@@aaronberta3958 That would definitely help making living there more sustainable! The high cost of living in cities has a lot of people commuting for hours in many places or moving to smaller ones. Making it more affordable to live closer to work would cut emissions and help people continue to move there. And more homeless shelters would certainly help both the urban environment and people in need.
The first thing is to reduce the number of vehicles on the streets, everywhere. Before the mass production of cars, people used to walk, used bicycles and streetcars. To be dependent from this vehicles changed the habits of the population and opened the road to foundation cities, sprawl and toxic pollution/energy wasting.
The first step is to make public transportation and then reduce motorized vehicles ... If the above has gone well then make a green building and build green land for the public
@@dailymoney5917 Good point! Cars are responsible for most air pollution in cities (auto.howstuffworks.com/percentage-of-air-pollution-due-to-cars.htm). Hopefully more cities improve public transit and create walkable neighborhoods. Along with a higher percentage of cars being electric, we could drastically reduce both greenhouse gases and local air pollution produced by cities in the coming years.
They mean business when they say that the residents of Copenhagen are trying to become a clean city. When I was with my Danish friend walking around Copenhagen I put a plastic bottle in the regular thrash can. He looked at me and asked me what I was doing, proceeds to take out the bottle, and places it in the recycling machine. He then looks at me and says: "this is how we do it in Denmark."
Was in Copenhagen last week! Shocked to see how many people bike and how clean the city in general is. The people are incredibly nice and kind as well. Think Copenhagen might just be the best city I’ve ever visited by far.
Copenhagen is really leading the way. I've been there in June (also off the beaten path) and can confirm it is a very liveable, green city. Not the cheapest place of course, but nothing in life is without a price. In my opinion, well worth the price: cool vibes, you can really tell that its inhabitants want to move in this sustainable direction. Still considering migrating so I can join in on their movement. 😊
just a few things .. I live in Denmark and it is pricey because we get a high salary. (an uneducated worker get 15-20$ pr. hrs.) but we also have a high income tax, and the green initiatives are paid by the taxes not the company's so the prices of commodities are not affected by the green movement, we started on windmills in the early 90's, and people where laughing at us back then. and we have a lot of laws when building and designing so the carbon footprint it as low as possible. unfortunately the last 10 years we had a government that thought we done enough, so they slowed down on the green initiatives. that resulted in a decline in our hunt for green cites. but now we have a new goverment that has 70% carbon reduction (as of 1990) as a top priority and mikey ... no it is not cheap for Danes as well.. a bottle of coke is still 5$, but we are great at reusing our stuff, and everywhere you go or look there are shops and people that tell you to stop wasting food and reuse everything from plastic trays to electronics. we have 6 diffrent trash cans to sort our trash in. so no it is not cheap to live here for a dane either... but when we travel we feel like kings, because everything is sooo cheap
vilikkebruge google oh yes, I noticed the prices on everything. VAT is even higher than where I live now (25% in Denmark if I recall correctly?). I guess it also depends from person to person, but personally I don't mind paying extra tax for initiatives like these, of which we all benefit. Really liked the mindset that a lot of people seemed to share, a sense that we need to do this for all of us. Noticed it when talking to locals (young and old, common people and high educated, and also migrated Danes), in Copenhagen, and even in places like Køge and Gilleleje.
@@wonderingmonitor1996 yes there is a flat 25% VAT on everything here (we are talking about removing it on organic food, so we can eat more healthy and eat less meat.) The labor cost are also pretty high, we also pay the highest tax on electricity in EU, but most people are either happy or content about it. besides we got free schools from 1st grade to PhD, free healthcare, it is such a blessing not to pay 400$ for an ambulance, or choose between my pension or a chemotherapy. so that is why most people are happy about the high tax levels. but what people often forget about the green energy sector is how many it employs. in Denmark we got Vestas a windmill company ( the largest in the world) it was just a small company in the 80's. but then we started to build windmills in the 90's and it gave Vestas and other Danish windmill company's lot of experience long time before other country's even heard the world renewable energy, and now it employs 17.000 people ( that is a lot in danish context). and the same with our heating system, we made that in the 80/90s, because of the high oil prices, so now it is pretty much our grabrage that warms us. facebook just opened a datacenter in Odense where the extra heat is going to the central heating system instead of going to the air. so everything is about reusing as much as you can
Great video but there is a mistake in it. Carbon neutral doesn't mean that you preduce as much renewable energy as you have dirty energy, it means for every ton of CO2 you release you capture the same amout. Otherwise you could preduce 10GW of renewable energy which doesn't emit any carbon but still preduce 10GW using dirty energy which let's say emits 1000tons of CO2, which isn't net zero. You would need to capture these 1000tons of CO2 for example by planting trees or extracting CO2 where it is preduced and pumping it underground, only then you are really net zero.
