Aarhus moves towards carbon-neutral status

• Denmark's second city to vote on £8m greening package • Electric car chargers and home renovations top agenda• Council acknowledges voter apathy
Gwladys Fouché in Aarhus
guardian.co.uk, Monday 24 August 2009 06.00 BST
Denmark's second largest city will decide in September whether to finance a plan to become carbon-neutral by 2030. It would become one of only a handful of cities in the world to set such ambitious climate change targets.
The city council will vote next month on a 70m kroner (£8.1m) plan to finance the first phase of projects in 2010-11. Initiatives include developing a network of charge spots where electric car drivers can recharge their vehicles' batteries, renovating municipal properties that are not energy-efficient, and connecting homes running their own heating system – often oil-based – to the municipal district heating system.
"Aarhus wants to manage its own house by carrying demonstration projects into effect and by influencing the national legislation," said Claus Nickelsen, leader of the city's department for nature and environment.
The city of 302,000 people is also looking to set up a light-railway system, expand bike paths to encourage drivers to leave their cars at home, and reduce the amount of heating generated by burning coal at the city's power plant in favour of wood pellets, straw and domestic waste.
Aarhus is one of six towns selected by the Danish government to become eco-cities. Local leaders in Copenhagen, another designated eco-city, want the capital to become carbon-neutral by 2025. One aim is to encourage half of all commuters to cycle to work in future — up from 36% in 2006 – by building more than 100km of new cycling routes and upgrading existing ones. At country level, Norway has pledged to go carbon-neutral by 2050.
Outside Denmark, eco-city projects have tended to focus more on building new towns rather than adapting existing ones. The most high-profile is Masdar in the United Arab Emirates where Norman Foster is designing the first carbon-neutral, zero-waste city. But another ambitious project has run into trouble. Dongtan in China was billed as a haven of sustainable living housing up to half-a-million people by 2040 but no building work has started.
The UK is attempting to green its cities although the plans are less ambitious. A handful of "transition towns" are trying to voluntarily wean themselves off oil and gas. In July the government named the first four eco-towns out of 10 planned to be built by 2020 but the project has been beset with objections from local residents.
Even in deep green Denmark, it has been hard to engage people with the Aarhus carbon-neutral plan. "People don't really care," said Tom Jul Pedersen, a local radio journalist. "They are much more interested in the local football team, which is at the top of the league right now."
City officials acknowledge the difficulty. "We try to conduct campaigns and explain to people what we are doing but it is very difficult to change people's behaviour," said Helle Friis at Aarhus council's department of business and city development.
"It can change if the collective solutions are put in place and people see they are easy and convenient to use," she said.