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ENVIRONMENT

Denmark at ‘significant risk’ of missing 2030 emissions target: Climate Council

Denmark's climate council has warned of "a significant risk" of the country missing its 2030 emissions goal and has outlined six actions the government could take to put it on track.

Denmark at 'significant risk' of missing 2030 emissions target: Climate Council
The Climate Council's chair Peter Møllgaard (centre), deputy chair Jette Bredahl Jacobsen (left) and Niels Buus Kristensen at a press conference announcing its conclusions on February 28th. Photo: Liselotte Sabroe/Ritzau Scanpix

The Danish Council on Climate Change in its 2023 status report said that while it was positive that the last government had presented a roadmap on how it hoped to reach the 70 percent target, it was likely that many of its proposals would not generate the hoped-for emissions reductions. 

“We emphasize that the effort must show that the goal can be reached with a certain degree of certainty, and that the certainty must increase the closer we get to 2030,” Peter Møllgaard, the council’s chair, said in a press release. “There is currently not enough certainty that the government’s plan will come true.” 

The council was set up under the 2019 climate law to monitor successive governments’ progress towards reaching Denmark’s target of a 70 percent reduction in greenhouse emissions by 2030. 

In cited three reasons why Denmark was not yet on track to meet the target: that the planned reductions in emissions from agriculture were “uncertain”, that the hike in the carbon tax brought in under the green tax reform was insufficient to deliver the promised emissions reductions from industry, and that Denmark’s carbon capture and storage projects might not be running at the hoped for scale by 2030. 

“Both electricity production and the heating for our buildings must be largely fossil-free by 2030, and industry must have cut more than half of its emissions. Significant reductions are also needed in agriculture. There is a long way to go, and there is still a need for all parts of society to contribute,” Møllgaard said. 

Denmark’s climate and energy minister, Lars Aagaard, told the broadcaster TV2  that he was “completely convinced” that the 70 percent target would be met in 2030. 

“I feel convinced that we will reach the goal. That is not the same as saying that it is easy. But we have the political will to reach the goal; we are a majority government; and we will achieve it,” he said. “There are lots of measures that need to be implemented. Of course, the work is not done. But we will reach the 70 percent target.”

Among the measures the council proposes should be enacted before 2025 are a higher tax on diesel, a carbon tax on agriculture, a carbon tax on industry before 2025, acceleration of the restoration of peatlands and wetlands, and making temporary energy saving measures of the past few months permanent, with lower temperatures in public buildings and less outdoor lighting.

In the mid-term, the council proposes empowering councils to make it compulsory for houses or businesses to connect to district heating networks, a passenger tax on air travel, a tax on goods that lead to the deterioration or clearing of forests, and a lower climate footprint for the consumption of food.

Municipalities and other public sector organisations should also seek to serve climate friendly food, and the government should tax food that harms the climate, the council said. 

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ENVIRONMENT

Danish underwater gardeners plant eelgrass to save ‘dead’ Vejle Fjord

Danish botanists are trying a novel method to save the struggling marine habitat in Vejle Fjord.

Danish underwater gardeners plant eelgrass to save 'dead' Vejle Fjord

Under a white tent on the shores of a polluted Danish fjord, volunteers and researchers prepare slender green shoots of eelgrass to be planted on the seabed to help restore the site’s damaged ecosystem.

Denmark generally has a strong track record on environmental issues, but only five of its 109 coastal zones are considered healthy, according to the Danish Environmental Agency.

Like other coastal areas in Denmark, the Vejle Fjord is suffering from eutrophication — a process in which nutrients, often from land run-off, accumulate in a body of water and lead to increased growth of microorganisms and algae.

The algae cover water surfaces, blocking light and cutting off oxygen, killing plants and wildlife.

An underwater surveillance camera installed in the Vejle fjord by the municipality last year detected just one fish in 70 hours.

– ‘Completely collapsed’ –

In Denmark, a major pork producer, more than 60 percent of the country’s land is used for agriculture — one of the highest concentrations in the world — sparking frequent warnings in recent years about the risk of run-off.

A 2022 report by the University of Southern Denmark (USD) concluded the 22-kilometre (14-mile) Vejle Fjord was in “poor environmental condition” because of high levels of nitrogen run-off from fertiliser use on farms.

And when the mercury rises, so does the problem.

“We had a very warm summer in 2023, and that resulted in a huge oxygen depletion,” a biologist who works for Vejle municipality, Mads Fjeldsoe Christensen, told AFP.

“That was quite severe. We witnessed a lot of dead fish.”

He noted that excess nutrients had been emitted into the fjord for “the last 30, maybe 40 years.”

“For a long time, the fjord has been able to recover. But for the last maybe three, four years, we have witnessed a fjord that has completely collapsed.”

Scientists and the municipality decided in 2018 to reintroduce the slender green eelgrass in the busy inlet in the hopes of restoring its once lush seabed, and the wildlife that thrived among them.

In Vejle, some 50 volunteers turned out on a recent weekend to help the scientists.

Braving gloomy, blustery weather, they crowded around tables with buckets full of eelgrass shoots that scientists had picked from zones where it is thriving.

The volunteers rolled the individual shoots around biodegradable nails, which divers then took and transplanted into the seabed.

“Eelgrass is where all the fish grow up, so they’re like kindergarten for fish life,” Fjeldsoe Christensen said.

“If you do not have eelgrass, there’s simply no space for the fish population to grow up.”

– Vejle fjord ‘funeral’ –

Six hectares of seabed and more than 100,000 eelgrass shoots have been planted on the seabed since the transplants began in 2020.

In some places, divers have observed a return of aquatic life, such as crabs and fish.

“We do see effects of the nature restoration,” said SDU biologist Timi Banke, who is taking part in the project.

In April, Greenpeace organised an open-air “funeral” for the Vejle fjord to draw attention to the dire state of Danish coastal waters.

“It is in bad condition and that’s why we’re doing something, but it’s not dead,” Banke told AFP, hailing the efforts undertaken by environmentalists and locals.

On World Oceans Day on June 8th, the Danish think-tank Ocean Institute organised eelgrass transplant operations at 32 sites across the country.

“By planting eelgrass, we are putting the emphasis on restoring nature, but that doesn’t mean we should forget that we also have to reduce the emission of nutrients in Danish waters under pressure,” the think tank’s director Liselotte Hohwy Stokholm wrote on the organisation’s website.

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