These videos are always incredible, but this one really knocks it out the park. This serves as such an inspiration and light into what's possible. I live in a developing country at the moment, and something like this would prove massively useful and beneficial. It's making me think how I could start something similar and propose it to the cities in my country. Thank you guys
Ryan Botha thanks so much! Glad you liked the video and that it inspired you. Let us know if you do end up pursuing those goals in your own country, we love sharing the cool stuff our subscribers are working on!
The key to achieving stuff like this, is dealing with corruption. Denmark is the least corrupt nation in the world, which in return results in our population generally trusting the government and each other.
This is such a good news, recently I have only seen news about terrible environmental impact. This gives hope to humanity that there are people who really try to do something to save the planet. Thank you for all the people that contribute their part in making this world a little bit better
thank goodness there is at least one example in the world of a group of humans acting smart. For me, as an American, the environmentally aware Copenhagen is almost beyond belief, and VERY refreshing.
@@MKiller5 exactly. But politicians dont usually do as they say. Its why politics is despised. Its full of deception. The citizens of Copenhagen are lucky that they have a mayor who sees himself solely as a representative o the public and not his pocket and self interest. :)
Politics in Denmark are generally a bit different in that one could say there is far more integrity as the norm. Which means that people end up trusting the system and society, and wanting to pay the high taxes that contribute to making solutions like this possible.
I live here and I could not agree more with this beautiful portrait of cph. We moved from São Paulo, so quite a different scenario for me, my wife and our kids. we all cycle everyday, everywhere. it is full of green spaces. people are nice and friendly. Copenhagen is sustainable also because offers top-notch public educational and healthcare systems. The whole picture makes it clear why danish are always at the top of happiness ranking. they enjoy life in a high quality ecosystem. well done copenhageners ! and thanks Freethink for such a beautiful recap :)
Doesn't Copenhagen burn garbage to make power? They just opened a new garbage incinerator that generates electricity a few years ago. I think this video even briefly shows the plant.
@@irrelevance3859 they just put a ski run on top of the plant that burns waste to make power ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-IxDqBgWm2AA.html
I live in Copenhagen and I agree that is has come a long way! And it is def very green in comparison to most cities in the world. But there are 2 factors that play a major advantage. Population in Copenhagen is around 600 thousand people. And the city is very flat which makes it very easy to bike everywhere. I think that other cities around Europe that have way more population and are not so easy to bike have a much harder time in becoming more sustainable. But the Danish mentally def plays a role in the success of the city, and people that move here (just like me) get very inspired to become more sustainable. One problem that I still see in Denmark is the extreme use of plastic. For example most veggies in most supermarkets are wrapped up in plastic. And then when I get home after shopping I have so much plastic that I put in the recycling bin. But I would prefer not to have to use that plastic at all! So if Denmark manages to use less plastic they would be for sure a true sustainable country! ☺️
@300bpm first of all is it at bad thing that gas is expensive of it makes people bike instead? And secondly gas prices are the same outside the city, but people drive more there because the distances are to great
It takes a village, right? The people of Copenhagen are progressive and "social-democratic" in their mindset and chose to elect a "liberal" council. Investment and political willpower is needed and CPH is leading the way. Nice channel btw. I'm glad I stumbled into it :-)
Hey thanks for the nice video! Around 1:05 you say "carbon neutrality is about creating more renewable energy than dirty energy" - but that doesnt make energy supply carbon neutral. You can either completely get rid of CO2-intensive electricity and heat production by switching to 100% to renewable energy (with respective need for flexibility options) or you have to implement negative emission techs such as Biomass CCS (sorta a third category making it dirty-clean-cleaning :)). BTW, Renewable energy itself has some (even though significantly smaller) life cycle emissions for production of panels/turbines, construction and disassembly (just saying..).
I’m planning a trip to Copenhagen as part of a study tour next week. We’ll be going to a couple of companies, studying genomes and medical sciences, as well as visiting the University of Copenhagen. I’d love to see what this city has in store.
I guess the best way to control city pollution/ go green is to limit our population or put a cap on it. We should also make sure that we should avoid any wastage of food, electricity, water and all the other things that require burning of fossil fuels. I don't mean to just stop using fossil fuels, but just having a thought before wasting it. For example just think before dumping your leftover food in bin bags that how long it takes to grow some food, how much efforts are put in growing it, how much fuels are burnt to deliver it to your doorstep. Just be mindful before wasting anything.
