Copenhagen, which had aspired to become the world's first "carbon-neutral" capital, abandoned that "magnificent" goal.
On August 24th, the mayor of Copenhagen, Denmark, Sophie Annoson publicly stated that Copenhagen will temporarily abandon the goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2025.
"It's very irritating that we won't be able to [achieve carbon neutrality] by 2025. I'm really sad," Annoson told the Danish broadcaster.
According to Annoson, in order to achieve carbon neutrality goals, the Amager Island Resource Center, an environmental company dedicated to reducing carbon emissions, plans to build an incineration plant in Copenhagen that captures some of the carbon dioxide emitted during the incineration process and compresses it. Stored underground, driving carbon neutrality goals.
However, Copenhagen's carbon neutrality target has been put on hold as equity capital cannot meet government funding requirements for carbon capture and storage.
This result is staggering. Copenhagen, which has embarked on the path of green and sustainable development as early as the 1970s, has always been far ahead in the pace of global "carbon neutrality".
In 2009, Copenhagen put forward the goal of building the world's first "carbon neutral" capital by 2025. In the same year, through the Copenhagen Climate Plan, it was proposed to reduce carbon emissions by 20% in 2015 compared with 2005. This task was completed ahead of schedule in 2011.
In 2012, the Copenhagen City Council adopted the Copenhagen 2025 Climate Plan, which formulated a series of plans for the world's first "carbon neutral" capital by 2025. It mainly focuses on energy consumption, energy supply, green travel and other major aspects, including vigorously developing green renewable energy such as wind energy, encouraging citizens to choose green travel, and promoting green buildings and other 50 specific projects.
So far, Copenhagen's carbon dioxide emissions have been reduced by 80% compared to 2009.
In fact, Denmark is not alone in changing its carbon neutrality target. Previously, Germany had canceled its climate goal of "achieving carbon neutrality in the energy industry by 2035" in its draft law to be amended. Target".
It's worth noting, however, that Germany's climate target has no plans for carbon neutrality by 2035, and the official emissions reduction target is carbon neutrality by 2045. In addition, the 2035 target is 100% renewable energy generation, which is mainly the goal of the power supply side.
Therefore, to be precise, Germany should abandon its 2035 goal of 100% green electricity.
To make matters worse, Germany has also announced the restart of thermal power while abandoning its 2035 green target. On June 19, German Federal Deputy Chancellor and Minister of Economy Robert Habeck announced that Germany will restart coal-fired power plants; The Hayden coal power plant in the Root region will restart on August 29 and is initially expected to operate until the end of April 2023, helping to alleviate the energy shortage Germany will face this winter.
Some people believe that the European energy crisis caused by the conflict between Russia and Ukraine has not been alleviated, and more and more countries will restart thermal power in the future, and the above-mentioned cases of abandoning and suspending the carbon neutrality goal will also increase.