Is Copenhagen the World's Most Sustainable City?

Summary

Cities are rapidly growing, with over half of the global population now living in urban areas. As the climate crisis looms, sustainable growth is crucial. Copenhagen, Denmark, is emerging as a leader in urban sustainability, aiming to become the first carbon-neutral capital by 2025. The city implements various initiatives like expansive biking infrastructure, innovative district heating and cooling systems, and state-of-the-art environmental monitoring technology. Copenhagen's people play a key role, showing strong engagement with sustainability efforts, showcasing how urban growth can align with environmental responsibility.

Highlights

• Copenhagen is on track to be the first carbon-neutral capital by 2025! 🌟
• A remarkable 62% of Copenhagener's commute by bike, making cycling a norm 🚴‍♂️
• World-famous district heating and cooling systems boost energy efficiency in the city ♨️
• The community's involvement is crucial, showcasing strong civic engagement in sustainability 🌱
• Copenhagen's sustainable initiatives could be a blueprint for cities worldwide 🌍

Key Takeaways

• Copenhagen aims to be the first carbon-neutral capital by 2025 🌍
• A whopping 62% of Copenhagen's population travels by bicycles daily 🚴‍♂️
• The city's district heating system serves 99% of households for efficient energy use ♨️
• Copenhagen engages citizens actively in sustainability efforts, driving transformative change 🌱
• The city's innovative solutions serve as a model for global urban sustainability initiatives 🌟

Overview

Copenhagen is setting an ambitious goal: to become the world’s first carbon-neutral capital by 2025. This progressive city in Denmark is already well on its way, with plans focusing on reducing emissions through effective public transportation, pollution control, and innovative energy solutions. The citizen-driven approach, where residents actively participate in sustainability efforts, plays a vital role in this transformation.

The city's infrastructure supports its green goals, with 62% of residents commuting by bicycle, thanks to significant investments in biking infrastructure. Additionally, Copenhagen’s district heating system connects 99% of households, drastically reducing carbon emissions. This system ingeniously utilizes leftover energy from electricity production, demonstrating a commitment to efficiency and sustainability.

Copenhagen's journey serves as an inspiration and a potential blueprint for other cities worldwide. Its emphasis on combining urban growth with environmental stewardship shows that economic prosperity and ecological responsibility can indeed go hand in hand, proving that with the right investments and citizen engagement, a sustainable urban future is achievable.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 00:30: Introduction and Purpose The chapter titled 'Introduction and Purpose' discusses the rapid urbanization occurring globally, with over half the world's population currently living in cities, a figure expected to rise to 70% by 2050. This urban growth poses significant challenges in terms of sustainable development, especially in the context of the climate crisis. The chapter introduces the city of Copenhagen, Denmark, as a potential model for sustainable urban growth, highlighting its ambitious goal to become the first carbon-neutral capital city by 2025. The authors express their intent to explore Copenhagen's approach to achieving this goal.
• 00:30 - 01:00: Carbon Neutrality Goal The chapter focuses on the goal of achieving carbon neutrality, highlighting that two-thirds of the world's carbon emissions originate from cities, a figure that is worsening as urbanization increases. It specifically features Copenhagen's mission to eliminate their carbon emissions, as explained by Frank Jenson, the Lord Mayor of Copenhagen, who initiated this process upon becoming mayor with the aim of making Copenhagen the first carbon-neutral capital by 2025.
• 01:00 - 02:00: Mobility and Biking Infrastructure The chapter discusses the concept of carbon neutrality, specifically for a city context, focusing on achieving net zero through enhanced mobility, pollution control, and energy management. Copenhagen is highlighted as a successful example with its world-renowned bicycle infrastructure, where 62% of residents use bikes for daily transportation. The city's strategy includes significant investment in biking infrastructure, amounting to nearly $300 million over the past decade, to promote this eco-friendly mode of transport.
• 02:00 - 03:00: Waterways Transformation The chapter titled 'Waterways Transformation' discusses the significant changes made in Copenhagen to improve biking infrastructure, resulting in an increase in bicycles compared to cars, which helps reduce carbon emissions. It also highlights the transformation of Copenhagen's harbor, which was once heavily polluted with industrial waste and oil spills, making it unsafe for swimming. However, due to efforts over the years, the harbor has been cleaned and is now a place where people can safely swim, illustrating a successful environmental revitalization.
• 03:00 - 05:00: Energy Use and District Heating Systems The chapter discusses Copenhagen's significant focus on energy use as part of their carbon neutral plan, which constitutes approximately 80% of their efforts. A major component of this plan is the district heating system, one of the largest and most successful globally. This system captures leftover heat from electricity production and distributes it through a network of pipes to 99% of households in Copenhagen.
• 05:00 - 07:00: Copenhagen Solutions Lab and Technology The chapter discusses sustainable solutions implemented in Copenhagen, particularly focusing on the efficient district heating and cooling systems. The city's innovative approach involves using the cold from harbor water for cooling, achieving up to 70% reduction in electricity use for cooling buildings. The Copenhagen Solutions Lab plays a crucial role as an incubator for smart city initiatives, enabling collaboration with partners across the city to develop these sustainable solutions.
• 07:00 - 09:00: Citizen Involvement and Impact The chapter 'Citizen Involvement and Impact' discusses how technology is being leveraged to address global issues such as transitioning to a carbon-free economy and improving air quality. It highlights the negative impact of air pollution on city dwellers' health, using Copenhagen as an example. The chapter mentions efforts at the 'Street Lab,' which, despite its name, is not a traditional laboratory but rather a two-kilometer area in downtown Copenhagen dedicated to tackling these issues through innovative solutions, including waste elimination, air quality measurement, and traffic management.
• 09:00 - 10:00: Conclusion and Inspiration for Other Cities The chapter titled 'Conclusion and Inspiration for Other Cities' discusses the establishment of a testing lab in a downtown urban area. This location allows for realistic trials of new technologies aimed at improving city infrastructure, such as air quality measurement sensors. These sensors are being innovatively integrated onto vehicles, like Google Street View cars, to gauge air quality across entire urban landscapes. The aim is to enable cities to have better data to make informed decisions for city-wide scalability and improvement.