Good points! It's very easy to waste things without a thought because so much of the supply chain is out of sight for us, but these things add up to the high levels of fossil fuels used today. The good news is that it's also very easy to stop the waste once we are conscious of it.
Good job, Copenhagen! It's so disappointing to think that such progress may never ever happen here in my country, but it's always good to hear good news like this! Can't wait for 2025 and see your progress!
Wooow. That's *so impressive.* 🤩 They turned a highly contaminated body of water so clean, they can swim in it. Oh, this reminds me of a video I saw about how human hair cleans oil spills in water pretty efficiently. Also, I've seen some cities using bio-filters, with a combination of plants that help filter water and bacterias to help eat the wastes away. There's so many fascinating things people are coming up with.
i grew up in norway and most people till this day are really fit, i see it all over scandinavia, biking for transportation and sports for leisure is common
Wow! I didn’t know that their Airports and ports were closing down! You can’t (or it would be difficult) to be carbon neutral as long as their still open
@@freethink full stop ! One thing is to love Copenhagen, another thing is to be a fan of the way they change the city. I love my city, but I hate - with a passion - what Frank Jensen have done to the Capital ! There's A LOT of things you don't see. This is just his "green pride", that he's not even responsible for. It's just propaganda. Straight from the horses mouth
This actually gives me a little hope...if more cities try to be like Copenhagen we could have a better future. I think a big difference between Copenhagen and American cities is that the people of Copenhagen are a lot more passionate about doing better than Americans.
the reason most people bike in Copenhagen, is there are very few parking spaces !!!, plus public transportation is expensive , and last but not least, a lot of danes like to get the exercise done while transporting themselves to or from work-it's practical and saves time-it's only a small group who does it due to the environment
If ever the government decides to roll these changes back, I only hope the citizens can rise up and stand against those changes. This is too good to let go of.
Not a chance! We Danes believe in science. You seem enlightened, but lets make a fast recap. Glaciologist drilling icecores in Greenland have, by analyzing airbubbles captured in the ice, established that we the last 500.000 years have had a pretty stable carbon PPM at 220. Besides Carbon also things like acidity, pollen counts, Vulcanic ash count and identification etc. can be measured. Since the ice sheet have been build up over time, layer by layer, year by year, we go back in time the deeper we go. So we have a YEAR BY YEAR documentation of the global climate 500.000 back or 10 times the periode, since man left Africa. There has been a few peaks at 280 PPM that all have been connected to high global Vulcanic activity. Since around the beginning of the industrial revolution PPM has exploded. We are now (2021) at 416 PPM, close to double the amount we have seen last 500.000 year. Just to set the amount of 500.000 years in context, man left Africa around 60.000 years ago. The Kingdom of Denmark have approved access to nations that have wanted to do own glaciology studies and many nations have. Denmark, USA and Canada forexample all have a full set of cores and can thus give you key data of our climate, year by year, 500K years back. We have a global problem and we, as mankind, created that problem, and if we dont solve it very fast, we eventually will pollute ourselves out of a home. Lets look at some science reality. Country 2015 per Capita carbon dioxide emissions from fuel combustion (metric tons) United States 15.53 (now over 16. Americans the absolut most polluting nationals on earth) Russia 10.19 China 6.59 India 1.58 Source. US Government. (epa dot com) These numbers actually to low since aviation are excluded. Americans flying more per Capita than others, making reality even grimmer. Ask yourself WHY so many Americans, that are the highest emitting nationals on this planet, are not even aware of this fact! The money invested in keeping so many Americans in the dark about own emissions are HUGE, and it has worked. The basics of climate change that I learned in basic school 40 years ago are still not basic knowledge for to many in US. The whole world signed the Paris Climate agreement and Trump/USA´s decision to leave did not temp any other to follow suit...The last 4 years USA have internally been divisive as ever in modern time. The short recap for US last 4 years looked like this from where I stood. VERY first day Trump was in office, while USA was talking about crowd sizes, he fired the head of EPA and replaced him with a former oil CEO! He took USA out of the Paris agreement, while his nation was the biggest polluter per citizen. Trump removed caps on Methane in US. Methane are 22,5 stronger than CO2 as a greenhouse gas. He opened up for an explosion of fracking in US. Fracking are the proces where you pump chemical acid under pressure into your underground to dissolve slate stone! Fracking has, besides the CO2 emission, been proven to cause earthquakes. Chemical acid and/or the gasses have already begun to be detected many places in US. Trump gave permission to a state subsidized pipeline from Alaska that should transport the oil coming out from the further oilsand exploration he gave permission to. Oilsand are the most energy intensive and ground disrupting known way to get oil. It takes 7 liters of oil to produce 10!!! It leaves the ground sterilized since it involves cooking the sand on site! Oilsand and fracking are the two most stupid, dangerous and CO2 emitting processes! He could have raised lasting off shore windmills but chose to