doing.
Denmark is launching one of the first nationwide
EV electric car networks.
The first public charge spots are being installed
at the Cop fifteen climate change conference site.
Delegates and visitors will also be able to rent
EV electric cars by the hour or the day
at charging locations throughout the city.
Secondly, we provide free parking for EV electric cars.
I bought my first EV electric car in two thousand and five.
Two months later, I bought another one for my wife.
Peter Christensen and his wife are part of a
European union feasibility study on the practicality
of making the switch to EV electric cars.
Don't have to...
care about the gear.
It's only forwards and backwards... it's very easy.
In addition to buying EV electric cars, the Christensen family
has a ten year government-backed mortgage on
their own one megawatt wind turbine windmill
for powering their cars,
all of their other household needs
and to sell power back to their utility company.
So in order to accommodate a bigger proportion of wind production,
we must find a storage
for the electricity to level it out. If we store the unstable wind
energy in batteries, why not put four wheels underneath the battery
and then you have
the EV electric car.
Closing the loop on renewable energy and EV electric
car vehicles is the holy grail of sustainable transportation.
DONG Energy, the country's largest energy company
is partnering with Better Place, a global EV electric
vehicle services provider
on a nationwide EV electric vehicle network of charge
spots and battery switching stations,
to further reduce Denmark's auto and small truck emissions,
the fastest growing source of carbon in the atmosphere.
In Denmark,
we have a population that's very focused on the environment.
We have a lot of wind and therefore
the ability to generate renewable energy.
One of the things we can do is actually to be an
example country and in Copenhagen, to be an example city
for other countries and cities how sustainability can actually
walk hand in hand with the financial and economic growth.
In Copenhagen, this is Mike Cerre reporting for Globe TV.