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It is a challenge thrown down to the world and to the future: Copenhagen, first carbon-neutral capital by 2025. A journey that began in 2009, after COP 15, the United Nations climate conference organised in the Danish capital itself. It was a partial failure at the international level, but it laid the foundations for one of the most interesting ecological projects — public and private — in the Old Continent. The theme now resurfaces with force: combating climate change. In 2017, more than 36,000 tonnes of CO2 were released into the atmosphere at the global level. Carbon dioxide is the "queen" of greenhouse gas emissions, accounting for 65 per cent of the total. At the top of this grim ranking we find China, the United States, the European Union and India.

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The Copenhagen 2025 plan

But in 2013, with an ambitious plan, someone on the Jutland peninsula — and more precisely in Copenhagen — decided to create the retroviruses for an illness that now afflicts the entire planet. Not a decision handed down from above, but the fruit of a society that has made participation and dialogue between citizens, businesses and the public sector one of its strengths. The recipe for a new European Silicon Valley. "The plan to bring net CO2 emissions in Copenhagen to zero is a way of showing the world that the transition towards emissions neutrality is possible," says Jorgen Abildgaard, the plan's executive director, meeting us in the city hall building dedicated to environmental issues.

"Cities are the key in this transition," the official continues, "if we look at the global context, people are moving towards urban centres. According to the analyses, if infrastructure in the coming decades is not sustainable, we will not be able to solve the problem of global warming." According to data provided by the United Nations, in 2014 the share of the world's population living in cities stood at 54 per cent, compared with 30 per cent in 1950. It is estimated that by 2050 that figure will rise to 66 per cent. "I think we have a role to play and Copenhagen wants to be part of that role," adds Jorgen Abildgaard, introducing the subject. "This is the first phase, and it is important to say so. We are focusing more on structural solutions, so we are working on the energy sector, on transport and on private housing."

Energy production is at the heart of the 2025 plan. Wind power currently accounts for 55 per cent, while biomass — on which the municipality is placing its bets — has surpassed 18 per cent of total demand. "We cooperate with companies to test new solutions," the executive director continues. "We have a dialogue to understand whether the proposed ideas can work, and if they do, we test them."

The participating companies come from all over the world

Nordhavn, a port area created at the beginning of the First World War, is a suburb to the north of central Copenhagen. A few minutes by train, and you enter the construction site of Denmark's future. With the city's demographic growth, the former port area is at the centre of a major public-private redevelopment project. And it is here that many of the approaches used for Copenhagen are first tested. The EnergyLab Nordhavn office is located on one of the port's former piers. "We bring together the public sector's need to respond to certain challenges with the private sector's expertise," explains Christoffer Greisen, the centre's project manager. "The companies that take part actually come from all over the world, including Italy. We are an urban experimentation centre." The laboratory's offices are also used as classrooms: "we introduce students and tourists to the complex world of smart energy so that cooperation is created," Christoffer concludes.

Cooperation is also one of the fundamental pillars of the Copenhagen 2025 plan. "What is happening is not exclusively localised in Copenhagen, but is part of a global movement. So dialogue is the key," says Jorgen Abildgaard. "We have cooperation agreements with New York, Washington and Boston to exchange knowledge. In the meantime we also involve businesses in this process." But the Danish capital does not limit itself to working with Western partners: in 2012 it signed a cooperation agreement with Beijing on the very subject of urban sustainability.

The challenge is to reduce CO2 emissions without costs for citizens

"When we talk about Copenhagen 2025 we must not forget the economic side," the executive director adds, concluding: "What we do here is certainly work related to CO2, but we also try to find a way to do it without extra costs for citizens. That too is a challenge." The municipality is in fact working towards a balance of per capita expenditure. The prices of some services will be increased, while others will be made cheaper, precisely to encourage the private sector to invest in what is known as the transition.

But what lies at the origin of this project? The "secret" formula is a mix of cultural disposition, social opportunity and political humus. The same formula that will be used in the second plan, for 2050, which aims for a Denmark entirely free from coal.

Evening falls on Copenhagen and the streets, as in the most classic of clichés, fill with bicycles. In a bar near the central train station, Jan Eriksen, former president of the Foundation for Environmental Education, sets out the context that made this plan possible. "This is one of the countries with the highest taxation because we understand society as a whole," says Jan, who led the foundation from 2004 to 2016; "we are prepared to accept progressive taxation to ensure that children and elderly people have free hospitals, libraries, education and more." The Foundation for Environmental Education is, among other things, the body that created the blue flags. "We started very, very early," the former president recounts. "Denmark was the first country to have a Minister for Pollution Prevention, in 1971."

"Education is the key to the future"

Alongside politics, it is the social foundation on which Denmark's green path rests. A long road, which began in the early 1960s with the first organisations and associations, passed through the creation of a dedicated agency in 1973, and has reached us today through investments in culture and education. "If a decision was taken in Parliament that didn't satisfy the population, we were — and still are — ready to mobilise," Jan assures, adding with a smile: "If three Danes agree on something, they'll set up an association to defend the idea." But while the early organisations were characterised by opposition to possible political choices on environmental issues — such as the use of nuclear power — by the 1980s and 1990s governments and municipalities had already aligned themselves with the associations.

Education was the first step. "Education is the key to the future," Jan Eriksen continues. "If you don't educate your children, you won't have a future for your country." Denmark, according to data released by the World Bank, spent 7.6 per cent of GDP on education in 2014, compared with a global average of 4.8 per cent. "I often say: what you don't know, you won't protect; you'll take care of what is familiar to you, and if you love something you'll defend it. If you bring people to know, and eventually to love, they'll also be ready to protect," Jan concludes.

The rest is simple arithmetic, and the cycling cliché bears it out. For every kilometre cycled, the Danish public coffers "gain" 23 euro cents, while for the same distance covered by car they "pay out" 16 cents. It is therefore no coincidence that more bicycles than cars are seen on Copenhagen's streets. Indeed, cars account for just 29 per cent of vehicles in the capital, while the figures drop sharply to 14 per cent and 17 per cent in Nørrebro and Vesterbro respectively.

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And there it is: the sustainable, European Silicon Valley. An economic investment, spanning innovation and implementation, in a future in which quality of life — and the technologies needed to achieve it — will come at a high price. Even Denmark, however, is not free from shadows on this front. One need only travel a few thousand kilometres to the northwest, to Greenland, and the environmental issue becomes a very hot one. Amid unemployment and a lack of alternatives, uranium mines could become an attractive option. A paradox for one of the first countries to have refused licences for nuclear energy production.