do this in the middle of a global climate crisis where others shuts down coalmines/coalplants and now some even stop oil exploration in their nations. Trump has been a disaster for the climate efforts and for US credibility. ( I am sure Putin are happy, not many have devoted time to try to get him to clean up his acts lately, so the trick (also in this sense) worked for him. I have a very hard time imagine USA move forward in a unified way before it has been proven in court of law that Trump belongs at Guantanamo ) IF a policy are UNsustainable for us all and can be replaced by one that ARE SUSTAINABLE and we dont act on it and CHANGE, well, then Darwinism will take us out! The truth are that USA are way behind the curve, sticking to old technology when the world are changing are not doing US, businesses, population, economy, any favors. BUT, back to your expressed fear we might get "bad" politicians trying to overthrow our progress...Dont worry, we understand the science and if anything we are horrified collectively when looking at way to many countries in this world, not least US that under Trump have accelerated emissions while others have begun serious investing in living up to their pledge to the Paris agreement. There are other points inside the deal but the main headline that guide the rest basically are that all countries have to make a 50% reduction of greenhouse gasses (like CO2 and Methane) measured from 1990 level, before 2050. I am happy and proud to tell you that it is ALL of Danes, not just the Copenhageners that are keen on ACTING. It is no longer a left/right issue as it still seems to be some places. Nearly all are onboard and while US mocked the rest of the world by going cracy in fracking and oilsand exploration the Danish parlament, in late 2019, approved in parlament with 167 for, out of 179, to voluntarily, nationwide, reduce CO2 emissions with 70% from 1990 level before 2030!!! That is just 9 years from now! Inside the same decision the Danish parlament also have agreed that Denmark are NOT allowing themselves to buy CO2 quotas to deliver the result "on paper". It has to be a genuine and real reduction. So its a massive improvement and what the climate and the global population needs that ALL countries do. THAT is how you TAKE RESPONSIBILITY! On top of that, Denmark have oil in its underground and they have, approved in parlament a few months ago. Valid immediately, to also decide to stop their planned oilsector explorations and have decided that any oil in their underground are going to be "stored CO2 that never will be released". We will keep current oil platforms (under the Paris agreement) but have decided to decommission platforms, either as they get to old or the wells they have under them run dry. Denmarks change away from fossile fuels have been focused on land and off shore windmills. Off shore windmill parks are large scale where they are going. The overall vision are to eventually export both green sustainable electricity and green hydrogen made by electricity from the windmills. Hydrogen can be made into a gas or a liquid. As a liquid it is optimal for transport. 1 liter of liquid hydrogen contains more energy than 450 liters of refined gasoline. Imagine 1 hydrogen gas tank ship (with a hydrogen engine ofc. ) replacing more than 400 oil tankers! We know have had 3 decades of experience with off shore windmill parks and now have evolved that concept to whole new level. Off shore energy islands as hub for mega windmill parks and hydrogen production. And that is one of the ways we plan to live up to the political decision described earlier. Check this out for some more info. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-2GC3VcB0gLY.html You can now own a hydrogen car in Denmark and tank hydrogen for it. That are a much better longterm sustainable solution than batterycars, since they dont crave huge amounts of rare earth minerals and the polluting process of recycling old batteries also can be avoided. SO...please dont be nervous for us, or any rouge politicians HERE, we seem to be worldleading in transforming a democratic modern industrialized nation into a democratic modern SUSTAINABLE industrialized nation. When it comes to climate debate and climate action I think many in US are very information starved. Very few countries that emit in the higher end, have not already made plans to live up to their promises when they signed the Paris climate agreement. Lets make a fast recap. The world have agreed on how emissions should be defined, and what are covered. Thus CO2 emission-calculations around the world, for now around 15 years have been streamlined. Basically , now when USA again have signed, the entire worlds countries are covered. Not one country followed US out of the agreement when Trump tore his copy. The entire world, all citizens in all countries are thus now covered. If all just focus on what they need to DO we can get this going fast. USA´s actual emissions are STILL rising. I hope you understand I wrote this long piece because I wanted to give you some science facts that others you know might benefit from (?) Please show it to any you know that have not grasped our global dire situation. And off course also to make certain you understand we will never go back on this, as you see, since the clip was made, we have speed our transformation UP! I think more should say as I (and nearly all Danes) I dont wanna SPEND our taxpayermoney on fixing the endless and increasing symptoms (climate refugees, flooding, draught, cropfailures, a dead ocean, hurricanes etc. etc. I wanna INVEST in curing the patient (zero emission sustainable living and production). Best regards
If the danish government tried, they would be told to p.o. This is a local thing, and the administrators, are elected every four years. So if THEY decides to roll it back, they'll probably be looking for employment elsewhere, after the next election.
