Denmark: We can slash CO2 by 70% in a decade and still have welfare

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-climate-change-denmark/denmark-we-can-slash-co2-by-70-in-a-decade-and-still-have-welfare-idUSKBN26K27E

by doener • 6 years ago

117 26 6 years ago

reuters.com

WillPostForFood• 6 years ago

A story by "Reuters staff" starts: "Denmark said". It's like an AI wrote it and doesn't know countries don't talk. Or just bad writing.

samatman• 6 years ago

Is styling communications from a government in that fashion really surprising to you?

Strikes me as fairly normal, though I'm not motivated to go searching for examples.

Does read a bit as a holdover from the monarchical custom of referring to the sovereign by the name of the country.

AnimalMuppet• 6 years ago

Reuters is also British. They aren't following US style guides.

mandelbrotwurst• 6 years ago

I wouldn't call it surprising, but I would call it lazy reporting and far less useful than sharing specifically who said it.

aeternum• 6 years ago

It's worthy of criticism. After all, many people are saying this style of communication will be the downfall of society. Experts agree.

justin66• 6 years ago

If reading on mobile, you would have needed to swipe down at most twice to find a name taking ownership of the government's statement. Nothing about it seems difficult.

jfengel2• 6 years ago

It's understood to mean "the Danish government". Two paragraphs later, it says, "In a climate plan published on Tuesday, the government estimated...". There's no person to attribute it to.

They could have added "... according to a government plan" to the first paragraph, but that's adding several words to a lede that's supposed to be concise and up front. It's sometimes called the "inverted pyramid"[1], though I find that a little odd since the width of the triangle refers to the importance of the words rather than the brevity.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_pyramid_(journalism)

gok2• 6 years ago

70% from 1990, when Denmark was in the middle of an oil boom and got almost all its energy from fossil fuels. Emissions are down tremendously already by 2020, so this isn't as dramatic as the headline suggests.

dundarious2• 6 years ago

Compared to similar countries, it’s still impressive.

gok2• 6 years ago

I guess it depends what you mean by similar. Denmark has reduced per capita CO2 emissions a lot (about 40%) from 1990 to 2018.

Denmark 9.8 -> 5.8 tons/person

But then so has the UK: 9.7 -> 5.6

Sweden only reduced emissions about 27%, but they had a much lower base: 6.1 -> 4.5

Of course some other nearby countries are going the wrong direction...

Norway 7.4 -> 9.4, Iceland 7.7 -> 12.1

gridlockd3• 6 years ago

Why would anybody care what Denmark does with its own money in order to suppress its already minuscule impact on CO2 emissions?

It would probably be more effective if affluent countries levied import taxes on countries that emit too much CO2. That way it feels like "someone else is paying for it", and there would be a real economic incentive for emerging economies to do something about their infrastructure.

fogihujy2• 6 years ago

Because Denmark has an extensive cradle-to-grave welfare state with an insane tax pressure and offering a (relatively) lavish lifestyle for most of its residents.

One of the more commonly arguments against fighting climate change is that doing so would ruin the economy. If Denmark can maintain its welfare system while cutting costs, then it means others can too.

But yeah, as someone else said, 70% is compared to 1990 levels and it's not really that dramatic since Denmark is considerable less dependant on fossil fuels today compared to 30 years ago.

gridlockd3• 6 years ago

Of course "others" can too, if by that you mean other countries with a population that is affluent enough to demand green politics. The problem is that these countries only have a small share in global carbon emissions, so even setting lofty goals there will accomplish very little in the big picture.

On the other hand, all the emergent economies have no (internal) political pressure to do much about pollution, much less about CO2 emission. However, what they tend to have in common is that they export a lot products to these affluent countries.

0xfaded2• 6 years ago

I just want to point out how insane this tax pressure is based on a number I saw today for the first time. 2.2 million Danes are about to receive the equivalent of a 180USD stimulus check. To qualify, you have to have received public benefits within the last year. Denmark has 5.8 million people, and 5m over the age of 20, which I will assume is the age at which a person would become eligible for this type of assistance. That means 38% of all Danes, or 44% of eligible Danes, received government support.

Someone who earns $100k a year is going to pay a combined 55.5% tax rate, 40.6% income tax + 25% consumption tax. Someone making $1m is going to pay 66%, assuming they don't spend it all on cars which attracts an additional 160% excise plus all sorts of other green taxes.

https://nyheder.tv2.dk/samfund/2020-10-01-nu-udbetales-der-1...

DocTomoe• 6 years ago

What would happen in reality is that customers in said affluent countries would face the bill, leading to less economic flow, while China and Co continue to produce the way they do.

ClumsyPilot• 6 years ago

The customers in affluent countries could see they are paying €1 for the product and €2 for pollution (€1 for coal power and €1 for fuel used to ship across the globe), and realise they can buy a higher qualirlty €3 product made localy or. To higher environmental standard.

Pephers• 6 years ago

In other news: In 2021 the price of a Tesla Model 3 and other EV’s in that price range is estimated to increase by 15000 USD due to tax increases in Denmark.

0xfaded2• 6 years ago

While simultaneously raising taxes on electric cars...

knaq• 6 years ago

It's easy to do this.

Simply open up trade while driving up the cost to manufacture anything. All the industry moves to other countries, to produce the same CO2 plus a bit more for the container ships, but that doesn't count.

The grumbling about jobs doesn't count until the foreign factories realize that they can also do the product design, with engineers right next to the factories.

Denmark: We can slash CO2 by 70% in a decade and still have welfare

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