Is Copenhagen the World's Most Sustainable City? Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 - Cities all over the world are bursting with people. More than half of us live in cities now, and by 2050 that number jumps to nearly 70%. That's a lot of people. So how do we grow cities sustainably? And with the climate crisis, figuring out how we do that is more important than ever before. But there's one city that may be doing it better than any other place on earth. - We want to become the first carbon-neutral capital city by 2025. - So we packed up our gear and headed here to Copenhagen, Denmark to find out how.
• 00:30 - 01:00 (upbeat music) It's not surprising to learn that two-thirds of the world's carbon emissions come from cities. That number is getting worse as more of us move into cities, which means a higher demand on infrastructure and resources. So Copenhagen is on a mission to cancel out all of their carbon emissions. - My name is Frank Jenson, and I'm the Lord Mayor of Copenhagen. When I became mayor we started this process, we decided that we want to become the first carbon neutral capital city by 2025.
• 01:00 - 01:30 - What is carbon neutrality actually mean? For a city, it's creating more renewable energy than the dirty energy it uses. It's all about achieving a net zero. And their plan is focusing on mobility, pollution, and energy. - We have introduced a lot of new solutions in Copenhagen. Our bicycle infrastructure is world famous because today 62% of the Copenhagener's use the bike for daily transportation. - Everyone in Copenhagen bikes. And I mean everyone. So the city is leaning into that. In the last 10 years it has invested nearly $300 million
• 01:30 - 02:00 to improve biking infrastructure. All that money has paid off. There are more than five times the amount of bikes than cars in the city. That goes a long way when cutting down on carbon emissions. But the effort doesn't stop there. Copenhagen has totally transformed their waterways too. Only a few decades ago, the harbor was contaminated with industrial waste, oil spills, even dead fish. - When I moved to Copenhagen back in 1987, this harbor was so polluted, you could never dream to have a swim in this harbor. But today you can swim. We have a harbor bath where people can have a swim
• 02:00 - 02:30 with their kids after school or after job. - Though Copenhagen has made huge strides with their mobility and pollution efforts, by far their biggest focus is on energy use. It makes up about 80% of their carbon neutral plan. To cut down on their consumption, Copenhagen uses one of the world's largest and most successful district heating systems. It works by using a network of pipes to capture left over heat from electricity production, then delivers that heat to homes across the city. - 99% of all households in Copenhagen are linked
• 02:30 - 03:00 to our very efficient district heating system. We have also introduced district cooling, where we take the cold out of the water in the harbor and distribute cold in pipes beside the district heating pipes. So you can reduce temperature in buildings, in server rooms, in factories. We can reduce electricity use for cooling down buildings for 70%. - To come up with these kinds of sustainable solutions, Copenhagen collaborates with partners across the city. Like Copenhagen Solutions Lab. An incubator for smart city initiatives. - What Copenhagen Solutions Lab does
• 03:00 - 03:30 is actually solving some of the bigger problems in the world by using technologies in order to accelerate this transition into a carbon free economy. So for instance, a problem of air quality, people in cities are dying too early because of bad air. And that is a global problem, not just here in Copenhagen. Getting rid of our waste, measuring air quality, managing traffic, we're trying to solve these problems down in Street Lab. - Contrary to how it sounds, the Street Lab really isn't a laboratory. It's a two kilometer long chunk of downtown Copenhagen
• 03:30 - 04:00 that serves as a testing area. - Placing a lab such as this downtown, in a real urban environment, makes it very realistic. Everything we're testing here will be able to survive in other parts of the city and will be able to be scaled to a city-wide level. This is a new generation of technology that makes it possible to measure air quality by a sensor. And now we're looking into mounting sensors actually on a Google Street View car to make it possible to measure each and every street of Copenhagen. - With these sensors, the city can better locate
• 04:00 - 04:30 the source of pollutants to help improve overall air quality. The technology has already proved so useful, that Marius and his team are shipping sensors to countries like Norway, Mexico, Austria, Greece, and the US. Though Copenhagen is leading the way in sustainable smart city solutions, experts and policy makers will tell you that the true secret to the city's transformation is the people. The residents here actually want to help build a sustainable city and are willing to work for it. - The citizens of Copenhagen, they demand a high quality of urban life.
• 04:30 - 05:00 They are willing to do a lot themselves. They want to sort their own garbage, they want to bike to work. Citizens involvement is key to the way we think in Denmark and in the Nordic countries. And that's a huge driving force behind being a carbon neutral city by 2025. - Since I became mayor in 2010, we have had a growth rate in the number of citizens with 20%. And even that, we have cut our emissions with 42% in the same period. So we show that you can have growth
• 05:00 - 05:30 with green transformation if you do the right investments in the city. - Copenhagen's transformation hasn't been easy. And of course their size and wealth helps. But they've made it work for their city. Regardless if they hit their carbon neutral deadline, their ultimate goal is to serve as an example for cities everywhere. - The green transformation of cities and livability and also very important, good economy. Goes hand in hand. I see Copenhagen as a front runner to show for my colleagues and decision-makers,
• 05:30 - 06:00 you must go green. Thanks for watching. If you enjoyed our series about the Future of Cities, check out our website for even more content. And don't forget to subscribe to Freethink.