No paper tigers, please! Results only, says Denmark’s Climate Alliance [Advocacy Lab Content]

Denmark’s DK2020 climate collective initiative brought together all Danish municipalities, now it prospers as the Climate Alliance. What began as a pilot project has become a five-year plan to transform climate plans from targets into tangible action, and demonstrate climate leadership.

Since April 2023, the DK2020 project has transformed and expanded into the Climate Alliance, a five-year commitment to aid the municipalities in implementing their CAPs, reducing GHG emissions and enhancing climate resilience throughout Denmark.

Speaking with Euractiv, Pelle Lind Bournonville, Head of Projects at Realdania – one of the founding projects of DK2020 – explained: “We’re not interested in paper tigers. We want real action on the ground and I think municipalities and their citizens are definitely looking for that.”

In February, more than 70 organisations signed the Liège Declaration on Adaptation to Climate Change at the Climate Chance Europe Wallonia Summit under the auspices of the Belgian Presidency of the EU Council. The signatories called for the mobilisation of different stakeholders including local governments by involving them in the conception of bottom-up, gender-responsive, local and regional adaptation plans and policies.

With an abundance of projects happening across Europe, newcomers can draw inspiration and contribute to ongoing climate crisis efforts. This includes the DK2020 initiative which was featured in a Council of European Municipalities and Regions (CEMR) report as an example of an ambitious initiative to show how networks of municipalities can contribute towards Europe’s decarbonisation efforts.

‘We can’t do this alone’

Realdania funded the DK2020 project after working with C40 Cities (a global network of cities dedicated to fighting the climate crisis) to develop and implement climate action plans since 2013. While the Climate Alliance today includes all 98 Danish municipalities, it started as a pilot project with only 20 available places.

However, there was a strong interest from the outset, receiving 33 applications in the first round. Within six months of initiating the DK2020 project, Bournonville’s colleagues told him they should make the project available to every municipality.

Partnering with local government

“My initial response was, okay let’s see how we can do this. But I don’t think we can do it alone,” Bournonville said. Within a few months, they were able to announce a partnership with Local Government Denmark (KL) which took on the task of communicating with the municipalities and explaining the hows and whys of the benefits of the project.

Chief Consultant at KL, Julie Leth, told Euractiv: “The main purpose of this Climate Alliance partnership is to support municipalities moving from plan to action.”

Leth added she believes their participation also ‘legitimised’ the project for a lot of the municipalities. From a tangible perspective, it also meant the project was boosted by hundreds of man-hours and a new budget of about €6 million.

This support includes tailored guidance, showcasing best practices, knowledge sharing, and monitoring the impact of the climate action plans to ensure their implementation and follow-up. The resulting documentation is used in dialogues with the government at a national level to hopefully eliminate barriers that they may encounter.

Each municipality has a climate coordinator who in turn is linked to a regional hub, for knowledge to be shared nationwide and to enable capacity building.

Four year reviews

They also want to build a tool that allows for plans to be revised owing to a C40 requirement for plans to be reviewed every four years. While the overarching goal is for Climate Alliance municipalities to reach their 2030 and 2050 climate targets, there are also several subgoals such as retention and developing plans that reduce any administrative burdens while keeping them meaningful.

Liaising with different municipalities which are widely different and face different challenges has its hurdles, but Leth explained that there is a general agreement among the municipalities that climate action is very important, so they rely on DK2020 to take their case to the national government. However, the Danish government also stands to benefit from hardworking municipalities.

Leth referred to a recently published report from the Danish Climate Council that shows the national government is unlikely to reach its own climate targets by 2030 but the climate action plans of the municipalities will exceed them.

“Across Europe, local and regional governments mobilise 58% of public climate significant expenditures – more than their central governments. Moreover, they hold sole or shared responsibilities for 68.3% of all dimensions covered in Member States’ National Energy and Climate Plans, such as renovations of schools and hospitals or the planning for wind and solar parks,” Climate, Sustainable Finance Officer for the CEMR, Marlon Hilden, told Euractiv.

Taking ownership of decisions

Hilden also explained that local expertise enables communities to feel greater ownership over decisions being implemented in their territories.

Bournonville thinks Denmark on the whole is in an advantageous situation with significant public support for climate action, particularly in the bigger cities, “On the other hand in rural parts of Denmark, most of these municipalities have been working with renewable energy in depth for decades,” he said.

For projects like the Climate Alliance to have an even bigger impact, other stakeholders in other countries have to be inspired to take action. However, they won’t be left to fend for themselves. CEMR’s Marlon Hilden said part of their work involves facilitating knowledge sharing.

“CEMR offers members like Local Government Denmark (KL) and their initiatives a wide opportunity to share best practices to build up local and regional expertise in climate and energy policies and their implementation,” said Hilden. They recently organised a climate academy together, organised debates at the European Week of Regions and Cities, and also published studies.

Bournonville doesn’t hide that those looking for a quick fix are better off looking elsewhere, explaining that Denmark’s democratic and political tradition means active involvement of all citizens – which is inclusive and impactful but takes time.

“We really want to export this model and we love to work together with other countries in Europe and across the world. We’ve shown in Denmark that it’s possible to do and we can certainly be copied elsewhere. We’d love to play a role in that,” said Bournonville.

[By Christoph Schwaiger I Edited by Brian Maguire | Euractiv’s Advocacy Lab ]

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