The CPH 2025 Climate Plan

Copenhagen aims to be the world’s first carbon-neutral capital city by 2025.

The CPH 2025 Climate Plan is based on four pillars:

  • Energy Consumption
  • Energy Production
  • Mobility with reduced emissions
  • City Administration Initiatives

The targets set for all four pillars are critical to the overall objective of carbon neutrality.

The City of Copenhagen has a dual responsibility to mitigate the effects of climate change and to show that it is feasible to combine growth, development, and an enhanced quality of life with lower CO2- emissions. 

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The challenge

The population of Copenhagen is expected to grow by 20 % in the next decade. This opens an opportunity to combine infrastructural changes with green growth toward carbon neutrality in 2025.

How we succeed – our approach

The CPH 2025 Climate Plan is holistic and includes specific targets and initiatives in the four key areas – energy consumption, energy production, mobility, and city administration initiatives.

The Climate Plan is developed in three implementation phases; 2013-2016, 2017-2020, and 2021-2025 with evaluation in between the phases.  

How far we are - CO2 account

In Copenhagen in 2019, we have reduced CO2 emissions by 54 % compared to the base year of the Climate Plan, 2005. Annual CO2 accounting is made, which amongst other categories include emissions from traffic, electricity, and district heating consumption.

View the municipality's CO2 accounts (Danish)

Learn about some of Copenhagen's projects

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Collaboration is the solution

Copenhagen will only achieve our goals through cooperation. Therefore, the city also works as a facilitator in the transformation, joining forces with residents, companies, and authorities to realise the transformation. We do this in partnerships, such as the Big Buyers Initiative, EnergyLab Nordhavn, Bæredygtig Bundlinje (Sustainable Bottom Line) projects, and in efforts targeting the Climate Training Programme. For the same reason, Copenhagen makes it possible for Danish and international operators to try out new solutions and technologies in the city.

Copenhagen is part of a wide variety of networks and collaboration projects both in Denmark and abroad to develop and disseminate climate solutions, including C40, Carbon Neutral City Alliance (CNCA), and Energi på Tværs (Danish municipal collaboration).

The City of Copenhagen is open for new collaborations, that will make Copenhagen a more liveable and sustainable city.

Carbon Capture

Together with Amager Resource Center (ARC), the City of Copenhagen has collaborated on establishing a Carbon Capture facility on CopenHill, with the potential of capturing 500.000 tons of CO₂. Several partners contribute to realising the project in Copenhagen, which will become one of the first carbon capture facilities installed on a waste-to-energy plant.

The City of Copenhagen has just completed an investigation project on carbon capture and the part it can play in making cities carbon neutral. The project was carried out with support from the Carbon Neutral Cities Alliance (CNCA) in cooperation with NIRAS, Bellona (Norwegian NGO), as well as Amsterdam, Helsinki, Oslo, and Stockholm.

Read more about carbon capture (External site)

Zero-emission construction sites

An important brick steppingstone is to launch zero-emission construction sites, to bring down CO₂ emissions as well as reducing noise and pollution.

Today several pilot projects have been initiated in Copenhagen. In the future, the City of Copenhagen plans to enter partnerships with private and public organizations to ensure more zero-emission constructions sites.

The city is collaborating with a number of European cities under the auspices of C40 to influence the market to transition to zero-emission construction machinery, as this is also a new area at the international level.

Energy Leap partnership

Energy Leap is a partnership within the real estate industry comprising the City of Copenhagen, HOFOR, and more than 40 private and

public-sector property owners and administrators. The partners collaborate on energy savings in residential and office buildings representing 26 % of Copenhagen’s total building stock.

The partnership is voluntary and developed by the partners themselves. The core of the work is confidential data sharing in a benchmark for heat consumption, knowledge sharing, and inspiration to promote energy management, and energy-efficient operation and renovations. The partnership has shown that it is possible to achieve ambitious savings targets for energy consumption as inspiration for others.

Experiences from the development and operation of Energy Leap have been used as inspiration for other networks and partnerships in Copenhagen.

Read more about the Energy Leap partnership (Danish)

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