Uhm, yes but actually no? Carbon neutrality doesn't mean you "produce more renewable energy than dirty energy" it means sequestering as much (carbon) as you pollute. Because in your definition, the pollution is less, but not eradicated. And that's not carbon neutrality. It's like saying 60% of our energy needs is powered by renewable energy and the rest 40% by dirty energy. In your definition, you're carbon neutral, but in reality you're still polluting. So that doesn't make sense, sorry. You should possibly correct that.
The future that I see with this video is incredible!! All they are thinking is amazing, many things will change because the city will be more eco-friendly with the ecosystem, we can reduce the pollution and increase our life's quality. We know there still big steps but if this is possible in the future the next generations will be very grateful.
That's really cool. Hope more countries begin to follow the example; it works so well at improving transportation, emissions and quality of life it's fairly surprising more haven't. Paris and Seville have been making strides, though: www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/jan/28/seville-cycling-capital-southern-europe-bike-lanes
Copenhagen can take the next step toward real sustainability by moving to a location rent as revenue source of the public revenue required to pay for public goods and services. This will remove the profit from speculation in land and provide a strong financial incentive for owners of land to bring the land they hold to its highest, best use -- or sell to someone who will.
Sorry, but the german video title is a pain in the ass in terms of grammar. Correctly it would be "Die nachhaltige Stadt der Zukunft: Kopenhagen, Dänemark" could you please correct it
i think that the fact that they care about denmark and dont care about the money makes them great if we could do that here in usa things would change and we could be right there with them in the fight against climate change
They are not normally used in public spaces, but are common in connection with private housing, both flats and houses. There are bins for plastic, glass, cardboard, paper, organic waste, batteries and different household waste. This is sorted on a daily basis and much of it is reused😊
Why bother making an interesting program when you ruin it with an overlay of intrusive music that makes it impossible to absorb the message. Just turn it off the polluting sound carpet.
People are always comparing these tiny Nordic areas to the rest of the world. Copenhagen is only 33 square miles, and what... 2 million people? Los Angeles county is over 4700 square miles with 10 million people. Few can bike to work in LA. Although, thanks to UBER, I dumped my car years ago and haven’t looked back. Then again I’m lucky. I do tech work from home.
Solutions definitely need to fit the needs of the city! Though it's worth noting that LA has come a long way in bike-ability, with app-based bikes growing in popularity and new bike paths along the Expo line and elsewhere, though it's certainly not without controversy: laist.com/2019/04/30/las_first_two-way_bike_lane_arrives_downtown.php
Fair point. However, perhaps cities like LA can use some of the prework done by Scandinavian cities? Maybe not the biking, but perhaps the heating/cooling pipes in some araes? If one or two of these concepts can be applied to a city like LA, I would imagine the impact that LA has is huge. Would be worth considering in my opinion.
I cannot agree with your opinion cause LA is a dystopic place, extremely beautiful and very promising in his early 20th century period but no more today. The entire County has been destroyed by land speculators (a house per family=madness) that started 70 years ago to terraform huge areas, creating by default the dramatic effect of the sprawl. Yes, it's easier to redesign a city that has always been developed following wise rules instead of madness and disrespect for the environment but LA politicians could start moving the wheels in their brains and create a program of serious innovation in the field of public transportation, water-saving, and energy saving. The LA river guys are working very very well also if the results will be visible in years. It's not a myth that Americans consume the double of everything respects every other industrialized country, with subsequent massive pollution. all that said from a person that loves California (especially the coasts) and that chose to focus a part of his University studies on Planning in USA/California.
@@wonderingmonitor1996 Or just implementing public transport. I've been to LA and it ws great and worst at the same time. The latter mostly due to traffic and car-dependence.
