Lame Danes Win Fossil for Undermining Ambition

Oh, Denmark! In a not too distant past, Denmark was an inspiration to many–setting ambitious targets and rolling out renewables such as wind energy. But today we are not talking about great Danes, we are talking about lame Danes. That’s because today the Danish government is aiming to cut climate targets and shrink climate finance contributions.

The new minority Liberal government of Denmark came into power in July and clearly thought there was too much climate leadership going on. So they decided to dial it down—waaaaaay down.

As negotiators in Paris worked to deliver a durable and ambitious climate regime, Danish Minister Lars Christian Lilleholt declared his preference to scrap Denmark’s  ambitious carbon reduction target of 40% by 2020. This signalled his government’s intent to put the handbrake on Denmark’s ambition, evan as other countries around the world take the opposite approach and gear up to accelerate the transition to a renewable energy future.

While looking to cut their own ambition, the Danish government seemed to want to restrict the ambition of developing countries as well. The new government has a steady stranglehold on climate finance—squeezing the budget from an initial 500 million Danish Krone, which is around 72 million US dollars, to only a projected 39 million US dollars next year. Skammeligt!